Quickstart for Actions Runner Controller

In this tutorial, you'll try out the basics of Actions Runner Controller.

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Introduction

Actions Runner Controller (ARC) es un operador de Kubernetes que organiza y escala los ejecutores autohospedados para GitHub Actions. Para obtener más información, consulta Patrón de operador en la documentación de Kubernetes.

Con ARC, puedes crear conjuntos de escalado de ejecutor que se escalen automáticamente en función del número de flujos de trabajo que se ejecutan en el repositorio, la organización o la empresa. Dado que los ejecutores controlados pueden ser efímeros y estar basados en contenedores, las nuevas instancias de ejecutores se pueden escalar o reducir verticalmente de forma rápida y limpia. Para más información sobre el escalado automático, consulta Autoescalar con ejecutores auto-hospedados.

You can set up ARC on Kubernetes using Helm, then create and run a workflow that uses runner scale sets. For more information about runner scale sets, see Implementación de conjuntos de escalado de ejecutor con Actions Runner Controller.

Prerequisites

In order to use ARC, ensure you have the following.

  • A Kubernetes cluster

    • For a managed cloud environment, you can use AKS. For more information, see Azure Kubernetes Service in the Azure documentation.

    • For a local setup, you can use minikube or kind. For more information, see minikube start in the minikube documentation and kind in the kind documentation.

      Nota:

      OpenShift clusters are currently unsupported.

  • Helm 3

  • While it is not required for ARC to be deployed, we recommend ensuring you have implemented a way to collect and retain logs from the controller, listeners, and ephemeral runners before deploying ARC in production workflows.

Installing Actions Runner Controller

  1. To install the operator and the custom resource definitions (CRDs) in your cluster, do the following.

    1. In your Helm chart, update the NAMESPACE value to the location you want your operator pods to be created. This namespace must allow access to the Kubernetes API server.
    2. Install the Helm chart.

    The following example installs the latest version of the chart. To install a specific version, you can pass the --version argument along with the version of the chart you wish to install. You can find the list of releases in the GitHub Container Registry.

    Bash
    NAMESPACE="arc-systems"
helm install arc \
    --namespace "${NAMESPACE}" \
    --create-namespace \
    oci://ghcr.io/actions/actions-runner-controller-charts/gha-runner-scale-set-controller

    For additional Helm configuration options, see values.yaml in the ARC documentation.

  2. To enable ARC to authenticate to GitHub, generate a personal access token (classic). For more information, see Autenticación en la API de GitHub.

Configuring a runner scale set

  1. To configure your runner scale set, run the following command in your terminal, using values from your ARC configuration.

    When you run the command, keep the following in mind.

    • Update the INSTALLATION_NAME value carefully. You will use the installation name as the value of runs-on in your workflows. For more information, see Sintaxis del flujo de trabajo para GitHub Actions.

    • Update the NAMESPACE value to the location you want the runner pods to be created.

    • Set GITHUB_CONFIG_URL to the URL of your repository, organization, or enterprise. This is the entity that the runners will belong to.

    • This example command installs the latest version of the Helm chart. To install a specific version, you can pass the --version argument with the version of the chart you wish to install. You can find the list of releases in the GitHub Container Registry.

      Nota:

      • Como procedimiento recomendado de seguridad, crea los pods del ejecutor en un espacio de nombres diferente al espacio de nombres que contiene los pods del operador.
      • Como procedimiento recomendado de seguridad, crea secretos de Kubernetes y pasa las referencias de los secretos. Pasar los secretos en texto sin formato a través de la CLI puede suponer un riesgo de seguridad. For more information, see Implementación de conjuntos de escalado de ejecutor con Actions Runner Controller.
      Bash
      INSTALLATION_NAME="arc-runner-set"
NAMESPACE="arc-runners"
GITHUB_CONFIG_URL="http://github.com/<your_enterprise/org/repo>"
GITHUB_PAT="<PAT>"
helm install "${INSTALLATION_NAME}" \
    --namespace "${NAMESPACE}" \
    --create-namespace \
    --set githubConfigUrl="${GITHUB_CONFIG_URL}" \
    --set githubConfigSecret.github_token="${GITHUB_PAT}" \
    oci://ghcr.io/actions/actions-runner-controller-charts/gha-runner-scale-set

      For additional Helm configuration options, see values.yaml in the ARC documentation.

  2. From your terminal, run the following command to check your installation.

    Bash
    helm list -A

    You should see an output similar to the following.

    NAME            NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART                                       APP VERSION
arc             arc-systems     1               2023-04-12 11:45:59.152090536 +0000 UTC deployed        gha-runner-scale-set-controller-0.4.0       0.4.0
arc-runner-set  arc-runners     1               2023-04-12 11:46:13.451041354 +0000 UTC deployed        gha-runner-scale-set-0.4.0                  0.4.0

  3. To check the manager pod, run the following command in your terminal.

    Bash
    kubectl get pods -n arc-systems

    If everything was installed successfully, the status of the pods shows as Running.

    NAME                                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
arc-gha-runner-scale-set-controller-594cdc976f-m7cjs   1/1     Running   0          64s
arc-runner-set-754b578d-listener                       1/1     Running   0          12s

If your installation was not successful, see Solución de errores de Actions Runner Controller for troubleshooting information.

Using runner scale sets

Now you will create and run a simple test workflow that uses the runner scale set runners.

  1. In a repository, create a workflow similar to the following example. The runs-on value should match the Helm installation name you used when you installed the autoscaling runner set.

    For more information on adding workflows to a repository, see Guía de inicio rápido para GitHub Actions.

    YAML
    name: Actions Runner Controller Demo
on:
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  Explore-GitHub-Actions:
    # You need to use the INSTALLATION_NAME from the previous step
    runs-on: arc-runner-set
    steps:
    - run: echo "🎉 This job uses runner scale set runners!"

  2. Once you've added the workflow to your repository, manually trigger the workflow. For more information, see Ejecutar un flujo de trabajo manualmente.

  3. To view the runner pods being created while the workflow is running, run the following command from your terminal.

    Bash
    kubectl get pods -n arc-runners

    A successful output will look similar to the following.

    NAMESPACE     NAME                                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
arc-runners   arc-runner-set-rmrgw-runner-p9p5n                     1/1     Running   0             21s

Next steps

Actions Runner Controller can help you efficiently manage your GitHub Actions runners. Ready to get started? Here are some helpful resources for taking your next steps with ARC:

Algunas partes se han adaptado a partir de http://github.com/actions/actions-runner-controller/ con licencia Apache-2.0:

Copyright 2019 Moto Ishizawa

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
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