How do I use docker to run a gitlab-runner for a gitlab-hosted project?

Question

I'm in the process of deploying a gitlab-runner to kubernetes on google-cloud-engine so can quickly scale runners / send the configuration off to other people so they can run their own runners. But first, I wanted to try to see if I could get the runner hooked up locally on my laptop.

Setup I have a project that on gitlab that is public, but I don't think it matters, as the goal here is just to be able to run docker-based tests on the gitlab runner. With docker, I've proved to myself that it's possible via: https://github.com/NullVoxPopuli/vsts-agent-with-aws-ecr (a project I did for work)

Here is what I have so far for the gitlab runner:

#/bin/bash
docker stop gitlab-runner && docker rm gitlab-runner

docker run -d --name gitlab-runner --restart always \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v /usr/local/gitlab-ci-runner/config:/etc/gitlab-runner \
  -v "$(pwd)/config.toml":/etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml:ro \
  gitlab/gitlab-runner:alpine

docker exec -it gitlab-runner gitlab-runner register \
  -n \
  --url https://gitlab.com/ci \
  --tag-list "docker,docker-compose" \
  --run-untagged \
  --registration-token my-runner-token \
  --executor docker \
  --description "Docker Runner" \
  --docker-image "docker:dind" \
  --docker-volumes /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  --docker-privileged

and here is my config.toml:

concurrent = 4

[[runners]]
    name = "precognition-gitlab-runner"
    url = "https://gitlab.example.com/ci"
    token = "my-runner-token"
    executor = "docker"
    run_untagged = true

    [runners.docker]
      tls_verify = false
      image = "alpine"
      privileged = true
      disable_cache = false
      volumes = ["/cache", "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"]
    [runners.cache]
      Insecure = false

Now, when I run the script that run the gitlab-runner and then registers it, I do see it in gitlab in https://gitlab.com/project_name/settings/ci_cd

But, it says that the runner has not connected yet:

What's the correct way to configure this?

Here is my .gitlab-ci.yml for anyone curious: https://gitlab.com/precognition-llc/aeonvera-ui/blob/registration-rework/.gitlab-ci.yml

it just runs other scripts, which in-turn run docker-compose which then runs the tests.

Answer 1

I had the same problem as you before. It seems that the docker container quit after he finished registering the runner. And for some reason I got the "container already exists" on the follow up command even though the docker run -rm flag was set. Maybe the tutorial has an error or we misuderstand some of the steps there.

The way I solved it was to remove the container first with

docker stop gitlab-runner
docker rm gitlab-runner

And then start the already registerd container with:

docker run -d --name gitlab-runner --restart always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock gitlab/gitlab-runner:latest

I hope it helps.