janderssonse/gitlab-runner-compose-podman

A quick example of firing up a gitlab instance, in compose, using podman

GitLab Runner Compose with Podman Example

I was in need of a quick example of setting up a local GitLab instance, running on Podman. So here is a quick and dirty docker-compose setup for doing that.

At the end of this brief example you might also want to have a peek at https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#use-podman-to-run-docker-commands

IMHO, Let's just say that while Podman is the future:) it still has some ecosystem quirks bugs and issues, some in Podman, or in friends. But, getting there, every day.

Requirements (only tested on Ubuntu 22.04)

• Podman 4.6.2++ installed and working. This means

  Podman running as a service:

  podman info | grep -A2 'remoteSocket' # should list exists true and the socket

  Alias has been set, bye docker

  alias docker=podman # has been set

  DOCKER_HOST has been exported (sneaky, here is the podman socket)

  export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock or whatever your podman socket is

• docker-compose /yes you sadly still need this as podman-compose is not up to the task yet. But we are using podman underneath.

Running steps

1. docker-compose up Note: Before you have configured your first runner there will be some errors here of type "ERROR: Failed to load config stat /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml:". Just ignore.

   Change root password for gitlabce

2. podman exec -it gitlab-ce gitlab-rake "gitlab:password:reset[root]"

3. docker-compose down && docker-compose un

4. Go to the GitLab UI at 127.0.0.1 or 10.89.0.2 :) and login with root/pw-you-changed-to

5. Search for admin area in GUI (Search -> Admin)

6. Add new instance runner under CI (if the ip changes suddenly here after applying, just change it back and enter, it has happened a few times)

7. You should now see an instruction page for how to register the runner, and a token.

8. Follow the above steps by exec into the running runner and do i.e run gitlab-runner register. (you will change some values later so dont worry if there are some errors here).

   podman exec -it gitlab-runner /bin/bash gitlab-runner register ...follow steps

9. Still in the runner container : vi /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml

10. Have a look at the runner.example.toml in this project and add what you need: host, privileged and FF_NET.. are needed for podman at least.

11. docker-compose down && docker-compose, login to ui, check that the runner is online in the admin area

12. Add a testproject, ci pipes, have fun!!

gitlab-runner-compose-podman's Issues

Clearify expected errors in README

ISSUE

When trying to start up one can see the following errors popping up in the logs;

ERROR: Failed to load config stat /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml: no such file or directory builds=0 max_builds=1

This is expected if you dont have already configured a runner

POSSIBLE FIX

A note can be added in the README

no container with name or ID "gitlab" found: no such container

ISSUE

Step 2 in README tells users to run

podman exec -it gitlab gitlab-rake "gitlab:password:reset[root]"

but this results in an error since the container name is set to gitlab-ce

POSSIBLE FIX

Change to

podman exec -it gitlab-ce gitlab-rake "gitlab:password:reset[root]"