Deploying a Gitlab CI Runner on Poky/ZC706

Install the Gitlab CI runner binary for ARM

The binary for ARM architecture is downloaded and installed on the ZC706 machine via:

$ wget -O /usr/local/bin/gitlab-ci-multi-runner https://gitlab-ci-multi-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/binaries/gitlab-ci-multi-runner-linux-arm
$ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitlab-ci-multi-runner
$ useradd --comment 'GitLab Runner' --create-home gitlab-runner --shell /bin/bash

The Gitlab CI runner is configured by running the following command. Enter the URL and token to be found on the project's Gitlab settings pages (Settings -> Runners)

$ gitlab-ci-multi-runner register

This will register the CI runner with the Gitlab service. In order to run the service, place the gitlab-ci-runner file in /etc/init.d and run

$ chmod 755 /etc/init.d/gitlab-ci-runner
$ chown root:root /etc/init.d/gitlab-ci-runner
$ update-rc.d gitlab-ci-runner defaults

This is necessary since the automated install script of the Gitlab CI Multi Runner does not know how to treat the Poky Linux distribution correctly.

Checking the status

The status of the service can be checked either via the Gitlab service web interface or on the runner machine using:

$ /etc/init.d/gitlab-ci-runner status

The service is started and stopped via

$ /etc/init.d/gitlab-ci-runner start
$ /etc/init.d/gitlab-ci-runner stop