CI / CD Integration

Anchore Enterprise can be integrated into CI/CD systems such as Jenkins, GitHub, or GitLab to secure pipelines by adding automatic scanning.

If an artifact does not pass the policy checks then users can configure either a gating workflow which fails the build or allow the pipeline to continue with a warning to the build job owner. Notifications can be handled via the CI/CD system itself or using Anchore’s native notification system and can provide information about the CVEs discovered and the complete policy analysis. Images that pass the policy check can be promoted to the production registry.

There are two ways to use CI/CD with Anchore: distributed mode or centralized mode. Both modes work with any CI/CD system as long as the AnchoreCTL binary can be installed and run, or you can access the Enterprise APIs directly.

Distributed mode

The build job invokes a tool called AnchoreCTL locally on the CI/CD runner to generate both data and metadata about the artifact being scanned, such as source code or a container image, in the form of a software bill of materials (SBOM). The SBOM is then passed to Anchore Enterprise for analysis. The policy analysis can look for known CVEs, exposed secrets, incorrect configurations, licenses, and more.

Centralized mode

The build job will upload the container image to a repo and then request Anchore Enterprise pulls it down, generate the SBOM on the backend, and return the policy analysis result.

Requirements

Anchore Enterprise is deployed in your environment with the API accessible from your pipeline runner. Centralized Mode: Credentials for your container registry are added to Anchore Enterprise, under the Anchore account that you intend to use with this pipeline. See Registries. For information on what registry/credentials must be added to allow Anchore Enterprise to access your container registry, refer to your container registry’s documentation.

CI / CD Integration

Distributed mode

Centralized mode

Requirements

Further Reading