[Gitlab] HOW TO USE SPECIFIC RUNNERS IN GITLAB CI/CD PIPELINE

What are Gitlab Runners?

GitLab Runner is an application that works with GitLab CI/CD to run jobs in a pipeline. They can also run

inside a Docker container or be deployed into a Kubernetes cluster.

Types of Runners:

• Shared Runner: These types of runners are available globally and can automatically be allocated based on their availability.
• Specific Runner: For this, you have to register a runner and you can only use it in a specific project or can also use it in a specific stage of your pipeline. Will discuss this more in detail.
• Group Runner: These runners are shared across projects in the group.

How to register a specific runner?

sudo gitlab-runner register

This command will start the process of registering a runner. Then go to the Gitlab Project -Settings->CI/CD->Runners and copy the URL of specific runners.

How to use this specific runner in a pipeline?

Just add the tags field in your pipeline and name the tag which you added during the registration of a runner.

Here is the sample pipeline for your reference.

stage: test

script:

- echo "Testing"

- test -f "build/info.txt"

tags:

- testing

npm:

image: node:latest

stage: npm

How to use this specific runner in a pipeline?

script:

- echo "image pulled"

[Gitlab] gitlab runner doesn`t work on a specific project

Ref: gitlab runner doesn`t work on a specific project

Error:

Fetching changes with git depth set to 50...
fatal: remote origin already exists.
fatal: git fetch-pack: expected shallow list
ERROR: Job failed: exit status 1

Solution:

Centos 7 ships with git version 1.8.3.1 . This version doesn't support commands like git fetch-pack . To fix this problem, you could update git on your server from the IUS repository. update git on Centos 7 to version 2 from third-party IUS repo

$ git --version
git version 1.8.3.1

sudo yum -y install https://packages.endpointdev.com/rhel/7/os/x86_64/endpoint-repo.x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install git

[Gitlab] Install gitlab runner

 

Ref:https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/install/linux-manually.html

Download

To download the appropriate package for your system:

1. Find the latest file name and options at https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/index.html.
2. Choose a version and download a binary, as described in the documentation for downloading any other tagged releases for bleeding edge GitLab Runner releases.

For example, for Debian or Ubuntu:

curl -LJO "https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/deb/gitlab-runner_${arch}.deb"

For example, for CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux:

curl -LJO "https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/rpm/gitlab-runner_${arch}.rpm"

For example, for FIPS compliant GitLab Runner on RHEL:

curl -LJO "https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/rpm/gitlab-runner_amd64-fips.rpm"

Install

1. Install the package for your system as follows.

   For example, for Debian or Ubuntu:
   dpkg -i gitlab-runner_<arch>.deb For example, for CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux:
   rpm -i gitlab-runner_<arch>.rpm

2. Register a runner

Update

Download the latest package for your system then upgrade as follows:

For example, for Debian or Ubuntu:

dpkg -i gitlab-runner_<arch>.deb

For example, for CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux:
rpm -Uvh gitlab-runner_<arch>.rpm

[Report Server] fully share files

Ref: https://reportserver.net/en/guides/admin/chapters/File-System/

 To fully share files you may place them in a folder where a tick is set at Share folder for web access.

 

GitlabCI run pipeline on specific branch and manual

 Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51642852/gitlabci-run-pipeline-on-specific-branch-and-manual

You want to run the builds on branch develop automatically but in branch web manually

You can't do this in one build, but you can use two builds for it:

my_build:develop
  stage: build
  only:
    - develop

my_build:web
  stage: build
  only:
    - web
  when: manual

java.desktop/sun.awt.FontConfiguration.getVersion with NullPointerException

 Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65509533/npe-from-sun-awt-fontconfiguration-getversion-using-apache-fop-jdk-11-on-linux-s

Error:

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
        at java.desktop/sun.awt.FontConfiguration.getVersion(FontConfiguration.java:1262)
        at java.desktop/sun.awt.FontConfiguration.readFontConfigFile(FontConfiguration.java:225)
        at java.desktop/sun.awt.FontConfiguration.init(FontConfiguration.java:107)
        at java.desktop/sun.awt.X11FontManager.createFontConfiguration(X11FontManager.java:719)

Solution:

Turns out the issue was not that I didn't have access to the fonts, the Linux OS required me to install fontconfig via yum.
yum install fontconfig
I am not sure why Oracle JDK 11 plus the missing Linux utility was the issue since this works now in my production environment with Oracle JDK 1.8 and without fontconfig being installed.

MYSQLDUMP PERMISSIONS

 Href: http://www.drlock.com/blog/2006/12/22/mysqldump-permissions/

I wanted to create a user who had just enough permissions to make a SQL dump of my database for backup purposes. I hunted all over the ‘net, but no one told what permissions were needed so by trial and error I found out:

GRANT SELECT, LOCK TABLES ON *.* TO backup_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘xxx’;

Now I can have a script that runs with my backup tools that executes:

mysqldump –user backup –password=xxx –all-databases –compact | gzip -9 > db_backup.sql.gz