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pipglr/README.md
2022-11-18 21:56:24 -05:00

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## Overview
This container image is built daily from this `Containerfile`, and
made available as:
* `registry.gitlab.com/qontainers/pipglr:latest`
-or-
* `registry.gitlab.com/qontainers/pipglr:<version>`
It's purpose is to provide an easy method to execute a GitLab runner,
to service CI/CD jobs for groups and/or repositories on
[gitlab.com](https://gitlab.com). It comes pre-configured to utilize
the gitlab-runner app to execute within a rootless podman container,
nested inside a rootless podman container.
This is intended to provide additional layers of security for the host,
when running potentially arbitrary CI/CD code. Though, the ultimate
responsibility still rests with the end-user to review the setup and
configuration relative to their own security situation/environment.
### Operation
This image supports `podman container runlabel`, or if your version
lacks this feature, Several labels are set on the image to support
easy registration and execution of a runner container using a special
bash command. See the examples below for more information.
#### Volume Ownership Bug
Some versions of podman contain a bug where named volumes aren't owned
by the namespaced user within a rootless container (i.e. in conjunction
with the --user option). Since the `podman` user/group inside the `pipglr`
container is known, it's possible to manually set/reset ownership:
```bash
VOLUME=pipglr-podman-root
podman volume create $VOLUME
cd $(podman unshare podman volume mount $VOLUME)
podman unshare chown 1000:1000
podman volume unmount $VOLUME
```
#### Runner registration
Each time the registration command is run, a new runner is added into
the configuration. If however, you simply need to update/modify the
configuration, please edit the `config.toml` file directly after mounting
(default) `pipglr-runner-config` (`/home/podman/.gitlab-runner/`) volume.
For modern versions of podman, registration can be performed with the
following commands:
```bash
IMAGE="=registry.gitlab.com/qontainers/pipglr:latest"
echo '<actual registration token>' | podman secret create REGISTRATION_TOKEN -
podman container runlabel $IMAGE register --secret REGISTRATION_TOKEN,type=env
```
Where `<actual registration token>` is the value obtained from the "runners"
settings page of a gitlab group or project.
Note: Some versions of podman don't support the `container runlabel` sub-command.
If this is the case, you may simulate it with the following command (in addition
to the other example commands above):
```bash
eval $(podman inspect --format=json $IMAGE | jq -r .[].Labels.register)
```
#### Runner Startup
With one or more runners successfully registered and configured, the GitLab
runner container may be launched with the following commands:
```bash
podman container runlabel $IMAGE run
```
As above, if you're missing the `container runlabel` sub-command, the following
may be used instead (assuming `$IMAGE` remains set):
```bash
$ eval $(podman inspect --format=json $IMAGE | jq -r .[].Labels.run)
```
#### Debugging
Before starting the runner, you may `export PODMAN_RUNNER_DEBUG=debug` to enable
debugging on the inner-podman. Whereas `export LOG_LEVEL=debug` can be used to
debug the gitlab-runner itself.
## Building
This image may be built simply with:
`podman build -t registry.gitlab.com/qontainers/pipglr:latest .`
This will utilize the latest stable version of podman and the latest
stable version of the gitlab runner.
### Notes
* If you wish to use the `testing` or `upstream` flavors of the podman base image,
simply build with `--build-arg FLAVOR=testing` (or `upstream`).
* Additionally or alternatively, you may specify a specific podman base image tag
with `--build-arg BASE_TAG=<value>`. Where `<value>` is either `latest`, the
podman image version (e.g. `v4`, `v4.2`, `v4.2.0`, etc.)
### Build-args
Several build arguments are available to control the output image:
* `FLAVOR` - Choose from 'stable', 'testing', or 'upstream'. These
select the podman base-image to utilize - which may affect the
podman version, features, and stability. For more information
see [the podmanimage README](https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/contrib/podmanimage/README.md).
* `BASE_TAG` - When `FLAVOR="stable"`, allows granular choice over the
exact podman version. Possible values include, `latest`, `vX`, `vX.Y`,
and `vX.Y.Z` (where, `X`, `Y`, and `Z` represent the podman semantic
version numbers). It's also possible to specify an image SHA.
* `EXCLUDE_PACKAGES` - A space-separated list of RPM packages to prevent
their existence in the final image. This is intended as a security measure
to limit the attack-surface should a gitlab-runner process escape it's
inner-container.
* `RUNNER_VERSION` - Allows specifying an exact gitlab runner version.
By default the `latest` is used, assuming the user is building a tagged
image anyway. Valid versions may be found on the [runner
release page](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/releases).
* `DNFCMD` - By default this is set to `dnf --setopt=tsflags=nodocs -y`.
However, if you'd like to volume-mount in `/var/cache/dnf` then you'll
need to use
`--build-arg DNFCMD="dnf --setopt=tsflags=nodocs -y --setopt keepcache=true`"
Note: Changing `DNFCMD` will cause build-time cache cleanup to be disabled.
* `TARGETARCH` - Supports inclusion of non-x86_64 gitlab runners. This
value is assumed to match the image's architecture. If using the
`--platform` build argument, it will be set automatically.
* `RUNNER_LISTEN_ADDRESS` - Disabled by default, setting this to the FQDN
and port supports various observability and debugging features of the
gitlab runner. For more information see the [gitlab runner advanced
configuration documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/configuration/advanced-configuration.html#the-global-section).
* `PRIVILEGED_RUNNER` - Defaults to 'false', may be set 'true'. When
`true`, this causes inner-containers to be created with the `--privileged`
flag. This is a potential security weakness, but is necessary for
(among other things) allowing nested container image builds.
* `RUNNER_TAGS` - Defaults to `podman_in_podman`, may be set to any comma-separated
list (with no spaces!) of tags. These show up in GitLab (not the runner
configuration), and determines where jobs are run.
* `RUNNER_UNTAGED` - Defaults to `true`, may be set to `false`. Allows
the runner to service jobs without any tags on them at all.
### Environment variables
Nearly every option to every gitlab-runner sub-command may be specified via
environment variable. Many important/required options are set in the
`Containerfile`. However it's entirely possible to pass them in via
either of the `podman container runlabel...` container commands. To
discover them, simply append `--help` to the end of the command.
For example:
```bash
podman container runlabel $IMAGE register --help
```