Setting Up a GitLab Pipeline

July 27, 2019

I have been slowly exploring the free tier of gitlab and today wanted to setup a build in the CI job. The following steps are taken to create a build of a static site via jekyll.

Create `.gitlab-ci.yml`

touch .gitlab-ci.yml

Edit the file

As with any build script I simply put the steps I ran locally and placed them into the yml file.

image: "ruby:2.5"
build:
  script:
    - cd ./site/ && bundle install
    - bundle exec jekyll build
    - zip -r site-build.zip ./_site

note, unlike circleci each script execution will persist directory structure, e.g. cd site now puts you in the site folder for any proceeding script items.

The first Error

$ zip -r site-build.zip ./_site
/bin/bash: line 90: zip: command not found

It appears our image does not contain, zip so we will need to install it via a before_script block.

image: "ruby:2.5"
before_script:
  - apt-get install -y p7zip
build:
  script:
    - cd ./site/ && bundle install
    - ls
    - bundle exec jekyll build
    - zip -r site-build.zip ./_site

Another Error

root@item:/# apt-get install p7zip
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package p7zip

I learned that since this is a fresh image you also need to run the update command first.

image: "ruby:2.5"
before_script:
  - apt-get update -qy
  - apt-get -y install zip unzip

Don't forget to add in -y to auto answer the prompt.

The final build `yml` file

image: "ruby:2.5"
before_script:
  - apt-get update -qy
  - apt-get -y install zip unzip
build:
  script:
    - cd ./site/ && bundle install
    - bundle exec jekyll build
    - zip -r site-build.zip ./_site

Artifacts

Now we have all of your pieces in order and our build is successful next up getting an artifact of the build which happens to be the rendered site from jekyll.

Storing the contents of the zip as an artifact

  artifacts:
    name: "viking-mill"
    paths:
      - ./site/site-build.zip
    expire_in: 30 days

note, this new block will reset to the root working folder so you need to specify the full path from the root

The Final `.gitlab-ci.yml`

image: "ruby:2.5"
before_script:
  - apt-get update -qy
  - apt-get -y install zip unzip
build:
  script:
    - cd ./site/ && bundle install
    - bundle exec jekyll build
    - zip -r site-build.zip ./_site
  artifacts:
    name: "viking-mill"
    paths:
      - ./site/site-build.zip
    expire_in: 30 days

Finish

Now we have a build setup inside of gitlab for the static jekyll site

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Mark Coleman

Mark Coleman is a full stack developer focusing on the latest in web technologies. Mark enjoys learning about new programming trends. Mark also likes to share his knowledge by attending local development groups and blogging (kramnameloc.com) about programming topics. When Mark is not absorbing everything development he enjoys photography, anything pertaining to The Simpsons, and a part time craft beer/bacon aficionado.