gitlab-runner VS cockpit-podman

#!/bin/bash # ### Script to initialize a GitLab runner on an existing AWS EC2 instance with NVME disk(s) # # - script is not interactive (can be run as user_data) # - will reboot at the end to perform NVME mounting # - first NVME disk will be used for GitLab custom cache # - last NVME disk will be used for Docker data (if only one NVME, the same will be used without problem) # - robust: on each reboot and stop/start, disks are mounted again (but data may be lost if stop and then start after a few minutes) # - runner is tagged with multiple instance data (public dns, IP, instance type...) # - works with a single spot instance # - should work even with multiple ones in a fleet, with same user_data (not tested for now) # # /!\ There is no prerequisite, except these needed variables : MAINTAINER=zenika RUNNER_NAME="majestic-runner" GITLAB_URL=https://gitlab.com/ GITLAB_TOKEN=XXXX # prepare docker (re)install sudo apt-get -y install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release sysstat curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list >/dev/null sudo apt-get update # needed to use the docker.list # install gitlab runner curl -L "https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/runner/gitlab-runner/script.deb.sh" | sudo bash sudo apt-get -y install gitlab-runner # create NVME initializer script cat </home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.sh #!/bin/bash # # To be run on each fresh start, since NVME disks are ephemeral # so first start, start after stop, but not on reboot # inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45167717/mounting-a-nvme-disk-on-aws-ec2 # date | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log ### Handle NVME disks # get NVME disks bigger than 100Go (some small size disk may be there for root, depending on server type) NVME_DISK_LIST=\$(lsblk -b --output=NAME,SIZE | grep "^nvme" | awk '{if(\$2>100000000000)print\$1}' | sort) echo "NVME disks are: \$NVME_DISK_LIST" | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log # there may be 1 or 2 NVME disks, then we split (or not) the mounts between GitLab custom cache and Docker data export NVME_GITLAB=\$(echo "\$NVME_DISK_LIST" | head -n 1) export NVME_DOCKER=\$(echo "\$NVME_DISK_LIST" | tail -n 1) echo "NVME_GITLAB=\$NVME_GITLAB and NVME_DOCKER=\$NVME_DOCKER" | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log # format disks if not sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/\$NVME_GITLAB | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log || echo "\$NVME_GITLAB already formatted" # this may already be done sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/\$NVME_DOCKER | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log || echo "\$NVME_DOCKER already formatted" # disk may be the same, then already formated by previous command # mount on /gitlab-host/ and /var/lib/docker/ sudo mkdir -p /gitlab sudo mount /dev/\$NVME_GITLAB /gitlab | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log sudo mkdir -p /gitlab/custom-cache sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/docker sudo mount /dev/\$NVME_DOCKER /var/lib/docker | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log ### reinstall Docker (which data may have been wiped out) # docker (re)install sudo apt-get -y reinstall docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose-plugin | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log echo "NVME initialization succesful" | tee -a /home/ubuntu/nvme-initializer.log EOF # set NVME initializer script as startup script sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/nvme-initializer.service >/dev/null <

GitLab team member here, thanks for sharing.

> Still not a big fan of how stiff Yaml pipelines feel in Gitlab CI

Maybe the pipeline editor in "Build > Pipeline editor" can help with live linting, or more advanced features such as parent-child pipelines or merge trains.

If you need tips for optimizing the CI/CD pipeline, suggest following these tips in the docs https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines/pipeline_efficiency.... or a few more tips in my recent talk "Efficient DevSecOps pipelines in cloud-native world", slides from Chemnitz Linux Days 2023 in https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_kyGo_cWi5dKyxi3BfYj...

> and that tickets for what seems like a simple feature [1] hang around for years, but it is nice.

Thanks for sharing. (FYI for everyone) The linked issue suggests a Docker cache cleanup script, which might be helpful. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/27332#n... -> https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#clear-t...

If only competitors could do better...

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/2797

GitLab MR for the CACHE_COMPRESSION_LEVEL implementation

And in general just making caching stuff easier. I feel like it is unnecessarily complicated for example to cache apt-get in Gitlab which I assume makes most people not do it.

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/991#not...

Hey, I have homelab NUC server where I run different services as rootless podman pods and containers running by dedicated users, eg. nextcloud pod running by nextcloud user, gitea by gitea, znc by znc and more. Next step was trying to monitor these services. First trey was using cockpit-podman feature, but in UI I see only containers of my user and rootfull which both was empty. I cannot switch to another user because the're not capable for login to cockpit. Now I'm testing prometheus and podman-exporter which seems ok, but again I see containers only if I run prometheus-podman-exporter service as user who run another podman container (e.g. as nextcloud user). Of course I can run this service parallel as dedicated user with another port and add them as target to prometheus scrape config but from obvious reason I want to avoid that. Is it more gentle way to monitor my pods? I know that those namespaces are one of the main feature of Podman but I don't consider this before my deploys :)

Cockpit has a podman module (cockpit-podman)

Tested podman to replace docker (the cli) on a mac yesterday Most of it works fine. They have an easy way to setup a vm now with `podman machine`: https://podman.io/getting-started/installation#macos

If you want the management GUI, install cockpit: https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit-podman

Try podman, you'll be impressed.