• Prerequisites
• Installing the Runner
  • APT pinning
• Updating the Runner
• Manually download packages
• Disable skel
• Upgrading to GitLab Runner 10

Install GitLab Runner using the official GitLab repositories

We provide packages for the currently supported versions of Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, RHEL, Fedora, and CentOS.

Prerequisites

If you want to use the Docker executor, make sure to install Docker before using the Runner. Read how to install Docker for your distribution.

Installing the Runner

To install the Runner:

1. Add GitLab’s official repository:

   # For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
   curl -L https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/runner/gitlab-runner/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
   
   # For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
   curl -L https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/runner/gitlab-runner/script.rpm.sh | sudo bash
   

   Note: Debian users should use APT pinning.

2. Install the latest version of GitLab Runner, or skip to the next step to install a specific version:

   Note: Debian buster users should disable skel to prevent No such file or directory Job failures

   # For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
   sudo apt-get install gitlab-runner
   
   # For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
   sudo yum install gitlab-runner
   

3. To install a specific version of GitLab Runner:

   # for DEB based systems
   apt-cache madison gitlab-runner
   sudo apt-get install gitlab-runner=10.0.0
   
   # for RPM based systems
   yum list gitlab-runner --showduplicates | sort -r
   sudo yum install gitlab-runner-10.0.0-1
   

4. Register the Runner

After completing the step above, the Runner should be started already being ready to be used by your projects!

Make sure that you read the FAQ section which describes some of the most common problems with GitLab Runner.

APT pinning

A native package called gitlab-ci-multi-runner is available in Debian Stretch. By default, when installing gitlab-runner, that package from the official repositories will have a higher priority.

If you want to use our package, you should manually set the source of the package. The best way is to add the pinning configuration file.

If you do this, the next update of the Runner’s package - whether it will be done manually or automatically - will be done using the same source:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/pin-gitlab-runner.pref
Explanation: Prefer GitLab provided packages over the Debian native ones
Package: gitlab-runner
Pin: origin packages.gitlab.com
Pin-Priority: 1001
EOF

Updating the Runner

Simply execute to install latest version:

# For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gitlab-runner

# For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
sudo yum update
sudo yum install gitlab-runner

Manually download packages

You can manually download and install the packages if necessary.

Disable skel

Sometimes the default skeleton (skel) directory causes issues for GitLab Runner, and it fails to run a job. When installing GitLab Runner, set the environment variable GITLAB_RUNNER_DISABLE_SKEL to true before you install the package. This will create the $HOME directory without the files inside of skel:

For example:

# For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
export GITLAB_RUNNER_DISABLE_SKEL=true; sudo -E apt-get install gitlab-runner

# For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
export GITLAB_RUNNER_DISABLE_SKEL=true; sudo -E yum install gitlab-runner

Upgrading to GitLab Runner 10

To upgrade GitLab Runner from a version prior to 10.0:

1. Remove the old repository:

   # For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
   sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/runner_gitlab-ci-multi-runner.list
   
   # For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
   sudo rm /etc/yum.repos.d/runner_gitlab-ci-multi-runner.repo
   

2. Follow the same steps when installing the Runner, without registering it and using the new repository.

3. For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora, run:

   sudo /usr/share/gitlab-runner/post-install
   

   Important: If you don’t run the above command, you will be left with no service file. Follow issue #2786 for more information.