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Self hosted runner

GitHub self hosted runner with actions-runner-controller installation in a Kubernetes cluster.

Documentation​

All the documentation of actions-runner-controller is here.

Prerequisites​

Prerequisites installation​

  • Install Helm
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash
  • Install cert-manager
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.9.1/cert-manager.yaml

Repository scope installation​

caution

The kubectl apply -f doesn't work properly. Prefer install with the actions-runner-controller using Helm.

  • Create a Personal Access Token (PAT) and give repo full control scopes if you want to deploy the actions-runner-controller using PAT and just in repositories scope.
tip

Direct access link to PAT creation.

  • Then, create a secret containing the GITHUB_TOKEN.
export GITHUB_TOKEN=<your-github-token>
  • Create the actions-runner-controller namespace.
kubectl create namespace actions-runner-system
  • Create Kubernetes secrets containing the GITHUB_TOKEN.
kubectl create secret generic controller-manager \
    -n actions-runner-system \
    --from-literal=github_token=${GITHUB_TOKEN}
  • Install the actions-runner-controller using Helm.
helm repo add actions-runner-controller https://actions-runner-controller.github.io/actions-runner-controller
helm upgrade --install --namespace actions-runner-system --create-namespace \
             --wait actions-runner-controller actions-runner-controller/actions-runner-controller

Repository deployment​

Repository deployment runners with a yaml file:

repository-runner-deploy.yaml
# https://github.com/actions-runner-controller/actions-runner-controller#runnerdeployments
apiVersion: actions.summerwind.dev/v1alpha1
kind: RunnerDeployment
metadata:
  name: runner-deployment # name of the runner deployment
spec:
  replicas: 3 # number of runners wanted
  template:
    spec:
      repository: github-path/your-repository # repository name
info

Read documentation about repository deployment.

⚠️ Do not forget to update the github-path/your-repository by your desired repository!

Organization deployment​

To add the runner to an organization, you only need to replace the repository field with organization, so the runner will register itself to the organization.

organization-runner-deploy.yaml
apiVersion: actions.summerwind.dev/v1alpha1
kind: RunnerDeployment
metadata:
  name: runner-deployment # name of the runner deployment
spec:
  replicas: 3 # number of runners wanted
  template:
    spec:
      organization: my-organization-name # organization name
info

Read documentation about organization deployment.

Tips and tricks​

tip

If you want to deploy your actions-runner on the requested architecture, you can add the nodeSelector to the spec:

organization-runner-deploy.yaml
apiVersion: actions.summerwind.dev/v1alpha1
kind: RunnerDeployment
metadata:
  name: runner-deployment # name of the runner deployment
spec:
  replicas: 3 # number of runners wanted
  template:
    spec:
      organization: my-organization-name # organization name
      nodeSelector:
        kubernetes.io/arch: arm64 # architecture where the runner will be deployed

Read the documentation about nodeSelector with actions-runner.

tip

Install Docker in all your runner using Docker-in-Docker.

When using the default runner, the runner pod starts up 2 containers: runner and DinD (Docker-in-Docker). ARC maintains an alternative all in one runner image with docker running in the same container as the runner. This may be prefered from a resource or complexity perspective or to be compliant with a LimitRange namespace configuration.

apiVersion: actions.summerwind.dev/v1alpha1
kind: RunnerDeployment
metadata:
  namespace: actions-runner-system
  name: oci-runner # name of the runner deployment
spec:
  replicas: 4 # number of runners wanted
  template:
    spec:
      image: summerwind/actions-runner-dind
      dockerdWithinRunnerContainer: true
      organization: size-up # organization name
      nodeSelector:
        kubernetes.io/arch: arm64 # architecture where the runner will be deployed

Read the documentation about runner with Docker-in-Docker with actions-runner.