GitHub Actions Runner

This role will deploy/redeploy/uninstall and register/unregister local GitHub Actions Runner on Linux and macOS Systems (see compatibility list ). It supports Enterprise, Organization and Repository Runners.

Requirements

System must have access to the GitHub API.
The role require Personal Access Token to access the GitHub. The token can be set as PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN environment variable.

Note
The token must have the repo scope (when creating a repo runner), the admin:org scope (when creating a runner for an organization), the manage_runners:enterprise scope (when creating a enterprise runner). Personal Access Token for GitHub account can be created here.

Warning
Never store you personal access token in the GitHub repository. Use GitHub Secrets or some different secrets service.

Runner user has to be pre-created. Recommended role: monolithprojects.user_management
CentOS systems require EPEL repository. Recommended role: robertdebock.epel

Supported CPU architecture

ARM, ARM64 (dependencies installation is not covered by this role)
AMD64, x86_64

Supported Operating Systems

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
CentOS 7
Rocky Linux 8+
Fedora 29+
Debian 9+
Ubuntu 16.04+
MacOS High Sierra +

Weekly tested on:

Debian 11
Fedora 39
Rocky Linux 8
Ubuntu 20,22

Role Variables

This is a copy from defaults/main.yml

---
# Runner user - user under which is the local runner service running
runner_user: "{{ lookup('env','USER') }}"

# Directory where the local runner will be installed
runner_dir: /opt/actions-runner

# Version of the GitHub Actions Runner
runner_version: "latest"

# State in which the runner service will be after the role is done (started, stopped, absent)
runner_state: "started"

# If found on the server, delete already existing runner service and install it again
reinstall_runner: no

# Do not show Ansible logs which may contain sensitive data (registration token)
hide_sensitive_logs: yes

# GitHub address
github_url: "https://github.com"

# GitHub API
github_api_url: "https://api.github.com"

# Personal Access Token for your GitHub account
access_token: "{{ lookup('env', 'PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN') }}"

# Is it the runner for organization or not?
runner_org: no

# Labels to apply to the runner
runner_labels: []

# Group to add organization runner to
runner_group: ""

# GitHub Actions Runner repository (change it if you want to use custom Actions Runner fork)
runner_download_repository: "actions/runner"

# Extra arguments to pass to `config.sh`.
# Several arguments muste be set as one string (i.e. "--ephemeral --my_special_fork")
runner_extra_config_args: ""

# Name to assign to this runner in GitHub (System hostname as default)
runner_name: "{{ ansible_facts.hostname }}"

# GitHub Repository user or Organization owner used for Runner registration
# github_account: "youruser"

# GitHub repository owner name (if other than github_account)
# github_owner: "yourorg"

# Github repository name
# github_repo: "yourrepo"

# GitHub Enterprise name
# github_enterprise: "yourenterprise"

# Configuring a custom .env file
# custom_env: |
# http_proxy=YOUR_URL_HERE
# ftp_proxy=YOUR_URL_HERE
# HTTPS_PROXY=YOUR_URL_HERE
# https_proxy=YOUR_URL_HERE
# no_proxy=localhost,127.0.0.1,127.0.0.2
# HTTP_PROXY=

Example Playbooks

In this example the Ansible role will install (or update) the GitHub Actions Runner service (latest available version). The runner will be registered for my_awesome_repo GitHub repo. Runner service will be stated and will run under the same user as the Ansible is using for ssh connection (ansible).

---
- name: Install GitHub Actions Runner
  hosts: all
  user: ansible
  become: yes
  vars:
    - github_account: github-access-user
    - github_repo: my_awesome_repo
  roles:
    - role: monolithprojects.github_actions_runner

Same example as above, but runner will be added to an organization and deployed on GitHub Enterprise Server.

---
- name: Install GitHub Actions Runner
  hosts: all
  user: ansible
  become: yes
  vars:
    - github_account: my_awesome_org
    - runner_org: yes
    - runner_on_ghes: yes
  roles:
    - role: monolithprojects.github_actions_runner

If you have a Github Enterprise Cloud license and you want to manage all the self-hosted runners from the enterprise:

---
- name: Install GitHub Actions Runner
  hosts: all
  user: automation
  become: yes
  vars:
    - github_enterprise: my_awesome_enterprise
    - runner_org: no
  roles:
    - role: monolithprojects.github_actions_runner

In this example the Ansible role will deploy (or update) the GitHub Actions runner service (version 2.165.2) and register the runner for the GitHub repo. Runner service will run under the user runner-user. Runner will be registered with two labels. The runner service will be stopped and disabled. Runner will use custom environment variables (from file named .env in the self-hosted runner application directory).

---
- name: Stop GitHub Actions Runner
  hosts: all
  become: yes
  vars:
    - runner_version: "2.165.2"
    - runner_user: runner-user
    - github_account: github-access-user
    - github_repo: my_awesome_repo
    - runner_state: "stopped"
    - runner_labels:
        - production
        - west
    - custom_env: |
        HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.local:8080
        http_proxy=http://proxy.local:8080
        HTTPS_PROXY=http://proxy.local:8080
        https_proxy=http://proxy.local:8080
        no_proxy=localhost,127.0.0.1,127.0.0.2

  roles:
    - role: monolithprojects.github_actions_runner

In this example the Ansible role will uninstall the runner service and unregister it from the GitHub Repository.

---
- name: Uninstall GitHub Actions Runner
  hosts: all
  become: yes
  vars:
    - github_account: github-access-user
    - github_repo: my_awesome_repo
    - runner_state: "absent"
  roles:
    - role: monolithprojects.github_actions_runner

License

MIT

Author Information

Created in 2020 by Michal Muransky

iza-w/ansible-github_actions_runner