Deploying a GitLab CI/CD Runner on Kubernetes: A Step-by-Step Guide

Gitlab + K8s

Unlock unlimited CI/CD minutes by deploying your GitLab Runner on Kubernetes.

Introduction

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) are cornerstones of modern software development, enabling teams to automate building, testing, and deploying applications efficiently. While GitLab offers robust CI/CD capabilities, its free tier limits you to 2,000 CI/CD minutes per month. This limitation can hinder productivity, especially for teams with heavy workloads.

You can set up your own GitLab Runner on a Kubernetes cluster to overcome this restriction and gain more control over your CI/CD pipelines. This approach removes the CI/CD minutes cap and leverages Kubernetes’ scalability and resilience.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the step-by-step process of deploying a GitLab Runner on Kubernetes, allowing you to harness the full power of both platforms.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure you have the following:

• GitLab Account: Access to a GitLab project where you have at least Maintainer permissions.
• Kubernetes Cluster: A running Kubernetes cluster (e.g., Minikube, AWS EKS, Google GKE, or any other provider).