Fiber lasers have been widely used in industry, medicine, military defense,etc. The investigations of gain fibers play an important role for accelerating the development of fiber lasers. Glass ceramic fiber, possessing strong crystal field environments, is a promising material for application in high-efficiency and tunable fiber lasers. Moreover, the glass ceramic fibers containing nonlinear crystals can be used for the frequency conversion of lasers and further broaden the application of fibers. This paper introduces the concepts and optical properties of glass ceramic fibers, emphatically describes the research progresses of rare-earth ions doping, transition metal ions doping, quantum dots doping and second harmonic generation glass ceramic fibers, and discusses the fabrication techniques of glass ceramic fibers. Finally, the applications of glass ceramic fibers in the future are envisioned.