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Allow CI image option to override base image name (VirtualBox & Parallels)

Alexander Kutelev requested to merge kutelev/gitlab-runner:parallels_image_name into main

What does this MR do?

Allows to override base_name (TOML's) with a value from image (YAML's). It allows to use a single Runner for running different VMs.

base_name parameter present for both VirtualBox & Parallels Executors:

By default, for the sake of backward compatibility, YAML's image is ignored. Only VM specified by TOML's base_name is allowed to be used. If any image which is not equal to base_name is specified in YAML file a user is shown with a warning:

WARNING: .gitlab-ci.yml provided image "test2" is ignored, default VM image is being used instead.

In order to make overriding possible allowed_images parameter (a new one) needs to be provided. allowed_images is a list of regular expressions, an example is below:

  [runners.virtualbox]
    base_name = "test1"
    allowed_images = ["^test[1-2]$"]

This configuration allows to use test1 and test2 VM images, everything else is forbidden. If base_name is not explicitly allowed by allowed_images it is assumed to be allowed implicitly.

If anything which is not allowed is tried to be referenced the following error messages is shown:

ERROR: The test3 is not present on list of allowed images
- ^test[1-2]$
Please check runner's configuration
ERROR: Preparation failed: invalid image

In order to allow usage of any image the following configuration can be used:

  [runners.virtualbox]
    base_name = "test1"
    allowed_images = [".*"]

Why was this MR needed?

Without it a separate Runner must be registered for each VM image. For example I have 6 physical Mac devices and 3 different VM images. Each physical Mac have all 3 VMs deployed. Depending on a being built project a different VM must be used. To give a chance to users to use any VM image with any physical Runner I had to register 18 logical Runners. This approach does not scale enough. Having 10 physical devices with 10 VM images I will have to register 100 Runners.

In a real life I have the following TOML configuration file on each physical Mac device:

concurrent = 1
check_interval = 0

[[runners]]
  name = "***************"
  output_limit = 100000
  url = "*************************************"
  token = "******************************"
  executor = "parallels"
  [runners.ssh]
    user = "runner"
    password = "1234"
    host = "localhost"
  [runners.parallels]
    base_name = "Image1"
    disable_snapshots = false
  [runners.cache]

[[runners]]
  name = "***************"
  output_limit = 100000
  url = "*************************************"
  token = "******************************"
  executor = "parallels"
  [runners.ssh]
    user = "runner"
    password = "1234"
    host = "localhost"
  [runners.parallels]
    base_name = "Image2"
    disable_snapshots = false
  [runners.cache]

[[runners]]
  name = "***************"
  output_limit = 100000
  url = "*************************************"
  token = "******************************"
  executor = "parallels"
  [runners.ssh]
    user = "runner"
    password = "1234"
    host = "localhost"
  [runners.parallels]
    base_name = "Image3"
    disable_snapshots = false
  [runners.cache]

Are there points in the code the reviewer needs to double check?

At the moment I want only an idea and a drafted implementation to be reviewed. If the idea is accepted the implementation will be cleaned up, documentation will be updated as well.

Does this MR meet the acceptance criteria?

  • Documentation created/updated
  • Added tests for this feature/bug
  • In case of conflicts with master - branch was rebased

What are the relevant issue numbers?

#4102 (closed)

Edited by Tomasz Maczukin

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