1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
|
---
stage: Manage
group: Access
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
type: reference, howto, concepts
---
# Subgroups
> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/2772) in GitLab 9.0.
GitLab supports up to 20 levels of subgroups, also known as nested groups or hierarchical groups.
By using subgroups you can do the following:
- **Separate internal / external organizations.** Since every group
can have its own visibility level ([public, internal, or private](../../../development/permissions.md#general-permissions)),
you're able to host groups for different purposes under the same umbrella.
- **Organize large projects.** For large projects, subgroups makes it
potentially easier to separate permissions on parts of the source code.
- **Make it easier to manage people and control visibility.** Give people
different [permissions](../../permissions.md#group-members-permissions) depending on their group [membership](#membership).
For more information on allowed permissions in groups and projects, see
[visibility levels](../../../development/permissions.md#general-permissions).
## Overview
A group can have many subgroups inside it, and at the same time a group can have
only one immediate parent group. It resembles a directory behavior or a nested items list:
- Group 1
- Group 1.1
- Group 1.2
- Group 1.2.1
- Group 1.2.2
- Group 1.2.2.1
In a real world example, imagine maintaining a GNU/Linux distribution with the
first group being the name of the distribution, and subsequent groups split as follows:
- Organization Group - GNU/Linux distro
- Category Subgroup - Packages
- (project) Package01
- (project) Package02
- Category Subgroup - Software
- (project) Core
- (project) CLI
- (project) Android app
- (project) iOS app
- Category Subgroup - Infra tools
- (project) Ansible playbooks
Another example of GitLab as a company would be the following:
- Organization Group - GitLab
- Category Subgroup - Marketing
- (project) Design
- (project) General
- Category Subgroup - Software
- (project) GitLab CE
- (project) GitLab EE
- (project) Omnibus GitLab
- (project) GitLab Runner
- (project) GitLab Pages daemon
- Category Subgroup - Infra tools
- (project) Chef cookbooks
- Category Subgroup - Executive team
---
When performing actions such as transferring or importing a project between
subgroups, the behavior is the same as when performing these actions at the
`group/project` level.
## Creating a subgroup
To create a subgroup you must either be an Owner or a Maintainer of the
group, depending on the group's setting.
By default, groups created in:
- GitLab 12.2 or later allow both Owners and Maintainers to create subgroups.
- GitLab 12.1 or earlier only allow Owners to create subgroups.
The setting can be changed for any group by:
- A group owner. Select the group, and navigate to **Settings > General > Permissions, LFS, 2FA**.
- An administrator. Navigate to **Admin Area > Overview > Groups**, select the group, and choose **Edit**.
For more information check the
[permissions table](../../permissions.md#group-members-permissions). For a list
of words that are not allowed to be used as group names see the
[reserved names](../../reserved_names.md).
Users can always create subgroups if they are explicitly added as an Owner (or
Maintainer, if that setting is enabled) to an immediate parent group, even if group
creation is disabled by an administrator in their settings.
To create a subgroup:
1. In the group's dashboard click the **New subgroup** button.
1. Create a new group like you would normally do. Notice that the immediate parent group
namespace is fixed under **Group path**. The visibility level can differ from
the immediate parent group.
1. Click the **Create group** button to be redirected to the new group's
dashboard page.
Follow the same process to create any subsequent groups.
## Membership
When you add a member to a group, that member is also added to all subgroups.
Permission level is inherited from the group’s parent. This model allows access to
subgroups if you have membership in one of its parents.
Jobs for pipelines in subgroups can use [runners](../../../ci/runners/README.md) registered to the parent group(s).
This means secrets configured for the parent group are available to subgroup jobs.
In addition, maintainers of projects that belong to subgroups can see the details of runners registered to parent group(s).
The group permissions for a member can be changed only by Owners, and only on
the **Members** page of the group the member was added.
You can tell if a member has inherited the permissions from a parent group by
looking at the group's **Members** page.
From the image above, we can deduce the following things:
- There are 5 members that have access to the group `four`.
- User 0 is a Reporter and has inherited their permissions from group `one`
which is above the hierarchy of group `four`.
- User 1 is a Developer and has inherited their permissions from group
`one/two` which is above the hierarchy of group `four`.
- User 2 is a Developer and has inherited their permissions from group
`one/two/three` which is above the hierarchy of group `four`.
- For User 3 the **Source** column indicates **Direct member**, therefore they belong to
group `four`, the one we're inspecting.
- Administrator is the Owner and member of **all** subgroups and for that reason,
as with User 3, the **Source** column indicates **Direct member**.
Members can be [filtered by inherited or direct membership](../index.md#filter-a-group).
### Overriding the ancestor group membership
NOTE:
You must be an Owner of a group to be able to add members to it.
NOTE:
A user's permissions in a subgroup cannot be lower than in any of its ancestor groups.
Therefore, you cannot reduce a user's permissions in a subgroup with respect to its ancestor groups.
To override a user's membership of an ancestor group (the first group they were
added to), add the user to the new subgroup again with a higher set of permissions.
For example, if User 1 was first added to group `one/two` with Developer
permissions, then they inherit those permissions in every other subgroup
of `one/two`. To give them Maintainer access to group `one/two/three/four`,
you would add them again in that group as Maintainer. Removing them from that group,
the permissions fall back to those of the ancestor group.
## Mentioning subgroups
Mentioning groups (`@group`) in issues, commits and merge requests, would
notify all members of that group. Now with subgroups, there is more granular
support if you want to split your group's structure. Mentioning works as before
and you can choose the group of people to be notified.
## Limitations
Here's a list of what you can't do with subgroups:
- [GitLab Pages](../../project/pages/index.md) supports projects hosted under
a subgroup, but not subgroup websites.
That means that only the highest-level group supports
[group websites](../../project/pages/getting_started_part_one.md#gitlab-pages-default-domain-names),
although you can have project websites under a subgroup.
- It is not possible to share a project with a group that's an ancestor of
the group the project is in. That means you can only share as you walk down
the hierarchy. For example, `group/subgroup01/project` **cannot** be shared
with `group`, but can be shared with `group/subgroup02` or
`group/subgroup01/subgroup03`.
<!-- ## Troubleshooting
Include any troubleshooting steps that you can foresee. If you know beforehand what issues
one might have when setting this up, or when something is changed, or on upgrading, it's
important to describe those, too. Think of things that may go wrong and include them here.
This is important to minimize requests for support, and to avoid doc comments with
questions that you know someone might ask.
Each scenario can be a third-level heading, e.g. `### Getting error message X`.
If you have none to add when creating a doc, leave this section in place
but commented out to help encourage others to add to it in the future. -->
|
