Use GitLab to do .NET 4.8 CI/CD

calendar Mar 25, 2022 · 3 min read · GitLab .NET CI/CD  ·
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Overview

Remind
This is for .NET 4.8 or below only!!

Precondition

You already have a GitLab (GitLab Saas or GitLab self-managed). This document is for .NET 4.X, if you want to build .NET core or .NET 5/6/7/..., you can use docker to run GitLab Runner.

Procedure

Step 1 - Prepare .NET build environment

  1. First, you need to prepare an environment to build .NET application. The easiest solution is to install Visual Studio. (Please let me know if I can build a .NET build environment without Visual Studio, thanks.)
  2. But it's strange, MSBuild.exe is not included in PATH after the installation. Please put C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin into your PATH.

Step 2 - Install Git client

Download and install Git for Windows. The portable version is ok, but because Git Runner is a Windows service, please add git.exe into PATH.

Step 3 - Install GitLab Runner

  1. Download GitLab Runner for Windows.

  2. Rename gitlab-runner-windows-amd64.exe to gitlab-runner.exe.

  3. Get the token to run GitLab Runner.

  4. Generate GitLab Runner configuration file (config.toml) and run the command to register.

    1gitlab-runner.exe register --url https://gitlab.com/ --registration-token $REGISTRATION_TOKEN

  5. Modify config.toml

    1. Because Gitlab Runner doesn't support Windows shell after version 13, you need to use PowerShell, you have 2 options:
      1. If you use Power Shell, please open config.toml and rename 'pwsh' to 'powershell'.
      2. If you use Power Shell Core, you don't need to do anything.
    2. If you find your log is garbled (ex: your Windows server is not an English version), please add chcp 65001 to change the encoding to UTF-8.
    3. If you use a portable Git, you need to modify $env:Path in config.toml. (comment line 13 and uncomment line 14)
     1listen_address = "[::]:9252"
 2concurrent = 4
 3check_interval = 0
 4
 5[session_server]
 6  session_timeout = 1800
 7[[runners]]
 8  name = "Windows Runner 01 (not docker)"
 9  url = "https://gitlab.com/"
10  token = "******************"
11  executor = "shell"
12  shell = "powershell"
13  pre_clone_script = "      chcp 65001\n       $OutputEncoding = [console]::InputEncoding = [console]::OutputEncoding = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding\n  "
14  #  pre_clone_script = "      chcp 65001\n      $env:Path = \"C:\\Gitlab\\PortableGit\\cmd;$env:Path\"\n\t  $OutputEncoding = [console]::InputEncoding = [console]::OutputEncoding = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding\n  "
15  pre_build_script = "      chcp 65001\n  "
16  [runners.custom_build_dir]
17  [runners.cache]
18    [runners.cache.s3]
19    [runners.cache.gcs]
20    [runners.cache.azure]

  6. Register GitLab Runner as a Windows service and start it.

    1. Run the command gitlab-runner install to install as a Windows service.
    2. Run the command gitlab-runner start to start the service.

  7. remember, if you modify the file, please execute gitlab-runner.exe restart to restart GitLab runner.

  8. If you always see the Credential Helper Selector, please choose "no helper" and "Always use this from now on".

Step 4 - Write .gitlab-ci.yml

  1. Edit .gitlab-ci.yml, the following is a sample: 
     1stages:
 2    - build
 3    - test
 4build:
 5    stage: build
 6    script:
 7        - "dotnet build"
 8    artifacts:
 9    paths:
10        - .\test
11test:
12    stage: test
13    script: 
14        - "dotnet test"

Step 5 - Start to build/test/deploy code (on local machine)

  1. Before you start to run CI/CD on your GitLab, you can try it on your local machine. It's easier to debug in a local environment. Please change the directory to the location of .gitlab-ci.yml and execute this command. 
     1C:\Gitlab\builds\j5AFD9Qz\0\gis\commission_moi_dtm> gitlab-runner.exe exec shell build
 2Runtime platform                                    arch=amd64 os=windows pid=13728 revision=e91107dd version=14.5.2
 3Running with gitlab-runner 14.5.2 (e91107dd)
 4Preparing the "shell" executor
 5Using Shell executor...
 6executor not supported                              job=1 project=0 referee=metrics
 7Preparing environment
 8Running on GITRUNNER01...
 9DEPRECATION: CMD shell is deprecated and will no longer be supported
10Getting source from Git repository
11Fetching changes...
12Initialized empty Git repository in C:/Gitlab/builds/j5AFD9Qz/0/gis/**********/builds/0/project-0/.git/
13Created fresh repository.
14Checking out 1ff057d4 as HEAD...
15...

Step 6 - Start to test CI/CD (on GitLab)

If everything is ok, you can commit .gitlab-ci.yml and GitLab should run it automatically.

SAST (Static Application Security Testing)

GitLab can check your source code for known vulnerabilities, unfortunately, it only supports Linux containers, and Windows containers are not yet supported. (reference: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/sast/)

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