The system services of GitLab Runner
GitLab Runner uses the Go service
library
to detect the underlying OS and eventually install the service file based on
the init system.
service
installs, un-installs, starts, stops, and runs a program as a
service (daemon). Windows XP+, Linux (systemd, Upstart, and System V),
and macOS (launchd) are supported.When GitLab Runner is installed, the service file is automatically created:
-
systemd:
/etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service
-
Upstart:
/etc/init/gitlab-runner
Setting custom environment variables
You can run GitLab Runner with custom environment variables. For
example, you want to define GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS
in the runner’s environment. This action is different from the
environment
configuration setting,
which defines the variables that are automatically added to all jobs
executed by a runner.
Customizing systemd
For runners that use systemd, create /etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service.d/env.conf
using one Environment=key=value
line for each variable to export.
For example:
[Service]
Environment=GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/etc/gitlab-runner/gce-credentials.json
Then reload the configuration:
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart gitlab-runner.service
Customizing Upstart
For runners that use Upstart, create /etc/init/gitlab-runner.override
and export the
desired variables.
For example:
export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="/etc/gitlab-runner/gce-credentials.json"
Restart the runner for this to take effect.
Overriding default stopping behavior
In some cases, you might want to override the default behavior of the service.
For example, when you upgrade GitLab Runner, you should stop it gracefully until all running jobs are finished. However, systemd, Upstart, or other services might immediately restart the process without even noticing.
So, when you upgrade GitLab Runner, the installation script kills, and restarts the runner process that was probably handling new jobs at the time.
Overriding systemd
For runners that use systemd, create
/etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service.d/kill.conf
with the following
content:
[Service]
TimeoutStopSec=7200
KillSignal=SIGQUIT
After adding these two settings to the systemd unit configuration, you can
stop the runner. After the runner stops, systemd uses SIGQUIT
as the kill signal to stop the
process. Additionally, a two-hour timeout is set for the stop command. If any jobs don’t terminate gracefully
before this timeout, systemd kills the process by using SIGKILL
.
Overriding Upstart
For runners that use Upstart, create /etc/init/gitlab-runner.override
with the
following content:
kill signal SIGQUIT
kill timeout 7200
After adding these two settings to the Upstart unit configuration, you can stop the runner. Upstart does the same as systemd above.