Files
act_runner/examples/vm/rootless-docker.md
Lunny Xiao 13dc9386fe Rename act_runner to runner (#850)
## Consumer-facing breaking changes

- **Go module path**: `gitea.com/gitea/act_runner` → `gitea.com/gitea/runner`. Anything importing `act/...` or `internal/...` packages (notably Gitea itself) must update imports.
- **Binary name**: `act_runner` → `gitea-runner`. Wrapper scripts, systemd units, init scripts, and documentation referencing the binary by `act_runner` will break.
- **Docker image**: `gitea/act_runner` → `gitea/runner` (incl. `*-dind-rootless` variants). Users pulling `gitea/act_runner:nightly` etc. will get stale images. Note: the image name is `gitea/runner`, not `gitea/gitea-runner`.
- **Release artifact paths**: S3 directory `act_runner/{{.Version}}` → `gitea-runner/{{.Version}}`, and artifact filenames change with the new project name. Existing download URLs break.
- **Metrics namespace**: changed from `act_runner` to `gitea_runner` (e.g. `act_runner_jobs_total` → `gitea_runner_jobs_total`); existing monitors/dashboards must be updated.
- **ldflags version path**: `gitea.com/gitea/act_runner/internal/pkg/ver.version` → `gitea.com/gitea/runner/internal/pkg/ver.version`. Affects anyone building with custom ldflags.
- **Kubernetes example resource names**: `act-runner` / `act-runner-vol` → `runner` / `runner-vol`. Users who copied the manifests verbatim will see resource churn on apply.
- **s6 service name**: `scripts/s6/act_runner/` → `scripts/s6/gitea-runner/` (image-internal; only matters for downstream image overrides).

Unchanged: YAML config field names, env vars (`GITEA_*`), CLI flags/subcommands, registration file format.
---------

Co-authored-by: silverwind <me@silverwind.io>
Reviewed-on: https://gitea.com/gitea/runner/pulls/850
Reviewed-by: Zettat123 <39446+zettat123@noreply.gitea.com>
Reviewed-by: silverwind <2021+silverwind@noreply.gitea.com>
Reviewed-by: Nicolas <bircni@icloud.com>
Co-authored-by: Lunny Xiao <xiaolunwen@gmail.com>
Co-committed-by: Lunny Xiao <xiaolunwen@gmail.com>
2026-04-30 20:12:51 +00:00

2.9 KiB

Using Rootless Docker withgitea-runner

Here is a simple example of how to set up gitea-runner with rootless Docker. It has been created with Debian, but other Linux should work the same way.

Note: This procedure needs a real login shell -- using sudo su or other method of accessing the account will fail some of the steps below.

As root:

  • Create a user to run both docker and gitea-runner. In this example, we use a non-privileged account called rootless.
 useradd -m rootless
 passwd rootless
 apt-get install -y uidmap # Not mentioned but needed for docker rootless.
  • Install docker-ce

  • (Recommended) Disable the system-wide Docker daemon

    systemctl disable --now docker.service docker.socket

As the rootless user:

for f in ./.bashrc.d/*.bash; do echo "Processing $f file..."; . "$f"; done
  • Create the .bashrc.d directory mkdir ~/.bashrc.d
  • Add the following lines to the /home/rootless/.bashrc.d/rootless-docker.bash:
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/home/rootless/.docker/run
export PATH=/home/rootless/bin:$PATH
export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/$(id -u)/docker.sock
  • Reboot. Ensure that the Docker process is working.
  • Create a directory for saving gitea-runner data between restarts

mkdir /home/rootless/gitea-runner

  • Register the runner from the data directory
 cd /home/rootless/gitea-runner
 gitea-runner register
  • Generate a gitea-runner configuration file in the data directory. Edit the file to adjust for the system.
 gitea-runner generate-config >/home/rootless/gitea-runner/config
  • Create a new user-levelsystemd unit file as /home/rootless/.config/systemd/user/gitea-runner.service with the following contents:
 Description=Gitea Actions runner
 Documentation=https://gitea.com/gitea/runner
 After=docker.service

 [Service]
 Environment=PATH=/home/rootless/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/home/rootless/bin:/home/rootless/bin:/home/rootless/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
 Environment=DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1001/docker.sock
 ExecStart=/usr/bin/gitea-runner daemon -c /home/rootless/gitea-runner/config
 ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
 WorkingDirectory=/home/rootless/gitea-runner
 TimeoutSec=0
 RestartSec=2
 Restart=always
 StartLimitBurst=3
 StartLimitInterval=60s
 LimitNOFILE=infinity
 LimitNPROC=infinity
 LimitCORE=infinity
 TasksMax=infinity
 Delegate=yes
 Type=notify
 NotifyAccess=all
 KillMode=mixed

 [Install]
 WantedBy=default.target
  • Reboot

After the system restarts, check that thegitea-runner is working and that the runner is connected to Gitea.

 systemctl --user status gitea-runner
 journalctl --user -xeu gitea-runner