Gitlab Runner for WSL

This WSL distro is perfect for Gitlab CI homelab setup, if you need to run multiple Gitlab Runner instances on Windows machines.

What you'll get

• Alpine based image with Docker & Docker Compose.
• Non-root user supplied through build args.
• Non-root user is a member of admin and docker groups, as well as sudoers.
• While running this image with WSL, non-root user is used by default.
• Docker daemon starts automatically on non-root user login.
• docker-compose file, in home folder, ready to start Gitlab Runner.

Prerequisites

To build this image you'll need Docker, of course. No specific requirements regarding version as far as I know. Unless you want to use BuildKit for building, then it's 18.09 or higher.
To run the image WSL2 is required. Type wsl --status and check "Default Version".

Build WSL distro

Using Docker Build

source: https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/create-your-own-wsl-distro-using-docker-226e8c9dbffe

docker build --build-arg USER=myuser --build-arg PASS=PassW0rd --tag gitlab-runner-wsl .
docker run --name gitlab-runner-wsl gitlab-runner-wsl
docker export --output gitlab-runner-wsl.tar.gz gitlab-runner-wsl

Using BuildKit

DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --build-arg USER=myuser --build-arg PASS=PassW0rd --output type=tar,dest=gitlab-runner-wsl.tar.gz .

Run WSL distro

wsl --import gitlab-runner-wsl .\gitlab-runner-wsl .\gitlab-runner-wsl.tar.gz
wsl --distribution gitlab-runner-wsl

Register Gitlab Runner

1. From home folder, where docker-compose.yml is located, start container:

   docker-compose up -d
   

2. Register runner:

   docker exec -it gitlab-runner-1 gitlab-runner register --executor "docker" --env "GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY=true"
   

3. There's no need to restart container. It should pick up config changes automatically.