gitlab-runner on balenaOS devices

GitLab runners are worker nodes to run your tests in a GitLab CI/CD environment. This project aims to help you deploy these runners on physical hardware on balenaOS devices.

Features:

• a docker executor gitlab runner
• automatic first runner provisioning to a gitlab instance, only need to provide a token
• can add multiple runners to a single device manually
• automatic docker image/container garbage collection using docker-gc by Spotify.

Discuss this project in the forums!

Getting Started

If using balenaCloud, follow the getting started guide for your desired device type, to see how to register (if you haven't yet), and how to provision a device onto balenaCloud. Afterwards deploy this project either as git push balena master or using the CLI with balena push <projectname>.

If using openbalena, follow the guides there to provision a device, and run balena push <projectname> as appropriate.

Settings

There are a number of environment variables you can customise your deployment with. These help setting up your first runner automatically:

• GITLAB_TOKEN: required, the runner registration token, you can get the value from the Settings > CI/CD > Runners page for a particular project, or from your GitLab instance's administration page.
• GITLAB_URL: optional, the URL where the runner should connect to. The default is value https://gitlab.com/. You can see what you need to set for a particular project at the Settings > CI/CD > Runners page.
• GITLAB_DESCRIPTION: optional, the description added to the runner on your runner page. If left empty, defaults to the device's short UUID.
• GITLAB_DEFAULT_IMAGE:optional, the default image to use in jobs, if the job doesn't specify the image. If left empty it defaults to balenalib/<devicetype>-debian, with the device type automatically filled in.
• TAG_ARCHITECTURE: optional, whether or not create the runner with tag showing the architecture (as given by uname -m, such as armv7l, x64_64, etc). Left empty defaults to yes, and any other value will prevent this tag being added.
• TAG_DEVICE_TYPE: optional, whether or not create the runner with tag showing the balena device type (i.e. raspberrypi3, intel-nuc, etc). Left empty defaults to yes, and any other value will prevent this tag being added.
• TAG_BALENA: optional, whether or not tag the runner with the balena tag, thus showing clearly what are balena devices among your runners, if there are other types as well. If left empty, defaults to yes, and any other value will prevent this tag being added.
• GITLAB_TAGS: optional, the list of any other tags to add (comma delimited, such as office,screen).
• GITLAB_RUN_UNTAGGED: optional, whether or not run untagged build jobs. Left empty defaults to yes (do run untagged jobs), any other value make it run only tagged jobs (and matching tags). You can also change this on your runner configuration page.
• GITLAB_LOCKED: optional, whether or not the runner is locked to a specific project. Left empty defaults to yes (locked to a project), any other value makes it default unlocked. You can also change this on your runner configuration page.
• GITLAB_RUNNER_HELPER_IMAGE: optional, to set a different helper image to use with the runner. For more information, check the relevant GitLab logs. This is a registration-time setting, so changing the value won't change an already registered runner For x86 32-bit runners, GitLab doesn't provide runner helper images, but we have some custom builds available at imrehg/gitlab-runner-helper:i386-${CI_RUNNER_VERSION} and that value is automatically applied for 32-bit runners (such as Intel Edison). It's custom work based on a patched version of the upstream GitLab runners (see the i386 branch of our fork), thus your milage may vary.
• DEBUG: optional, set it to any value to enable certain debug/diagnostics functionality, see the code in more details. One current example is keeping all garbage collection logs on the device (instead of just the last one)

See more information at the Configuring GitLab Runners docs. The configuration file is also available to edit.

Adding extra runners

For subsequent runners you will have to use the terminal to set them up. Connect to the runner service either in the web dashboard, balena ssh $UUID (on balenaCloud) or balena local ssh $UUID (on openbalena), and check out gitlab-runner register --help for options.