Latest posts for tag systemd

.gitlab-ci.yml supports 'image' to allow selecting in which environment the script gets run. The documentation says "Used to specify a Docker image to use for the job", but it's clearly a bug in the documentation, because we can do it with nspawn-runner, too.

It turns out that most of the environment variables available to CI runs are also available to custom runner scripts. In this case, the value passed as image can be found as $CUSTOM_ENV_CI_JOB_IMAGE in the custom runner scripts environment.

After some experimentation I made this commit that makes every chroot under /var/lib/nspawn-runner available as an image:

# Set up 3 new images for CI jobs:
nspawn-runner chroot-create buster
nspawn-runner chroot-create bullseye
nspawn-runner chroot-create sid

That's it, CI scripts can now use image: buster, image: bullseye or image: sid, as they please. You can manually set up other chroots under /var/lib/nspawn-runner and they'll be automatically available.

You can also now choose a default image in config.toml in case the CI script doesn't specify one:

prepare_args = ["--verbose", "prepare", "--default-image=buster"]

This post is part of a series about trying to setup a gitlab runner based on systemd-nspawn. I published the polished result as nspawn-runner on GitHub.

gitlab-runner supports adding extra arguments to the custom scripts, and I can take advantage of that to pack all the various scripts that I prototyped so far into an all-in-one nspawn-runner command:

usage: nspawn-runner [-h] [-v] [--debug]
                     {chroot-create,chroot-login,prepare,run,cleanup,gitlab-config,toml}
                     ...

Manage systemd-nspawn machines for CI runs.

positional arguments:
  {chroot-create,chroot-login,prepare,run,cleanup,gitlab-config,toml}
                        sub-command help
    chroot-create       create a chroot that serves as a base for ephemeral
                        machines
    chroot-login        enter the chroot to perform maintenance
    prepare             start an ephemeral system for a CI run
    run                 run a command inside a CI machine
    cleanup             cleanup a CI machine after it's run
    gitlab-config       configuration step for gitlab-runner
    toml                output the toml configuration for the custom runner

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose         verbose output
  --debug               verbose output

chroot maintenance

chroot-create and chroot-login are similar to what pbuilder, cowbuilder, schroot, debspawn and similar tools do.

They only take a chroot name, and default the rest of paths to where nspawn-runner expects things to be under /var/lib/nspawn-runner.

gitlab-runner setup

nspawn-runner toml <chroot-name> outputs a snippet to add to /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml to configure the CI.

For example:`

$ ./nspawn-runner toml buster
[[runners]]
  name="buster"
  url="TODO"
  token="TODO"
  executor = "custom"
  builds_dir = "/var/lib/nspawn-runner/.build"
  cache_dir = "/var/lib/nspawn-runner/.cache"
  [runners.custom_build_dir]
  [runners.cache]
    [runners.cache.s3]
    [runners.cache.gcs]
    [runners.cache.azure]
  [runners.custom]
    config_exec = "/home/enrico/…/nspawn-runner/nspawn-runner"
    config_args = ["gitlab-config"]
    config_exec_timeout = 200
    prepare_exec = "/home/enrico/…/nspawn-runner/nspawn-runner"
    prepare_args = ["prepare", "buster"]
    prepare_exec_timeout = 200
    run_exec = "/home/enrico/dev/nspawn-runner/nspawn-runner"
    run_args = ["run"]
    cleanup_exec = "/home/enrico/…/nspawn-runner/nspawn-runner"
    cleanup_args = ["cleanup"]
    cleanup_exec_timeout = 200
    graceful_kill_timeout = 200
    force_kill_timeout = 200

One needs to remember to set url and token, and the runner is configured.

The end, for now

This is it, it works! Time will tell what issues or ideas will come up: for now, it's a pretty decent first version.

The various prepare, run, cleanup steps are generic enough that they can be used outside of gitlab-runner: feel free to build on them, and drop me a note if you find this useful!

Updated: Issues noticed so far, that could go into a new version:

• updating the master chroot would disturb the running CI jobs that use it. Using nspawn's btrfs-specfic features would prevent this problem, and possibly simplify the implementation even more.
• New step! trivially implementing support for multiple OS images

This post is part of a series about trying to setup a gitlab runner based on systemd-nspawn. I published the polished result as nspawn-runner on GitHub.

The plan

Back to custom runners, here's my plan:

• config can be a noop
• prepare starts the nspawn machine
• run runs scripts with machinectl shell
• cleanup runs machinectl stop

The scripts

Here are the scripts based on Federico's work:

base.sh with definitions sourced by all scripts:

MACHINE="run-$CUSTOM_ENV_CI_JOB_ID"
ROOTFS="/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/buster"
OVERLAY="/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/$MACHINE"

config.sh doing nothing:

#!/bin/sh
exit 0

prepare.sh starting the machine:

#!/bin/bash

source $(dirname "$0")/base.sh
set -eo pipefail

# trap errors as a CI system failure
trap "exit $SYSTEM_FAILURE_EXIT_CODE" ERR

logger "gitlab CI: preparing $MACHINE"

mkdir -p $OVERLAY

systemd-run \
  -p 'KillMode=mixed' \
  -p 'Type=notify' \
  -p 'RestartForceExitStatus=133' \
  -p 'SuccessExitStatus=133' \
  -p 'Slice=machine.slice' \
  -p 'Delegate=yes' \
  -p 'TasksMax=16384' \
  -p 'WatchdogSec=3min' \
  systemd-nspawn --quiet -D $ROOTFS \
    --overlay="$ROOTFS:$OVERLAY:/"
    --machine="$MACHINE" --boot --notify-ready=yes

run.sh running the provided scripts in the machine:

#!/bin/bash
logger "gitlab CI: running $@"
source $(dirname "$0")/base.sh

set -eo pipefail
trap "exit $SYSTEM_FAILURE_EXIT_CODE" ERR

systemd-run --quiet --pipe --wait --machine="$MACHINE" /bin/bash < "$1"

cleanup.sh stopping the machine and removing the writable overlay directory:

#!/bin/bash
logger "gitlab CI: cleanup $@"
source $(dirname "$0")/base.sh

machinectl stop "$MACHINE"
rm -rf $OVERLAY

Trying out the plan

I tried a manual invocation of gitlab-runner, and it worked perfectly:

# mkdir /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/build/
# mkdir /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/cache/
# gitlab-runner exec custom \
    --builds-dir /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/build/ \
    --cache-dir /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/cache/ \
    --custom-config-exec /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/config.sh \
    --custom-prepare-exec /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/prepare.sh \
    --custom-run-exec /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/run.sh \
    --custom-cleanup-exec /var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/cleanup.sh \
    tests
Runtime platform                                    arch=amd64 os=linux pid=18662 revision=775dd39d version=13.8.0
Running with gitlab-runner 13.8.0 (775dd39d)
Preparing the "custom" executor
Using Custom executor...
Running as unit: run-r1be98e274224456184cbdefc0690bc71.service
executor not supported                              job=1 project=0 referee=metrics
Preparing environment

Getting source from Git repository

Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
WARNING: Starting with version 14.0 the 'build_script' stage will be replaced with 'step_script': https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/26426

Job succeeded

Deploy

The remaining step is to deploy all this in /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml:

concurrent = 1
check_interval = 0

[session_server]
  session_timeout = 1800

[[runners]]
  name = "nspawn runner"
  url = "http://gitlab.siweb.local/"
  token = "…"
  executor = "custom"
  builds_dir = "/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/build/"
  cache_dir = "/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/cache/"
  [runners.custom_build_dir]
  [runners.cache]
    [runners.cache.s3]
    [runners.cache.gcs]
    [runners.cache.azure]
  [runners.custom]
    config_exec = "/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/config.sh"
    config_exec_timeout = 200
    prepare_exec = "/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/prepare.sh"
    prepare_exec_timeout = 200
    run_exec = "/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/run.sh"
    cleanup_exec = "/var/lib/gitlab-runner-custom-chroots/cleanup.sh"
    cleanup_exec_timeout = 200
    graceful_kill_timeout = 200
    force_kill_timeout = 200

Next steps

My next step will be polishing all this in a way that makes deploying and maintaining a runner configuration easy.

This post is part of a series about trying to setup a gitlab runner based on systemd-nspawn. I published the polished result as nspawn-runner on GitHub.

Here I try to figure out possible ways of invoking nspawn for the prepare, run, and cleanup steps of gitlab custom runners. The results might be useful invocations beyond Gitlab's scope of application.

I begin with a chroot which will be the base for our build environments:

debootstrap --variant=minbase --include=git,build-essential buster workdir

Fully ephemeral nspawn

This would be fantastic: set up a reusable chroot, mount readonly, run the CI in a working directory mounted on tmpfs. It sets up quickly, it cleans up after itself, and it would make prepare and cleanup noops:

mkdir workdir/var/lib/gitlab-runner
systemd-nspawn --read-only --directory workdir --tmpfs /var/lib/gitlab-runner "$@"

However, run gets run multiple times, so I need the side effects of run to persist inside the chroot between runs.

Also, if the CI uses a large amount of disk space, tmpfs may get into trouble.

nspawn with overlay

Federico used --overlay to keep the base chroot readonly while allowing persistent writes on a temporary directory on the filesystem.

Note that using --overlay requires systemd and systemd-container from buster-backports because of systemd bug #3847.

Example:

mkdir -p tmp-overlay
systemd-nspawn --quiet -D workdir \
  --overlay="`pwd`/workdir:`pwd`/tmp-overlay:/"

I can run this twice, and changes in the file system will persist between systemd-nspawn executions. Great! However, any process will be killed at the end of each execution.

machinectl

I can give a name to systemd-nspawn invocations using --machine, and it allows me to run multiple commands during the machine lifespan using machinectl and systemd-run.

In theory machinectl can also fully manage chroots and disk images in /var/lib/machines, but I haven't found a way with machinectl to start multiple machines sharing the same underlying chroot.

It's ok, though: I managed to do that with systemd-nspawn invocations.

I can use the --machine=name argument to systemd-nspawn to make it visible to machinectl. I can use the --boot argument to systemd-nspawn to start enough infrastructure inside the container to allow machinectl to interact with it.

This gives me any number of persistent and named running systems, that share the same underlying chroot, and can cleanup after themselves. I can run commands in any of those systems as I like, and their side effects persist until a system is stopped.

The chroot needs systemd and dbus for machinectl to be able to interact with it:

debootstrap --variant=minbase --include=git,systemd,systemd,build-essential buster workdir

Let's boot the machine:

mkdir -p overlay
systemd-nspawn --quiet -D workdir \
    --overlay="`pwd`/workdir:`pwd`/overlay:/"
    --machine=test --boot

Let's try machinectl:

# machinectl list
MACHINE CLASS     SERVICE        OS     VERSION ADDRESSES
test    container systemd-nspawn debian 10      -

1 machines listed.
# machinectl shell --quiet test /bin/ls -la /
total 60
[…]

To run commands, rather than machinectl shell, I need to use systemd-run --wait --pipe --machine=name, otherwise machined won't forward the exit code. The result however is pretty good, with working stdin/stdout/stderr redirection and forwarded exit code.

Good, I'm getting somewhere.

The terminal where I ran systemd-nspawn is currently showing a nice getty for the booted system, which is cute, and not what I want for the setup process of a CI.

Spawning machines without needing a terminal

machinectl uses /lib/systemd/system/systemd-nspawn@.service to start machines. I suppose there's limited magic in there: start systemd-nspawn as a service, use --machine to give it a name, and machinectl manages it as if it started it itself.

What if, instead of installing a unit file for each CI run, I try to do the same thing with systemd-run?

systemd-run \
  -p 'KillMode=mixed' \
  -p 'Type=notify' \
  -p 'RestartForceExitStatus=133' \
  -p 'SuccessExitStatus=133' \
  -p 'Slice=machine.slice' \
  -p 'Delegate=yes' \
  -p 'TasksMax=16384' \
  -p 'WatchdogSec=3min' \
  systemd-nspawn --quiet -D `pwd`/workdir \
    --overlay="`pwd`/workdir:`pwd`/overlay:/"
    --machine=test --boot

It works! I can interact with it using machinectl, and fine tune DevicePolicy as needed to lock CI machines down.

This setup has a race condition where if I try to run a command inside the machine in the short time window before the machine has finished booting, it fails:

# systemd-run […] systemd-nspawn […] ; machinectl --quiet shell test /bin/ls -la /
Failed to get shell PTY: Protocol error
# machinectl shell test /bin/ls -la /
Connected to machine test. Press ^] three times within 1s to exit session.
total 60
[…]

systemd-nspawn has the option --notify-ready=yes that solves exactly this problem:

# systemd-run […] systemd-nspawn […] --notify-ready=yes ; machinectl --quiet shell test /bin/ls -la /
Running as unit: run-r5a405754f3b740158b3d9dd5e14ff611.service
total 60
[…]

On nspawn's side, I should now have all I need.

Next steps

My next step will be wrapping it all together in a gitlab runner.

This is a first post in a series about trying to setup a gitlab runner based on systemd-nspawn. I published the polished result as nspawn-runner on GitHub.

The goal

I need to setup gitlab runners, and I try to not involve docker in my professional infrastructure if I can avoid it.

Let's try systemd-nspawn. It's widely available and reasonably reliable.

I'm not the first to have this idea: Federico Ceratto made a setup based on custom runners and Josef Kufner one based on ssh runners.

I'd like to skip the complication of ssh, and to expand Federico's version to persist not just filesystem changes but also any other side effect of CI commands. For example, one CI command may bring up a server and the next CI command may want to test interfacing with it.

Understanding gitlab-runner

First step: figuring out gitlab-runner.

Test runs of gitlab-runner

I found that I can run gitlab-runner manually without needing to go through a push to Gitlab. It needs a local git repository with a .gitlab-ci.yml file:

mkdir test
cd test
git init
cat > .gitlab-ci.yml << EOF
tests:
 script:
  - env | sort
  - pwd
  - ls -la
EOF
git add .gitlab-ci.yml
git commit -am "Created a test repo for gitlab-runner"

Then I can go in the repo and test gitlab-runner:

gitlab-runner exec shell tests

It doesn't seem to use /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml and it needs all the arguments passed to its command line: I used the shell runner for a simple initial test.

Later I'll try to brew a gitlab-runner exec custom invocation that uses nspawn.

Basics of custom runners

A custom runner runs a few scripts to manage the run:

• config, to allow to override the run configuration outputting JSON data
• prepare, to prepare the environment
• run, to run scripts in the environment (might be ran multiple times)
• cleanup to clean up the environment

run gets at least one argument which is a path to the script to run. The other scripts get no arguments by default.

The runner configuration controls the paths of the scripts to run, and optionally extra arguments to pass to them

Next steps

My next step will be to figure out possible ways of invoking nspawn for the prepare, run, and cleanup scripts.

This is part of a series of posts on the design and technical steps of creating Himblick, a digital signage box based on the Raspberry Pi 4.

We've started implementing reloading of the media player when media on disk changes.

One challenge when doing that, is that libreoffice doesn't always stop. Try this and you will see that the presentation keeps going:

$ loimpress --nodefault --norestore --nologo --nolockcheck --show example.odp
$ pkill -TERM loimpress

It turns out that loimpress forks various processes. After killing it, these processes will still be running:

/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --impress --nodefault --norestore --nologo --nolockcheck --show talk.odp
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin --impress --nodefault --norestore --nologo --nolockcheck --show talk.odp

Is there a way to run the media players in such a way that, if needed, they can easily be killed, together with any other process they might have spawned meanwhile?

systemd-run

Yes there is: systemd provides a systemd-run command to run simple commands under systemd's supervision:

$ systemd-run --scope --slice=player --user \
      loimpress --nodefault --norestore --nologo --nolockcheck --show media/talk.odp

This will run the player contained in a cgroup with a custom name, and we can simply use that name to stop all the things:

$ systemctl --user stop player.slice

Resulting python code

The result is this patch which simplifies the code, and isolates and easily kills all subprocesses run as players.

This is part of a series of posts on the design and technical steps of creating Himblick, a digital signage box based on the Raspberry Pi 4.

Another nice to have in a system like Himblick is the root filesystem mounted readonly, with a volatile tempfs overlay on top. This would kind of always guarantee a clean boot without leftovers from a previous run, especially in a system where the most likely mode of shutdown is going to be pulling the plug.

This won't be a guarantee about SD issues developing over time in such a scenario, but it should at least cover the software side of things.

(continue reading)

This is part of a series of posts on the design and technical steps of creating Himblick, a digital signage box based on the Raspberry Pi 4.

Time to setup ssh. We want to have admin access to the pi user, and we'd like to have a broader access to a different, locked down user, to use to manage media on the boxes via sftp.

(continue reading)

This is part of a series of posts on the design and technical steps of creating Himblick, a digital signage box based on the Raspberry Pi 4.

A RaspberryPi boots using a little FAT partition which contains kernel, device tree, configuration, and everything else necessary to boot.

It has the conveniente of being able to plug the SD card into pretty much any system, and tweak the knobs that are exposed through it.

While we don't expect that people would want to modify the config.txt that controls the boot process, we would like to give people a convenient way to set up things like host name (which makes the device findable on the net), timezone, screen orientation, and wifi passwords.

(continue reading)

This is part of a series of posts on the design and technical steps of creating Himblick, a digital signage box based on the Raspberry Pi 4.

In modern times, there are tools for provisioning systems that do useful things and allow to store an entire system configuration in text files committed to git. They are good in being able to reproducibly setup a system, and being able to inspect its contents from looking at the provisioning configuration instead of wading into it.

I normally use Ansible. It does have a chroot connector, but it has some serious limitations.

The biggest issue is that ansible's chroot connector does not mount /dev, /proc and so on, which greatly limits what can be run inside it. Specifically, installing many .deb packages will fail.

We work around it by copying Ansible needs inside the chroot (including Ansible itself), and then run it under systemd-nspawn using the local connector.

(continue reading)