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Austin Hovland edited this page Feb 19, 2023 · 10 revisions

Unified Actions Runner

This repository provides the necessary code to build and self-host Docker images that can be used for development and automated testing using self-hosted GitHub Actions Runners. This project is built on the shoulders of myoung34/docker-github-actions-runner, which maintains the core Actions Runner configuration.

Deployment

Required .env variables for CLI deployment

Create a file called .env and ensure that these values are set before running deploy_local_org_runner.sh. Currently this script is only configured for organization-level runners,

RUNNER_NAME_PREFIX="my-host"
ACCESS_TOKEN="github_pat_aas98dasd9a8sd@@@_YOUR_KEY_HERE_@@@d87sd8s7d8sd78s7ds8d"
RUNNER_WORKDIR="/tmp/unified-actions-runner"
RUNNER_GROUP="default"
RUNNER_SCOPE="org"
ORG_NAME="your-orgname"
LABELS="Linux,x86_64,ubuntu-jammy"    ## ADD python-3.10 or r-4.2.2 here for env-specific runners
DISABLE_AUTO_UPDATE="false"

Security

It is known that environment variables are not safe from exfiltration. If you are using this runner make sure that any workflow changes are gated by a verification process (in the actions settings) so that malicious PR's cannot exfiltrate these.

Docker Support

Please note that while this runner installs and allows docker, github actions itself does not support using docker from a self hosted runner yet. For more information:

Also, some GitHub Actions Workflow features, like Job Services, won't be usable and will result in an error.

Containerd Support

Currently runners do not support containerd

Docker-Compose on ARM

Please note docker-compose does not currently work on ARM (see issue) so it is not installed on ARM based builds here. A workaround exists, please see here

Environment Variables

Environment Variable Description
RUN_AS_ROOT Boolean to run as root. If true: will run as root. If True and the user is overridden it will error. If any other value it will run as the runner user and allow an optional override. Default is true
RUNNER_NAME The name of the runner to use. Supercedes (overrides) RUNNER_NAME_PREFIX
RUNNER_NAME_PREFIX A prefix for runner name (See RANDOM_RUNNER_SUFFIX for how the full name is generated). Note: will be overridden by RUNNER_NAME if provided. Defaults to github-runner
RANDOM_RUNNER_SUFFIX Boolean to use a randomized runner name suffix (preceeded by RUNNER_NAME_PREFIX). Will use a 13 character random string by default. If set to a value other than true it will attempt to use the contents of /etc/hostname or fall back to a random string if the file does not exist or is empty. Note: will be overridden by RUNNER_NAME if provided. Defaults to true.
ACCESS_TOKEN A github PAT to use to generate RUNNER_TOKEN dynamically at container start. Not using this requires a valid RUNNER_TOKEN
APP_ID The github application ID. Must be paired with APP_PRIVATE_KEY and should not be used with ACCESS_TOKEN or RUNNER_TOKEN
APP_PRIVATE_KEY The github application private key. Must be paired with APP_ID and should not be used with ACCESS_TOKEN or RUNNER_TOKEN
APP_LOGIN The github application login id. Can be paired with APP_ID and APP_PRIVATE_KEY if default value extracted from REPO_URL or ORG_NAME is not correct. Note that no default is present when RUNNER_SCOPE is 'enterprise'.
RUNNER_SCOPE The scope the runner will be registered on. Valid values are repo, org and ent. For 'org' and 'enterprise', ACCESS_TOKEN is required and REPO_URL is unnecessary. If 'org', requires ORG_NAME; if 'enterprise', requires ENTERPRISE_NAME. Default is 'repo'.
ORG_NAME The organization name for the runner to register under. Requires RUNNER_SCOPE to be 'org'. No default value.
ENTERPRISE_NAME The enterprise name for the runner to register under. Requires RUNNER_SCOPE to be 'enterprise'. No default value.
LABELS A comma separated string to indicate the labels. Default is 'default'
REPO_URL If using a non-organization runner this is the full repository url to register under such as 'https://github.com/myoung34/repo'
RUNNER_TOKEN If not using a PAT for ACCESS_TOKEN this will be the runner token provided by the Add Runner UI (a manual process). Note: This token is short lived and will change frequently. ACCESS_TOKEN is likely preferred.
RUNNER_WORKDIR The working directory for the runner. Runners on the same host should not share this directory. Default is '/_work'. This must match the source path for the bind-mounted volume at RUNNER_WORKDIR, in order for container actions to access files.
RUNNER_GROUP Name of the runner group to add this runner to (defaults to the default runner group)
GITHUB_HOST Optional URL of the Github Enterprise server e.g github.mycompany.com. Defaults to github.com.
DISABLE_AUTOMATIC_DEREGISTRATION Optional flag to disable signal catching for deregistration. Default is false. Any value other than exactly false is considered true. See here
CONFIGURED_ACTIONS_RUNNER_FILES_DIR Path to use for runner data. It allows avoiding reregistration each the start of the runner. No default value.
EPHEMERAL Optional flag to configure runner with --ephemeral option. Ephemeral runners are suitable for autoscaling.
DISABLE_AUTO_UPDATE Optional environment variable to disable auto updates. Auto updates are enabled by default to preserve past behavior. Any value is considered truthy and will disable them.
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