GitLab Runner Commands

GitLab Runner contains a set of commands with which you register, manage and
run your builds.

You can check a recent list of commands by executing:

gitlab-runner --help

Append --help after a command to see its specific help page:

gitlab-runner <command> --help

Table of Contents

Using environment variables

Most of the commands support environment variables as a method to pass the
configuration to the command.

You can see the name of the environment variable when invoking --help for a
specific command. For example, you can see below the help message for the run
command:

gitlab-runner run --help

The output would be similar to:

NAME:
   gitlab-runner run - run multi runner service

USAGE:
   gitlab-runner run [command options] [arguments...]

OPTIONS:
   -c, --config "/Users/ayufan/.gitlab-runner/config.toml"  Config file [$CONFIG_FILE]

Running in debug mode

Debug mode is especially useful when looking for the cause of some undefined
behavior or error.

To run a command in debug mode, prepend the command with --debug:

gitlab-runner --debug <command>

Super-user permission

Commands that access the configuration of GitLab Runner behave differently when
executed as super-user (root). The file location depends on the user executing
the command.

Be aware of the notice that is written when executing the commands that are
used for running builds, registering services or managing registered runners:

gitlab-runner run

INFO[0000] Starting multi-runner from /Users/ayufan/.gitlab-runner/config.toml ...  builds=0
WARN[0000] Running in user-mode.
WARN[0000] Use sudo for system-mode:
WARN[0000] $ sudo gitlab-runner...

You should use user-mode if you are really sure that this is a mode that you
want to work with. Otherwise, prefix your command with sudo:

sudo gitlab-runner run

INFO[0000] Starting multi-runner from /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml ...  builds=0
INFO[0000] Running in system-mode.

In the case of Windows you may need to run the Command Prompt in
Administrative Mode.

Configuration file

GitLab Runner configuration uses the TOML format.

The file to be edited can be found in:

/etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml on *nix systems when gitlab-runner is
executed as super-user (root)
~/.gitlab-runner/config.toml on *nix systems when gitlab-runner is
executed as non-root
./config.toml on other systems

Most of the commands accept an argument to specify a custom configuration file,
allowing you to have a multiple different configurations on a single machine.
To specify a custom configuration file use the -c or --config flag, or use
the CONFIG_FILE environment variable.

Signals

It is possible to use system signals to interact with GitLab Runner. The
following commands support the following signals:

Command	Signal	Action
`register`	SIGINT	Cancel runner registration and delete if it was already registered
`run`, `exec`, `run-single`	SIGINT, SIGTERM	Abort all running builds and exit as soon as possible. Use twice to exit now (forceful shutdown).
`run`, `exec`, `run-single`	SIGQUIT	Stop accepting a new builds. Exit as soon as currently running builds do finish (graceful shutdown).
`run`	SIGHUP	Force to reload configuration file

Commands overview

This is what you see if you run gitlab-runner without any arguments:

NAME:
   gitlab-runner - a GitLab Runner

USAGE:
   gitlab-runner [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

VERSION:
   1.0.0~beta.142.ga8d37f3 (a8d37f3)

AUTHOR(S):
   Kamil Trzci艅ski <[email protected]>

COMMANDS:
   exec     execute a build locally
   run      run multi runner service
   register register a new runner
   install  install service
   uninstall    uninstall service
   start    start service
   stop     stop service
   restart  restart service
   status   get status of a service
   run-single   start single runner
   unregister   unregister specific runner
   verify   verify all registered runners
   archive  find and archive files (internal)
   artifacts    upload build artifacts (internal)
   extract  extract files from an archive (internal)
   help, h  Shows a list of commands or help for one command

Below we will explain what each command does in detail.

The following commands allow you to register a new runner, or list and verify
them if they are still registered.

The above commands support the following arguments:

Parameter	Default	Description
`--config`	See the configuration file section	Specify a custom configuration file to be used

gitlab-runner register

This command registers your GitLab Runner in GitLab. The registered runner is
added to the configuration file.
You can use multiple configurations in a single GitLab Runner. Executing
gitlab-runner register adds a new configuration entry, it doesn’t remove the
previous ones.

There are two options to register a Runner, interactive and non-interactive.

Interactive registration

This command is usually used in interactive mode (default). You will be
asked multiple questions during a Runner’s registration.

This question can be pre-filled by adding arguments when invoking the registration command:

gitlab-runner register --name my-runner --url http://gitlab.example.com --registration-token my-registration-token

Or by configuring the environment variable before the register command:

export CI_SERVER_URL=http://gitlab.example.com
export RUNNER_NAME=my-runner
export REGISTRATION_TOKEN=my-registration-token
export REGISTER_NON_INTERACTIVE=true
gitlab-runner register

To check all possible arguments and environments execute:

gitlab-runner register --help

Non-interactive registration

It’s possible to use registration in non-interactive / unattended mode.

You can specify the arguments when invoking the registration command:

gitlab-runner register --non-interactive <other-arguments>

Or by configuring the environment variable before the register command:

<other-environment-variables>
export REGISTER_NON_INTERACTIVE=true
gitlab-runner register

gitlab-runner list

This command lists all runners saved in the
configuration file.

gitlab-runner verify

This command checks if the registered runners can connect to GitLab, but it
doesn’t verify if the runners are being used by the GitLab Runner service. An
example output is:

Verifying runner... is alive                        runner=fee9938e
Verifying runner... is alive                        runner=0db52b31
Verifying runner... is alive                        runner=826f687f
Verifying runner... is alive                        runner=32773c0f

To delete the old and removed from GitLab runners, execute the following
command.

Warning:
This operation cannot be undone, it will update the configuration file, so
make sure to have a backup of config.toml before executing it.

gitlab-runner verify --delete

gitlab-runner unregister

This command allows to unregister one of the registered runners. It expects either
a full URL and the runner’s token, or the runner’s name. First get the runner’s details by
executing gitlab-runner list:

test-runner     Executor=shell Token=t0k3n URL=http://gitlab.example.com

Then use this information to unregister it, using one of the following commands.

Warning:
This operation cannot be undone, it will update the configuration file, so
make sure to have a backup of config.toml before executing it.

By URL and token:

gitlab-runner unregister --url http://gitlab.example.com/ --token t0k3n

By name:

Note: If there is more than one runner with the given name, only the first one will be removed

gitlab-runner unregister --name test-runner

The following commands allow you to manage the runner as a system or user
service. Use them to install, uninstall, start and stop the runner service.

All service related commands accept these arguments:

Parameter	Default	Description
`--service-name`	`gitlab-runner`	Specify custom service name
`--config`	See the configuration file	Specify a custom configuration file to use

gitlab-runner install

This command installs GitLab Runner as a service. It accepts different sets of
arguments depending on which system it’s run on.

When run on Windows or as super-user, it accepts the --user flag which
allows you to drop privileges of builds run with the shell executor.

Parameter	Default	Description
`--service-name`	`gitlab-runner`	Specify a custom name for the Runner
`--working-directory`	the current directory	Specify the root directory where all data will be stored when builds will be run with the shell executor
`--user`	`root`	Specify the user which will be used to execute builds
`--password`	none	Specify the password for the user that will be used to execute the builds

gitlab-runner uninstall

This command stops and uninstalls the GitLab Runner from being run as an
service.

gitlab-runner start

This command starts the GitLab Runner service.

gitlab-runner stop

This command stops the GitLab Runner service.

gitlab-runner restart

This command stops and then starts the GitLab Runner service.

gitlab-runner status

This command prints the status of the GitLab Runner service.

Multiple services

By specifying the --service-name flag, it is possible to have multiple GitLab
Runner services installed, with multiple separate configurations.

This command allows to fetch and process builds from GitLab.

gitlab-runner run

This is main command that is executed when GitLab Runner is started as a
service. It reads all defined Runners from config.toml and tries to run all
of them.

The command is executed and works until it receives a signal.

It accepts the following parameters.

Parameter	Default	Description
`--config`	See #configuration-file	Specify a custom configuration file to be used
`--working-directory`	the current directory	Specify the root directory where all data will be stored when builds will be run with the shell executor
`--user`	the current user	Specify the user that will be used to execute builds
`--syslog`	`false`	Send all logs to SysLog (Unix) or EventLog (Windows)

gitlab-runner run-single

This is a supplementary command that can be used to run only a single build
from a single GitLab instance. It doesn’t use any configuration file and
requires to pass all options either as parameters or environment variables.
The GitLab URL and Runner token need to be specified too.

For example:

gitlab-runner run-single -u http://gitlab.example.com -t my-runner-token --executor docker --docker-image ruby:2.1

You can see all possible configuration options by using the --help flag:

gitlab-runner run-single --help

gitlab-runner exec

This command allows you to run builds locally, trying to replicate the CI
environment as much as possible. It doesn’t need to connect to GitLab, instead
it reads the local .gitlab-ci.yml and creates a new build environment in
which all the build steps are executed.

This command is useful for fast checking and verifying .gitlab-ci.yml as well
as debugging broken builds since everything is run locally.

When executing exec you need to specify the executor and the job name that is
present in .gitlab-ci.yml. The command should be executed from the root
directory of your Git repository that contains .gitlab-ci.yml.

gitlab-runner exec will clone the current state of the local Git repository.
Make sure you have committed any changes you want to test beforehand.

For example, the following command will execute the job named tests locally
using a shell executor:

gitlab-runner exec shell tests

To see a list of available executors, run:

gitlab-runner exec

To see a list of all available options for the shell executor, run:

gitlab-runner exec shell

If you want to use the docker executor with the exec command, use that in
context of docker-machine shell or boot2docker shell. This is required to
properly map your local directory to the directory inside the Docker container.

Limitations of `gitlab-runner exec`

Some of the features may or may not work, like: cache or artifacts.

gitlab-runner exec docker can only be used when Docker is installed locally.
This is needed because GitLab Runner is using host-bind volumes to access the
Git sources.

Internal commands

GitLab Runner is distributed as a single binary and contains a few internal
commands that are used during builds.

gitlab-runner artifacts-downloader

Download the artifacts archive from GitLab.

gitlab-runner artifacts-uploader

Upload the artifacts archive to GitLab.

gitlab-runner cache-archiver

Create a cache archive, store it locally or upload it to an external server.

gitlab-runner cache-extractor

Restore the cache archive from a locally or externally stored file.

Troubleshooting

Below are some common pitfalls.

Usually the service related commands require
administrator privileges:

On Unix (Linux, OSX, FreeBSD) systems, prefix gitlab-runner with sudo
On Windows systems use the elevated command prompt.
Run an Administrator command prompt ([How to][prompt]).
The simplest way is to write Command Prompt in the Windows search field,
right click and select Run as administrator. You will be asked to confirm
that you want to execute the elevated command prompt.

gitlab runner 指令指南