Overview
You can authenticate Actions Runner Controller (ARC) to the GitHub API by using a GitHub App or by using a personal access token (classic).
Note
You cannot authenticate using a GitHub App for runners at the enterprise level. For more information, see Managing access to self-hosted runners using groups.
Authenticating ARC with a GitHub App
-
Create a GitHub App that is owned by an organization. For more information, see Registering a GitHub App. Configure the GitHub App as follows.
-
For "Homepage URL," enter
https://github.com/actions/actions-runner-controller
. -
Under "Permissions," click Repository permissions. Then use the dropdown menus to select the following access permissions.
-
Administration: Read and write
Note
Administration: Read and write
is only required when configuring Actions Runner Controller to register at the repository scope. It is not required to register at the organization scope. -
Metadata: Read-only
-
-
Under "Permissions," click Organization permissions. Then use the dropdown menus to select the following access permissions.
- Self-hosted runners: Read and write
-
-
After creating the GitHub App, on the GitHub App's page, note the value for "App ID". You will use this value later.
-
Under "Private keys", click Generate a private key, and save the
.pem
file. You will use this key later. -
In the menu at the top-left corner of the page, click Install app, and next to your organization, click Install to install the app on your organization.
-
After confirming the installation permissions on your organization, note the app installation ID. You will use it later. You can find the app installation ID on the app installation page, which has the following URL format:
https://github.com/organizations/ORGANIZATION/settings/installations/INSTALLATION_ID
-
Register the app ID, installation ID, and the downloaded
.pem
private key file from the previous steps to Kubernetes as a secret.To create a Kubernetes secret with the values of your GitHub App, run the following command.
Note
Create the secret in the same namespace where the
gha-runner-scale-set
chart is installed. In this example, the namespace isarc-runners
to match the quickstart documentation. For more information, see Quickstart for Actions Runner Controller.Bash kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \ --namespace=arc-runners \ --from-literal=github_app_id=123456 \ --from-literal=github_app_installation_id=654321 \ --from-literal=github_app_private_key='-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----********'
kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \ --namespace=arc-runners \ --from-literal=github_app_id=123456 \ --from-literal=github_app_installation_id=654321 \ --from-literal=github_app_private_key='-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----********'
Then using the
githubConfigSecret
property in your copy of thevalues.yaml
file, pass the secret name as a reference.githubConfigSecret: pre-defined-secret
For additional Helm configuration options, see values.yaml
in the ARC repository.
Authenticating ARC with a personal access token (classic)
ARC can use personal access tokens (classic) to register self-hosted runners.
-
Create a personal access token (classic) with the required scopes. The required scopes are different depending on whether you are registering runners at the repository or organization level. For more information on how to create a personal access token (classic), see Managing your personal access tokens.
The following is the list of required personal access token scopes for ARC runners.
- Repository runners:
repo
- Organization runners:
admin:org
- Repository runners:
-
To create a Kubernetes secret with the value of your personal access token (classic), use the following command.
Note
Create the secret in the same namespace where the
gha-runner-scale-set
chart is installed. In this example, the namespace isarc-runners
to match the quickstart documentation. For more information, see Quickstart for Actions Runner Controller.Bash kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \ --namespace=arc-runners \ --from-literal=github_token='YOUR-PAT'
kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \ --namespace=arc-runners \ --from-literal=github_token='YOUR-PAT'
-
In your copy of the
values.yaml
file, pass the secret name as a reference.githubConfigSecret: pre-defined-secret
For additional Helm configuration options, see
values.yaml
in the ARC repository.
Authenticating ARC with a fine-grained personal access token
ARC can use fine-grained personal access tokens to register self-hosted runners.
-
Create a fine-grained personal access token with the required scopes. The required scopes are different depending on whether you are registering runners at the repository or organization level. For more information on how to create a fine-grained personal access token, see Managing your personal access tokens.
The following is the list of required personal access token scopes for ARC runners.
-
Repository runners:
- Administration: Read and write
-
Organization runners:
- Administration: Read
- Self-hosted runners: Read and write
-
-
To create a Kubernetes secret with the value of your fine-grained personal access token, use the following command.
Note
Create the secret in the same namespace where the
gha-runner-scale-set
chart is installed. In this example, the namespace isarc-runners
to match the quickstart documentation. For more information, see Quickstart for Actions Runner Controller.Bash kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \ --namespace=arc-runners \ --from-literal=github_token='YOUR-PAT'
kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \ --namespace=arc-runners \ --from-literal=github_token='YOUR-PAT'
-
In your copy of the
values.yaml
file, pass the secret name as a reference.githubConfigSecret: pre-defined-secret
For additional Helm configuration options, see
values.yaml
in the ARC repository.
Authenticating ARC with vault secrets
Note
Vault integration is currently available in public preview with support for Azure Key Vault.
Starting with gha-runner-scale-set version 0.12.0, ARC supports retrieving GitHub credentials from an external vault. Vault integration is configured per runner scale set. This means you can run some scale sets using Kubernetes secrets while others use vault-based secrets, depending on your security and operational requirements.
Enabling Vault Integration
To enable vault integration for a runner scale set:
- Set the
githubConfigSecret
field in yourvalues.yaml
file to the name of the secret key stored in your vault. This value must be a string. - Uncomment and configure the
keyVault
section in yourvalues.yaml
file with the appropriate provider and access details. - Provide the required certificate (
.pfx
) to both the controller and the listener. You can do this by: *Rebuilding the controller image with the certificate included, or *Mounting the certificate as a volume in both the controller and the listener using thelistenerTemplate
andcontrollerManager
fields.
Secret Format
The secret stored in Azure Key Vault must be in JSON format. The structure depends on the type of authentication you are using:
Example: GitHub Token
{
"github_token": "TOKEN"
}
Example: GitHub App
{
"github_app_id": "APP_ID_OR_CLIENT_ID",
"github_app_installation_id": "INSTALLATION_ID",
"github_app_private_key": "PRIVATE_KEY"
}
Configuring values.yaml
for Vault Integration
The certificate is stored as a .pfx file and mounted to the container at /akv/cert.pfx. Below is an example of how to configure the keyVault section to use this certificate for authentication:
keyVault:
type: "azure_key_vault"
proxy:
https:
url: "PROXY_URL"
credentialSecretRef: "PROXY_CREDENTIALS_SECRET_NAME"
http: {}
noProxy: []
azureKeyVault:
clientId:
tenantId:
url:
certificatePath: "/akv/cert.pfx"
Providing the Certificate to the Controller and Listener
ARC requires a .pfx
certificate to authenticate with the vault. This certificate must be made available to both the controller and the listener components during controller installation.
You can do this by mounting the certificate as a volume using the controllerManager
and listenerTemplate
fields in your values.yaml
file:
volumes:
- name: cert-volume
secret:
secretName: my-cert-secret
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /akv
name: cert-volume
readOnly: true
listenerTemplate:
volumeMounts:
- name: cert-volume
mountPath: /akv/certs
readOnly: true
volumes:
- name: cert-volume
secret:
secretName: my-cert-secret
The code below is an example of a scale set values.yml
file.
listenerTemplate:
spec:
containers:
- name: listener
volumeMounts:
- name: cert-volume
mountPath: /akv
readOnly: true
volumes:
- name: cert-volume
secret:
secretName: my-cert-secret
Legal notice
Portions have been adapted from https://github.com/actions/actions-runner-controller/ under the Apache-2.0 license:
Copyright 2019 Moto Ishizawa
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.