GitLab Enforce 2FA for all users with a little guidance from Bobcares.

At Bobcares, we offer solutions for every query, big and small, as a part of our Server Management Service.

Let’s take a look at how our Support Team recently helped a customer enforce 2FA for all users in GitLab.

Why enforce 2FA for all users in Gitlab

Two-factor authentication, also known as 2FA offers an additional level of security to your GitLab account. After enabling it, it will prompt us for a code that is generated by the application. Furthermore, we also need to enter the username and password to sign in.

How to enforce 2FA for all users

According to our Support Engineers, there are two different ways to enforce 2FA for users on GitLab. Moreover, this can be done without having to wait for the administrator’s intervention:

• Enforce on next login
• Suggest it on the next login, but offer a grace period before enforcing

Once the configured grace period is over, users can sign in. However, they cannot leave the two-factor authentication configuration area at /-/profile/two_factor_auth.

Follow these steps to enable 2FA for all users:

1. Head to theMenu section and select Admin.
2. Then, select general in the Settings section.

   /admin/application_settings/general

3. Next, we will configure 2FA in the Sign-in restrictions section.

Additionally, we can change the grace period to zero. This allows the 2FA enforcement to take effect at the next sign-in attempt.

We can also disable 2FA enforcement for users by connecting to the rails console and running the following command:

Gitlab::CurrentSettings.update!('require_two_factor_authentication': false)

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Conclusion

In brief, the skilled Support Engineers at Bobcares demonstrated how to enforce 2FA for all users.