Configure self-hosted runner for GitHub Actions

Introduction

Whats up everyone? This is Dev. This is a tutorial blog on how to configure a personal server or cloud to run GitHub Actions’ jobs. As prerequisite to understand this tutorial, you should know how GitHub Actions work.

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Tutorial

To set up a self hosted runner for a repository, firstly go to the project repository’s settings, click on Runners, under Actions section.

Then click on the New self-hosted runner.

Clicking on the button gives you a page, were you can select the OS of your server. Since, I have a Linux server, I will go for Linux.

Based on your OS, you will get all the commands to Download and Configure the runner. Since I am using a Linux server, following are the commands to Download and Configure the runner.

Step 1: Download the runner

# GitHub recommends downloading the runner in a directory named "actions-runner"
mkdir actions-runner && cd actions-runner

# The following command downloads the latest runner package.
curl -o actions-runner-linux-x64-2.321.0.tar.gz -L https://github.com/actions/runner/releases/download/v2.321.0/actions-runner-linux-x64-2.321.0.tar.gz

# The following command extracts the installer.
tar xzf ./actions-runner-linux-x64-2.321.0.tar.gz

Step 2: Configure the runner

# The following command creates a runner.
# The required token will already be there when you get the commands after choosing the OS.
./config.sh --url [GitHub Repo URL] --token [GitHub Repo Token]

Entering the above commands prompts you the following questions,

1. Enter the name of the runner group to add this runner to: You can add this runner to any group that you want to or simply press enter to add it to a default group.
2. Enter the name of the runner: You can give any name to this runner, or press enter to give it a default name.
3. This runner will have the following labels: 'self-hosted', 'Linux', 'X64' Enter any additional labels (ex. label-1,label-2): You can add labels to this runner, if you want to, or press enter to skip.
4. Enter name of the work folder: Similarly, you can enter a specific name to the work folder or press enter to give it a default name.

Once the runner is configured, now its time to run the runner using the bash script ./run.sh that is already present.

As soon as you run this script, the runner will start listening for jobs.

Step 3: Update the workflow yml file

Lastly, to make sure that the required jobs, runs on the self-hosted runner, use the following value of runs-on for the jobs.

runs-on: self-hosted

Now, whenever the workflow is triggered, the runner will log everything. To see how this works, practically whenever the workflow is triggered, check out the following video.

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Benefits

Using a self-hosted runner has several benefits such as,

• You can use more powerful machines than the limited resources of GitHub's hosted runners.
• You can use your specific operating system to match your production or testing environment.
• You can pre-install tools, libraries, and software to save time during build and deployment jobs.
• Self-hosted runners can be located closer to your code, artifacts, or databases, reducing latency during execution.
• You can set up caching mechanisms locally to avoid downloading dependencies repeatedly, improving speed.
• GitHub-hosted runners may experience delays when many jobs are queued.
• You can run self-hosted runners on your existing cloud infrastructure, taking advantage of reserved instances or spot pricing for cost savings.
• Your self-hosted runner can run inside your organization's secure network, keeping data and secrets safe.

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Final Words

This was the blog on how to configure self-hosted runner for GitHub Actions. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.