GitLab Seminar - Advanced

A review of GitLab’s advanced features and

how to utilize them
Sean Vail
Software QA Engineer
GitLab Admin, GitHub Admin, & SWS Admin

August 29, 2019

w w w. e p r i . c o m © 2019 Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Overview

 Continuous Integration (CI) Pipelines

 GitLab Runners
 The .gitlab-ci.yml file
 Building or Compiling from source code
 Git Large File Storage (LFS)
 Q&A

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 Git & GitLab Basics

 Previous Git/GitLab Seminar – September 2017

– Slides & Recording
 Can be found at swdev.epri.com > News > 2017 > 2017 EPRI GitLab
Software Development Seminar
 Link to slides
 Link to recording
– Covers the basics of version control with Git, setup, and how to get
access to GitLab

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 GitLab CI Pipelines

 A GitLab pipeline is a series of jobs used to build, test, and/or

deploy code whenever a new commit is pushed to a GitLab
repository.

https://gitlab.epri.com/<project-path>/pipelines

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 GitLab Runner

 Executes GitLab CI Pipeline jobs

 Can be installed on Windows or Linux systems as a service [1]
 Runners must be registered with GitLab as a shared runner or
locked to a specific project/group [2]
 Each Runner is a specific type of executer (e.g. ssh, shell, docker,
or others) [3]
 Runners tags can be used to describe installed software and
intended use (e.g. Windows, msdeploy, npm)

https://gitlab.epri.com/<project-path>/-/settings/ci_cd
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 Choosing a Runner

 Shared
– Registered to a GitLab group & can be used by any project in that group
 Dedicated
– Registered to a specific project
 EPRI IT Hosted
– Maintained by SQA
– Project must be managed by SQA
– Required for Subscriber Website (SWS) deployments

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 GitLab CI Jobs

 A Job is a series of commands that runs on the GitLab Runner

 These commands are run in the Runner host machine’s environment

 Each job generally fulfills one “task” in

the process. For example:
– Build
 Download build dependencies
 Compile the source code
 Create installers (when applicable)
– Config
 Configure database connection
 Insert secret variables
– Deploy
 Deploy build to the web server
 Deploy executable to folder

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 GitLab CI Jobs continued

 The output from each job

is collected and logged in
the GitLab pipeline logs.
 The Runner counts the job
as failed if a non-zero error
code is returned by any of
your script commands.

https://gitlab.epri.com/<project-path>/-/jobs

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 The .gitlab-ci.yml file

 A YAML file that defines a series of Variables, Stages, Jobs that get
executed with every new Pipeline.
 A basic job consists of the following elements:
– stage – Determines order in which jobs are executed
– script – Commands that are executed by the runner

Full YAML file:

https://gitlab.epri.com/snippets/37

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 The .gitlab-ci.yml file continued

 Some jobs may require additional components:

– dependencies – Job won’t run until a specified prior job succeeds [4]
– only – Job only runs when certain refs (e.g. branches or tags) change [5]
– when – Set job to run based on result of prior jobs or by manual trigger
[6]
– tags – Job will only run on Runners that are registered with the specified
tags [7]
– cache – Keep certain files between jobs (build folder is reset when a new
job starts by default) [8]
– artifacts – Upload specific build artifacts to GitLab after job [9]
– environment – Tags the name and URL of the environment that your job
is running on [10]

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 The .gitlab-ci.yml file continued

 The behavior that determines when each job will run is highly
customizable, jobs can be triggered based on:
– Changes to specific branches [11]
– Variable comparisons [12]
– Changes to specific files [13]
– A full list of .gitlab-ci.yml features can be found here: [14].

 GitLab also injects variables to the runner environment such as:

– Branch names
– Tag names
– Commit SHA values
– CI/CD variables [15]
– Other relevant predefined meta data variables [16]

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 .gitlab-ci.yml file breakdown

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 .gitlab-ci.yml file breakdown continued

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 Code Building Jobs

 Building, Compiling, or Transpiling a project using GitLab CI/CD

Pipelines requires the following:
– GitLab Runner (See slide 6)
– Package management (Recommended)
– Installed Dependencies (Avoid when possible)
– Build tools
– Build script
 Advantages
– Allows better collaboration on you project
– When configured properly, ensures long-term maintainability of project
– No binaries in version control

 Disadvantages
– Upfront time & labor cost of configuring runners and build scripts

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 Using EPRI IT managed runners for builds

Source code builds on IT managed runners will require:

 Project to be created and managed by SQA
 Developers cannot modify .gitlab-ci.yml
 Default branch will be development
– DEV, TEST, and PROD branches will be protected against direct pushes
– Changes must be merged from development to DEV

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 Package Management

 Should be used whenever possible

 Minimizes software installations on build servers
 Ensures long-term maintainability of the project
 Tools vary depending on project language and framework
– Node.js – npm (or Yarn)
– Python – pip
– .NET – nuget
– etc…

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 Installed Dependencies & Build Tools

Installed Dependencies
 Package management may not be viable for specific dependencies
 Installing on the Runner environment may be necessary

Build Tools
 Need to be installed on runner environment
 Tools varies depending on project language and framework
– Node.js – npm
– C – gcc
– .NET – msbuild (and Visual Studio build tools)

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 Build Script

 An automated series of steps that does the following:

– Installs dependencies from package manager
– Compiles or transpiles your code into build artifacts

 Examples:
– Node.js
npm install
npm run-script build

– .NET
nuget restore
msbuild /t:Build /p:Configuration=Release /p:TargetFramework=v4.5.2

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 Git Large File Storage

 Checking in binary files to version control should be avoided when

possible.
 Operations on Git repositories become slow and inefficient when
large binary files are present
 When there are no alternatives to large binary files, Git LFS should
be used.

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 Git LFS Installation and Usage

 Download the Git extension: https://git-lfs.github.com/

 Enable Git LFS in your repository (one time operation)
git lfs install

 Set Git LFS to track your large file’s extension

git lfs track “*.pdf”
 Stage .gitattributes (only required after lfs track is used)

git add .gitattributes

 Stage your large file(s)

git add largeFile.pdf

 Commit and push like normal

git commit –m “Adding large pdf to repo”

git push

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 Q &A

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 Together…Shaping the Future of Electricity

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