Re: [PATCH v6 3/4] Jobs based on custom runners: docs and gitlab-runner setup playbook

[Cleber Rosa]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2021 at 3:04 PM Wainer dos Santos Moschetta
<wainersm@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 6/8/21 12:14 AM, Cleber Rosa wrote:
> > To have the jobs dispatched to custom runners, gitlab-runner must
> > be installed, active as a service and properly configured.  The
> > variables file and playbook introduced here should help with those
> > steps.
> >
> > The playbook introduced here covers the Linux distributions and
> > has been primarily tested on OS/machines that the QEMU project
> > has available to act as runners, namely:
> >
> >   * Ubuntu 20.04 on aarch64
> >   * Ubuntu 18.04 on s390x
> >
> > But, it should work on all other Linux distributions.  Earlier
> > versions were tested on FreeBSD too, so chances of success are
> > high.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Cleber Rosa <crosa@redhat.com>
> > ---
> >   docs/devel/ci.rst                  | 57 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >   scripts/ci/setup/.gitignore        |  1 +
> >   scripts/ci/setup/gitlab-runner.yml | 61 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >   scripts/ci/setup/vars.yml.template | 12 ++++++
> >   4 files changed, 131 insertions(+)
> >   create mode 100644 scripts/ci/setup/.gitignore
> >   create mode 100644 scripts/ci/setup/gitlab-runner.yml
> >   create mode 100644 scripts/ci/setup/vars.yml.template
> >
> > diff --git a/docs/devel/ci.rst b/docs/devel/ci.rst
> > index 35c6b5e269..bbd89e54d7 100644
> > --- a/docs/devel/ci.rst
> > +++ b/docs/devel/ci.rst
> > @@ -56,3 +56,60 @@ To run the playbook, execute::
> >
> >     cd scripts/ci/setup
> >     ansible-playbook -i inventory build-environment.yml
> > +
> > +gitlab-runner setup and registration
> > +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > +
> > +The gitlab-runner agent needs to be installed on each machine that
> > +will run jobs.  The association between a machine and a GitLab project
> > +happens with a registration token.  To find the registration token for
> > +your repository/project, navigate on GitLab's web UI to:
> > +
> > + * Settings (the gears like icon), then
> > + * CI/CD, then
> > + * Runners, and click on the "Expand" button, then
> > + * Under "Set up a specific Runner manually", look for the value under
> > +   "Use the following registration token during setup"
> > +
> > +Copy the ``scripts/ci/setup/vars.yml.template`` file to
> > +``scripts/ci/setup/vars.yml``.  Then, set the
> > +``gitlab_runner_registration_token`` variable to the value obtained
> > +earlier.
> > +
> > +.. note:: gitlab-runner is not available from the standard location
> > +          for all OS and architectures combinations.  For some systems,
> > +          a custom build may be necessary.  Some builds are avaiable
> > +          at https://cleber.fedorapeople.org/gitlab-runner/ and this
> > +          URI may be used as a value on ``vars.yml``
> I think you can remove the information about the gitlab-running being
> not available for some systems.

Good catch!

> > +
> > +To run the playbook, execute::
> > +
> > +  cd scripts/ci/setup
> > +  ansible-playbook -i inventory gitlab-runner.yml
> > +
> > +Following the registration, it's necessary to configure the runner tags,
> > +and optionally other configurations on the GitLab UI.  Navigate to:
> > +
> > + * Settings (the gears like icon), then
> > + * CI/CD, then
> > + * Runners, and click on the "Expand" button, then
> > + * "Runners activated for this project", then
> > + * Click on the "Edit" icon (next to the "Lock" Icon)
> > +
> > +Under tags, add values matching the jobs a runner should run.  For a
> > +Ubuntu 20.04 aarch64 system, the tags should be set as::
> > +
> > +  ubuntu_20.04,aarch64
>
> Also users no longer need manually create the tags.
>

Of course.  But, given that this is a general rule, and there may be
OS/architectures for which Ansible may produce tag names one would not
expect, I'll ask the user to double check the tags. The text I'm
proposing on v7 is:

Tags are very important as they are used to route specific jobs to
specific types of runners, so it's a good idea to double check that
the automatically created tags are consistent with the OS and
architecture.  For instance, an Ubuntu 20.04 aarch64 system should
have tags set as::

  ubuntu_20.04,aarch64


> Remaining of the file looks good to me.
>

Thanks a lot!
- Cleber.