arm64 shared runner sponsored by Equinix

Dear Salsa admins,

Thanks to @zumbi, Equinix-WorksOnARM is sponsoring an arm64 machine (altra.debian.net), and I wonder if it could be used to have a gitlab shared runner. @zumbi could give more details about the contract, sponsorship, machine specs and so on. If I am not wrong, you require that SPI handles the contract, but this is already done by him.

So, would it be possible to use these Equinix's ressources? What would you need for that?

Cheers,

-- Santiago

Hi,

we would require exclusive root access to the box and it should not get used otherwise.

Hi @formorer, an exclusive QEMU/KVM VM would work for you? Since the server has to be shared between different debian projects (as debci and openqa), we are planing to create different QEMU/KVM VMs for each. Is that OK?

Cheers,

-- Santiago

I would work, but I doubt the resources will be enough to be really useful for the project.

Sorry @formorer I had missed your answer :-$ Could we give it a try anyway? From the salsa-ci point-of-view, it would be used "only" for build jobs (plus autopkgtest maybe if the resources happen to be enough). If your are OK, could you please send me an ssh key to santiago@d.o?

Cheers, -- Santiago

Dear salsa admins, I am planning to do some maintenance on the equinix machine, so I could take advantage and (re)create a VM for the runner. If you agree on using it for a shared runner, what would be the best installation method you would prefer?

• Do you want me to create it for you?
• Would you like to install it by yourselves?
• Any other option? (e.g. using a cloud image)

Best,

Hi! Just checking, is this Equinix sponsored machine currently in use? How was it added/configured, can you share a link to the documentation on how new CI runner hardware is added (both technical and policy aspects)?

I see that also @eighthave proposed in #301 to accept OSUL donated runners for Salsa CI, and he has interest particularly in s390x and ppc64le runners. In the Salsa CI team we already have ARM runners and work is underway to add riscv64 runners.

I suspect there is a large amount of potential donors of cloud capacity with various architectures to help Debian, and if you publish a clear set of guidance on how to proceed in those cases it would be beneficial for all.

A clarification, ARM is sponsoring the Equinix machine via WorksOnARM program. For documentation purposes, find the following request.

Having documentation would be great, since you have added riscv64 support, should we use this as initial point for documentation?

I am particularly interested on supporting ppc64le architecture (as well as s390x).

Thanks for all the work supporting salsa and the runners.

Support for risvc64 runners was merged today in Salsa CI and runners are also available on Salsa

I guess we can close this.

closed