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GitLab RunnerGitLab Runner

GitLab Runner is an application that works with GitLab CI/CD to run jobs in a pipeline.

Runners can be used to

  • Automate running of linting and tests
  • Build new Docker images
  • Publish static HTML pages
  • Compile and tag code releases

ICE Connect GitLab provides a public runner for all projects. The official GitLab.com also provides public runners but with a limited number of minutes each month. You may want to install a private runner if

  • Using secret caches or passwords
  • Performing jobs requiring extra resources
  • Using official GitLab and you need more minutes than you get for free

Helm Chart on GitLab

Installation

Install the app through Rancher.

Your namespace should have a Container Default Resource Limit set. CPU Reservation 100m and Memory Limit/Reservation 128Mi should suffice. Do not set a CPU Limit.

Configure

GitLab Server

Point this to a running GitLab deployment, e.g.

  • https://gitlab.ice.ri.se/
  • https://gitlab.com/

Registration Token

Used by GitLab server to identify new runners.

For public runners: Admin Area -> CI/CD -> Runners -> Register an instance runner

For project scoped runner: Project -> Settings -> CI/CD -> Runners -> Specific runners

Similarly for group-scoped runners.

Runner Configuration

This TOML file describes what resources each spawned runner will use.

[[runners]]
  [runners.kubernetes]
    namespace = "{{.Release.Namespace}}"
    image = "ubuntu:16.04"
    cpu_request = "500m"
    memory_limit = "8Gi"
    memory_request = "8Gi"
  [runners.cache]
    Type = "s3"
    Path = "runner"
    Shared = true
    [runners.cache.s3]
      ServerAddress = "s3.ice.ri.se"
      AccessKey = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"
      SecretKey = "YOUR_SECRET_KEY"
      BucketName = "YOUR_BUCKET_NAME"
      BucketLocation = "none"
      Insecure = false
      AuthenticationType = "access-key"

The [runners.cache] section can be deleted if no caching is needed.

Official documentation about Runner Configuration:

Read official documentation about Configuring GitLab Runner using the Helm Chart.

Then read about Using cache with configuration template to use S3 storage.

If you want to use tags for job control, read this.

Using the GitLab Runner chart lists the settings you can use in the values.yaml file in the Helm Chart:

Official repositories

GitLab Runner Helm Chart repository

GitLab Runner Service repository

Updating the chart

Find the latest official release tag at

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts/gitlab-runner/-/tags

Clone the Helm chart repo

git clone git@gitlab.ice.ri.se:ice/helm.git
cd helm/charts/gitlab-runner/vX.X.X/

Default override values are defined values.yaml

Edit Chart.yaml to use the latest tag.

Run helm dependency update to download new charts/gitlab-runner-0.XX.0.tgz

Commit and push.

Last update: 2023-08-15
Created: 2022-12-27