github-act-runner

README

github-act-runner

A reverse engineered github actions compatible self-hosted runner using nektos/act to execute your workflow steps. Unlike the official actions/runner, this works on more systems like freebsd.

Usage

Dependencies

Actions Type	Host	JobContainer (only Linux, Windows, macOS or Openbsd)
(composite) run steps	bash or explicit shell in your PATH (prior running the runner)	Docker (*1), bash or explicit shell in your PATH (inside your container image)
nodejs actions	node (*2) in your PATH (prior running the runner)	Docker (*1), node (*2) in your PATH (inside your container image)
docker actions	Not available	Docker (*1)
service container	Not available	Not available
composite actions with uses	v0.1.0	v0.1.0
composite actions with if	v0.1.0	v0.1.0
composite actions with continue-on-error	v0.1.0	v0.1.0

Docker Daemon via DOCKER_HOST

(*1) Reachable docker daemon use DOCKER_HOST to specify a remote host.

NodeJS via PATH

(*2) For best compatibility with existing nodejs actions, please add nodejs in version 12 to your PATH, newer nodejs versions might lead to workflow failures.

Usage for github releases

Follow the instruction of https://github.com/ChristopherHX/github-act-runner/releases/latest.

Usage for debian repository

Add debian repository

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-act-runner.list file:

deb http://gagis.hopto.org/repo/chrishx/deb all main

Import repository public key

curl -sS http://gagis.hopto.org/repo/chrishx/pubkey.gpg | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/chrishx-github-act-runner.asc

Install the runner

sudo apt update
sudo apt install github-act-runner

Add new runner

github-act-runner new --url <url> --name <runner-name> --labels <labels> --token <runner-registration-token>

where

• <url> - github repository (e.g. https://github.com/user/repo), organization (e.g. https://github.com/organization) or enterprise URL
• <runner-name> - choose a name for your runner
• <labels> - comma-separated list of labels, e.g. label1,label2. Optional.
• <runner-registration-token>

The new runner will be registered and started as background service.

See help:

github-act-runner --help

For more info about managing runners.

Usage from source

You need at least go 1.16 to use this runner from source. Some targets fail to build with go 1.17.

Getting Source

git clone https://github.com/ChristopherHX/github-act-runner.git --recursive

Update Source

git pull
git submodule update

Configure

go run . configure --url <github-repo-or-org-or-enterprise> --name <name of this runner> -l label1,label2 --token <runner registration token>

<github-repo-or-org-or-enterprise>

E.g. https://github.com/ChristopherHX/github-act-runner for this repo

<name of this runner>

E.g. Test

<runner registration token>

	You find the token in
Repository	<github-repo>/settings/actions/runners/new
Organization	<github-url>/organizations/<github-org-name>/settings/actions/runners/new
Enterprise	In action runner settings of your enterprise

E.g. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWAWWWWWWAWWWWWWW

Labels

Replace label1,label2 with a custom list of runner labels.

Run

go run . run

Known Limitations

• This runner ignores pre and post steps of javascript actions
• actions/cache is incompatible and won't be able to save your cache
  • Using https://github.com/actions/toolkit/tree/main/packages/cache directly should allow you to save your cache
• You won't be able to run steps after a failure without using continue-on-error: true Implemented since v0.2.0 via nektos/act contribution ( https://github.com/nektos/act/commit/1891c72ab158508e36009d16b24913fa5836422b )
• The expression interpreter of this runner doesn't always behave like you would expect and you might see errors or other expressions which shouldn't work are working here ( based on javascript, not on actions/runner ) v0.2.0 uses rhysd/actionlint instead with much better compatibility https://github.com/nektos/act/pull/908
• Most issues of https://github.com/nektos/act/issues applies to this runner as well

How does it work?

This runner implements the same protocol as the actions/runner in a different way, as such it can be used as a self-hosted runner exactly like the official one. To get this working, I initially built an actions service replacement ChristopherHX/runner.server for the official actions/runner. My own actions service allowed me to implement the base protocol for this runner and debug how the protocol is serializeing and parsing json messages, while still being incompatible with github. After testing against github, the first thing happend was loosing the ability to run any github action workflows on my test repository. My invalid attempts to register a custom runner caused unrecoverable Internal Server Errors on githubs side, I decided to delete this test repository. After some work everything worked and finally it is safe to register this runner against github. To execute steps this runner translates the github actions job request to be compatible with a modified version of nektos/act ( ChristopherHX/act ), which adds a local task runner without the need for docker and increased platform support, also the log output of act gets redirected to github for live logs and storing log files.

Does this runner work without github?

Yes, you can use this runner together with ChristopherHX/runner.server locally on your PC without depending on compatibility with github. Also CI tests for this runner are using ChristopherHX/runner.server, this avoids requiring a PAT for github to run tests and enshures that you are always able to run it locally without github.