Merge pull request #140 from joeyparrish/ephemeral

feat: Ephemeral mode

Author: myoung34

Dockerfile

@@ -17,8 +17,8 @@ RUN chmod +x /actions-runner/install_actions.sh \
   && /actions-runner/install_actions.sh ${GH_RUNNER_VERSION} ${TARGETPLATFORM} \
   && rm /actions-runner/install_actions.sh
 
-COPY token.sh entrypoint.sh /
-RUN chmod +x /token.sh /entrypoint.sh
+COPY token.sh entrypoint.sh ephemeral-runner.sh /
+RUN chmod +x /token.sh /entrypoint.sh /ephemeral-runner.sh
 
 ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]
 CMD ["/actions-runner/bin/runsvc.sh"]

README.md

@@ -315,3 +315,56 @@ docker run -d --restart always --name github-runner \
   -v /tmp/github-runner-your-repo:/tmp/github-runner-your-repo \
   myoung34/github-runner:latest
 ```
+
+## Ephemeral mode
+
+GitHub's hosted runners are completely ephemeral.  You can remove all its data without breaking all future jobs.
+
+To achieve the same resilience in a self-hosted runner:
+  1. override the command for your runner with `/ephemeral-runner.sh` (which will terminate after one job executes)
+  2. don't mount a local folder into `RUNNER_WORKDIR` (to ensure no filesystem persistence)
+  3. run the container with `--rm` (to delete it after termination)
+  4. wrap the container execution in a system service that restarts (to start a fresh container after each job)
+
+Here's an example service definition for systemd:
+
+```
+# Install with:
+#   sudo install -m 644 ephemeral-github-actions-runner.service /etc/systemd/system/
+#   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
+#   sudo systemctl enable ephemeral-github-actions-runner
+# Run with:
+#   sudo systemctl start ephemeral-github-actions-runner
+# Stop with:
+#   sudo systemctl stop ephemeral-github-actions-runner
+# See live logs with:
+#   journalctl -f -u ephemeral-github-actions-runner.service --no-hostname --no-tail
+
+[Unit]
+Description=Ephemeral GitHub Actions Runner Container
+After=docker.service
+Requires=docker.service
+
+[Service]
+TimeoutStartSec=0
+Restart=always
+ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker stop %n
+ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker rm %n
+ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker pull myoung34/github-runner:latest
+ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run --rm --env-file /etc/ephemeral-github-actions-runner.env --name %n myoung34/ephemeral-github-actions-runner:latest /ephemeral-runner.sh
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target
+```
+
+And an example of the corresponding env file that the service reads from:
+
+```
+# Install with:
+#   sudo install -m 600 ephemeral-github-actions-runner.env /etc/
+REPO_URL=https://github.com/your-org/your-repo
+RUNNER_NAME=your-runner-name-here
+ACCESS_TOKEN=foo-access-token
+RUNNER_WORKDIR=/tmp/runner/work
+LABELS=any-custom-labels-go-here
+```

ephemeral-runner.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+echo "*** Starting ephemeral runner. ***"
+/actions-runner/run.sh --once
+rv=$?
+
+# See exit code constants in the runner source here:
+# https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/be96323/src/Runner.Common/Constants.cs#L135
+if [[ $rv == 4 ]]; then
+  # The runner software was updated.
+  echo "*** Software update detected. ***"
+
+  echo "*** Waiting for update to complete. ***"
+  # Hard-coded sleep.  Without some delay, the update is still in progress in
+  # the background, leading to failures when we re-launch.
+  sleep 10
+
+  # Now add an adaptive delay, where we loop and check if the Runner is usable
+  # yet.  As soon as it is, break.
+  for i in $(seq 10); do
+    if /actions-runner/bin/Runner.Listener --version &>/dev/null; then
+      break
+    fi
+
+    echo "*** Update still in progress... ***"
+    sleep 5
+  done
+
+  # Now re-launch the script.
+  echo "*** Re-launching runner. ***"
+  exec "$0"
+fi
+
+# For any other return value, let the script and the Docker container terminate.
+echo "*** Exit code $rv ***"
+exit $rv