Authenticating to the GitHub API

Learn how to authenticate to the GitHub API to use Actions Runner Controller with GitHub.

In this article

Legal notice

Overview

You can authenticate Actions Runner Controller (ARC) to the GitHub API by using a GitHub App or by using a personal access token (classic).

Note

You cannot authenticate using a GitHub App for runners at the enterprise level. For more information, see Managing access to self-hosted runners using groups.

Authenticating ARC with a GitHub App

  1. Create a GitHub App that is owned by an organization. For more information, see Registering a GitHub App. Configure the GitHub App as follows.

    1. For "Homepage URL," enter https://github.com/actions/actions-runner-controller.

    2. Under "Permissions," click Repository permissions. Then use the dropdown menus to select the following access permissions.

      • Administration: Read and write

        Note

        Administration: Read and write is only required when configuring Actions Runner Controller to register at the repository scope. It is not required to register at the organization scope.

      • Metadata: Read-only

    3. Under "Permissions," click Organization permissions. Then use the dropdown menus to select the following access permissions.

      • Self-hosted runners: Read and write

  2. After creating the GitHub App, on the GitHub App's page, note the value for "App ID". You will use this value later.

  3. Under "Private keys", click Generate a private key, and save the .pem file. You will use this key later.

  4. In the menu at the top-left corner of the page, click Install app, and next to your organization, click Install to install the app on your organization.

  5. After confirming the installation permissions on your organization, note the app installation ID. You will use it later. You can find the app installation ID on the app installation page, which has the following URL format:

    https://github.com/organizations/ORGANIZATION/settings/installations/INSTALLATION_ID

  6. Register the app ID, installation ID, and the downloaded .pem private key file from the previous steps to Kubernetes as a secret.

    To create a Kubernetes secret with the values of your GitHub App, run the following command.

    Note

    Create the secret in the same namespace where the gha-runner-scale-set chart is installed. In this example, the namespace is arc-runners to match the quickstart documentation. For more information, see Quickstart for Actions Runner Controller.

    Bash
    kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \
   --namespace=arc-runners \
   --from-literal=github_app_id=123456 \
   --from-literal=github_app_installation_id=654321 \
   --from-literal=github_app_private_key='-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----********'

    Then using the githubConfigSecret property in your copy of the values.yaml file, pass the secret name as a reference.

    githubConfigSecret: pre-defined-secret

For additional Helm configuration options, see values.yaml in the ARC repository.

Authenticating ARC with a personal access token (classic)

ARC can use personal access tokens (classic) to register self-hosted runners.

Note

Authenticating ARC with a personal access token (classic) is the only supported authentication method to register runners at the enterprise level.

  1. Create a personal access token (classic) with the required scopes. The required scopes are different depending on whether you are registering runners at the repository, organization, or enterprise level. For more information on how to create a personal access token (classic), see Managing your personal access tokens.

    The following is the list of required personal access token scopes for ARC runners.

    • Repository runners: repo

    • Organization runners: admin:org

    • Enterprise runners: manage_runners:enterprise

  2. To create a Kubernetes secret with the value of your personal access token (classic), use the following command.

    Note

    Create the secret in the same namespace where the gha-runner-scale-set chart is installed. In this example, the namespace is arc-runners to match the quickstart documentation. For more information, see Quickstart for Actions Runner Controller.

    Bash
    kubectl create secret generic pre-defined-secret \
   --namespace=arc-runners \
   --from-literal=github_token='YOUR-PAT'

  3. In your copy of the values.yaml file, pass the secret name as a reference.

    githubConfigSecret: pre-defined-secret

    For additional Helm configuration options, see values.yaml in the ARC repository.

Portions have been adapted from https://github.com/actions/actions-runner-controller/ under the Apache-2.0 license:

Copyright 2019 Moto Ishizawa

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.