Setup self-hosted GitHub runner¶

Learn how to setup self-hosted GitHub runner

With self-hosted runners, you can create custom hardware configurations that meet your needs with processing power or memory to run larger jobs, install software available on your local network, and choose an operating system not offered by GitHub-hosted runners. — GitHub

1. Go to your repository in GitHub.

2. In Settings > Actions > Runners, click on New self-hosted runner button.

3. Choose Runner Image and Architecture. Do take note that, the architecture is based on your device specifications. For my case is x64.

4. Download the necessary files. You can find all these commands on the same page where you select Runner Image and Architecture.

   Windows Runner

   PowerShell

   # Create a folder under the drive root
   mkdir actions-runner; cd actions-runner
   
   # Download the latest runner installer file
   
   Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://github.com/actions/runner/releases/download/v2.311.0/actions-runner-win-x64-2.311.0.zip -OutFile actions-runner-win-x64-2.311.0.zip
   
   # Extract the installer
   
   Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem ; [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory("$PWD/actions-runner-win-x64-2.311.0.zip", "$PWD")
   

   Linux Runner

   Bash

   # Create a folderr under drive root
   mkdir actions-runner && cd actions-runner
   
   # Download the latest runner installer file
   curl -o actions-runner-linux-x64-2.311.0.tar.gz -L https://github.com/actions/runner/releases/download/v2.311.0/actions-runner-linux-x64-2.311.0.tar.gz
   
   # Extract the installer
   tar xzf ./actions-runner-linux-x64-2.311.0.tar.gz
   

   Here is the output after executing all these commands.

5. Configure and start the runner.

   Windows Runner

   PowerShell

   # Configure the runner
   ./config.cmd --url <github-repo-url> --token <token> --labels <lists-of-label>
   
   # Start the runner
   ./run.cmd
   

   Linux Runner

   Bash

   # Configure the runner
   ./config.sh --url <github-repo-url> --token <token> --labels <lists-of-label>
   
   # Start the runner
   ./run.sh
   

   Programmatically assign labels to a self-hosted runner is optional. Here is the sample configuration of the runner.

   

   Verify your runner being setup.

6. Using your self-hosted runner. Create a new file under .github/workflows/test.yaml.

   test.yaml

   name: Test runner
   on:
     push:
   jobs:
     build:
       runs-on: ["self-hosted"]
       steps:
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@v4
       - name: list directory
         run: ls
   

   Here is the output after all the CI jobs are completed.

7. Optional: You can configure the self-hosted runner application as a service