How to setup GitHub hosted runner with a simple cloud-init script

Nov 14, 2023

Edit: RunsOn is now available as a modern way to setup self-hosted GitHub Actions runners!

While waiting for the RunsOn ephemeral self-hosted runners service, here is a short bash script, that can also be used as cloud-init script for launching GitHub hosted runners non-interactively:

#!/bin/bash -ex

set -o pipefail

RUNNER_ORG=YOUR_ORG
RUNNER_TOKEN=YOUR_TOKEN
RUNNER_LABELS=self-hosted,x64,docker
# update this to the latest version
RUNNER_VERSION=2.311.0

# Install docker, then additional packages and stuff:
apt update -qq
apt install -y ruby awscli
curl https://nodejs.org/dist/v20.9.0/node-v20.9.0-linux-x64.tar.xz | tar -xJf - --strip=1 -C /usr/local/

curl https://get.docker.com | sh

cat > /etc/cron.daily/docker-prune <<EOF
docker image prune -a --filter="until=96h" --force
docker volume prune --force
EOF
chmod a+x /etc/cron.daily/docker-prune

# Create dedicated user
useradd -m -d /home/runner -s /bin/bash runner
usermod -G docker runner

# Download and install runner script
cd /home/runner
mkdir -p actions-runner
cd actions-runner
curl -o actions-runner-linux-x64-$RUNNER_VERSION.tar.gz -L https://github.com/actions/runner/releases/download/v$RUNNER_VERSION/actions-runner-linux-x64-$RUNNER_VERSION.tar.gz
tar xzf ./actions-runner-linux-x64-$RUNNER_VERSION.tar.gz

# Configure runner
su - runner -c "
/home/runner/actions-runner/config.sh --url https://github.com/$RUNNER_ORG --token $RUNNER_TOKEN --labels $RUNNER_LABELS --unattended
"

# Setup systemd scripts
cd /home/runner/actions-runner/
./svc.sh install runner
./svc.sh start
./svc.sh status

You should be good to go!

Note that those runners won’t be ephemeral, so usual caveats apply regarding security of those runners.