Using advanced configurations for GitLab Runners (config.toml)

[finebel]

Thanks to #38 it's now possible to define more advanced configuration options for GitLab Runners 🎉.
However I had some difficulties to get it to work:

1. Right now #38 isn't released while the Readme is already updated which is a little bit misleading (took me quite some time to figure out, why my configuration was ignored by the runner).
2. In the Readme it's not written that you have to pass your options as a multiline-argument omitting [[runners]] because this part is already present (see below). Instead it sounds a bit like you have to pass the path to a config.toml file. Relevant code in GitLabRunnerProvisioner.swift:

   let copyConfigTomlCommand = """
   mkdir -p ~/.gitlab-runner
   rm -rf ~/.gitlab-runner/config.toml
   cat <<'EOF' >> ~/.gitlab-runner/config.toml
   [[runners]]
   url = "\(config.gitlabURL)"
   token = "\(config.runnerToken)"
   executor = "\(config.executor)"
   limit = \(config.maxNumberOfBuilds)
   \(config.configToml ?? "")
   EOF
   exit 1
   """

Especially 2. should be addressed imho 🙂 ...

[finebel]

I just realized, that the runner isn't restarted anymore. Instead it logs WARNING: Failed to process runner.
This might be related to a difference between the --max-builds option of gitlab-runner run-single and the limit attribute in config.toml (introduced in #38 as a replacement for --max-builds).

--max-builds (https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/commands/#gitlab-runner-run-single):

You can use the --max-builds option to control how many builds the runner executes before exiting. The default of 0 means that the runner has no build limit and jobs run forever.

limit (https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/configuration/advanced-configuration.html#the-runners-section):

Limit how many jobs can be handled concurrently by this registered runner. 0 (default) means do not limit.

@ast3150 Any response would be much appreciated.

[ast3150]

Let‘s see. About the release, probably @Marcocanc can help, but let‘s resolve the other issues first.

I see how the Readme can be worded more clearly. I struggled a bit to come up with an explanation which is concise. If you have a suggestion please let me know.

About the limit parameter, seeing that it absolutely does not do the same thing as —max-builds – I consider this a mistake on my side and would suggest forcing the limit to 1 to make sure builds don‘t run in parallel.

The maxNumberOfBuilds config value should probably be removed as it doesn‘t seem to apply to gitlab-runner run like it did to gitlab-runner run-single

As for the runner error, is it possible that there is some other issue with your runner configuration setup or registration? Can you provide more info about when this happens and what you‘ve tried to resolve it?

[finebel]

Thanks for your reply. I examined the error / warning a bit further and it only appears if the job execution fails (caused by .gitlab-ci.yml). But subsequent jobs are executed fine. I have run the runner with gitlab-runner --debug run and the more detailed logs didn't provide much additional information. So I guess there is no action required at the moment.

Do you have a workaround to get the ephemeral behaviour for GitLab runners while still providing config.toml options?