Docker runner doesn't pick up jobs

Hi. I’m trying to setup a simple CI/CD pipeline to deploy changes from a specific branch (test branch for now) and it doesn’t work because of some problems with runners.

I’m trying to create a self-hosted Docker runner on my Ubuntu Desktop 23.10

1. I start with going to Settings - CI/CD - Runners - Create new runner within my project. There are no project or shared runners at this point. I created a new project runner.
   
   

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I got

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As far as I understand, I should now install the local runner on my machine (I’m going with a self-hosted runner for now). I’m going to use Docker, so I’m using the command from the docs:

docker run -d --name gitlab-runner --restart always \
  -v /srv/gitlab-runner/config:/etc/gitlab-runner \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  gitlab/gitlab-runner:latest

This pulls the image and creates a gitlab-runner container successfully.

As far as I understand, now I should go inside the container and run the command from the screenshot above, right? So I’m doing this:

docker exec -it gitlab-runner bash

gitlab-runner register  --url https://gitlab.********.com  --token glrt-***********************

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This is my /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml inside the container:

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And I can see a success pop-ups on the gitlab runner creation page

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I’m going back to the runner page and I can see my runner with a green mark

So it should be fine, right?

In the Variables section I registered the needed variables to connect to the Dev server via SSH:

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I created a simple .gitlab-ci.yml file in the root of my project to test the pipeline is working:

image: node:20

stages:
  - deploy

pages:
  stage: deploy
  before_script:
    - 'command -v ssh-agent >/dev/null || ( apk add --update openssh )'
    - eval $(ssh-agent -s)
    - echo "$SSH_PRIVATE_KEY" | tr -d '\r' | ssh-add -
    - mkdir -p ~/.ssh
    - chmod 700 ~/.ssh
    - ssh-keyscan $VM_IPADDRESS >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
    - chmod 644 ~/.ssh/known_hosts
  script:
    - ssh $SSH_USER@$VM_IPADDRESS "hostname && echo 'Welcome!!!' > welcome.txt"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - public
  only:
    - feature/ci

I created a commit in my feature/ci branch and pushed to GitLab. And the pipeline stuck.

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I re-created and re-configured everything multiple times but the pipeline never run.

P.S. Also I can see some logs running docker logs gitlab-runner, see the screenshot in the 1st response below.

Also, I can see some errors running docker logs gitlab-runner

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Hi,

By default, GitLab Runners will pick up only jobs that have the same tag, unless you check the option to run untagged jobs as described here. So, I’d start with adding a tag to your CI Config:

default:
  tags:
    - admin

Generally, tags are very useful to define which jobs / pipelines should be run with which runner (executor), as it can happen that a job has some special requirements in order to run (e.g. different host / platform, etc).

Thank you, this solved my issue!

PS. And I already set my first working deployment pipeline using gitlab CI/CD, I’m happy