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Singularity Builder - Github Actions

This has been converted from the Gitlab Project here: https://gitlab.com/singularityhub/gitlab-ci

This is a simple example of how you can achieve:

  • version control of your recipes
  • versioning to include image hash and commit id
  • build of associated container and
  • push to a storage endpoint (or GitLab Github artifact)

for a reproducible build workflow.

Why should this be managed via GitLab Github?

GitLab Github, by way of easy integration with continuous integration, is an easy way to have a workflow set up where multiple people can collaborate on a container recipe, the recipe can be tested (with whatever testing you need), discussed in pull requests, and then finally pushed to be a GitLab Github artifact, to your storage of choice or to Singularity Registry.

Why should I use this instead of a service?

You could use a remote builder, but if you do the build in a continuous integration service you get complete control over it. This means everything from the version of Singularity to use, to the tests that you run for your container. You have a lot more freedom in the rate of building, and organization of your repository, because it's you that writes the configuration. Although the default would work for most, you can edit the build, setup, and circle configuration file in the .gitlabci folder to fit your needs.

Quick Start

Add your Singularity recipes to this repository, and edit the build commands in the build.sh file. This is where you can specify endpoints (Singularity Registry, Dropbox, Google Storage, AWS) along with container names (the uri) and tag. You can build as many recipes as you like, just add another line!

                               # recipe relative to repository base
  - /bin/bash .gitlabci/build.sh Singularity
  - /bin/bash .gitlabci/build.sh --uri collection/container --tag tacos --cli google-storage Singularity
  - /bin/bash .gitlabci/build.sh --uri collection/container --cli google-drive Singularity
  - /bin/bash .gitlabci/build.sh --uri collection/container --cli globus Singularity
  - /bin/bash .gitlabci/build.sh --uri collection/container --cli registry Singularity

For each client that you use, required environment variables (e.g., credentials to push, or interact with the API) must be defined in the (encrypted) Travis environment. To know what variables to define, along with usage for the various clients, see the client specific pages

Detailed Started

0. Fork this repository

You can clone and tweak, but it's easiest likely to get started with our example files and edit them as you need.

1. Get to Know GitLab Github Actions

Github has a built-in Continuous Integration service called Github Actions you should be able to use for free. You can get started here https://github.com/features/actions and take a look at the .github\workflows\build.yml.

Artifacts will be found in the /home/runner/work/REPO-NAME/REPO-NAME/ directory.

2. Add your Recipe(s)

For the example here, we have a single recipe named "Singularity" that is provided as an input argument to the build script. You could add another recipe, and then of course call the build to happen more than once. The build script will name the image based on the recipe, and you of course can change this. Just write the path to it (relative to the repository base) in your .github/workflows/build.yml.

3. Configure Singularity

We previously used setup to setup the build, but now use a base image instead. The previous instructions are provided for posterity.

  • Install Singularity, we use the release 2.6 branch as it was the last to not be written in GoLang. You could of course change the lines in setup.sh to use a specific tagged release, an older version, or development version.

  • The current Github Action is using the quay.io/singularity/singularity:v3.7.3 image - at present the slim images are missing /bin/bash - the version can be changed at will as per your production environment versioning.

  • Install the sregistry client, if needed. The sregistry client allows you to issue a command like "sregistry push ..." to upload a finished image to one of your cloud / storage endpoints. By default, the push won't happen, and you will just build an image using the CI.

4. Configure the Build

The basic steps for the build are the following:

  • Running build.sh with no inputs will default to a recipe called "Singularity" in the base of the repository. You can provide an argument to point to a different recipe path, always relative to the base of your repository.
  • If you want to define a particular unique resource identifier for a finished container (to be uploaded to your storage endpoint) you can do that with --uri collection/container. If you don't define one, a robot name will be generated.
  • You can add --uri to specify a custom name, and this can include the tag, OR you can specify --tag to go along with a name without one. It depends on which is easier for you.
  • If you add --cli then this is telling the build script that you have defined the needed environment variables for your client of choice and you want successful builds to be pushed to your storage endpoint. See here for a list of current client endpoints, or roll your own!

See the .gitlab-ci.yml for examples of this build.sh command (commented out). If there is some cloud service that you'd like that is not provided, please open an issue.

5. Pull / Download your Container

You can access the artifacts from the Actions tab, under the build action for any given run. You may wish to edit the build.yml to export individual .sif images rather than a zip file of artifacts.