{"id":7004,"date":"2024-12-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/blog\/?p=7004"},"modified":"2024-12-19T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T12:02:08","slug":"fireactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/blog\/fireactions","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Fireactions: Self-host your GitHub runners without a sweat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scaling and boosting GitHub Actions<\/strong> runners is a must for those with high Continuous Integration \/ Continuous Deployment (CI\/CD)<\/strong> workloads. Self-hosting the runners is a great solution, but it’s complex and time-consuming. This inspired us to create Fireactions<\/strong>, an open-source orchestrator for GitHub runners.<\/p>

Fireactions allows you to Bring Your Own Metal (BYOM) and self-host GitHub runners in short-lived, fast, and secure Firecracker<\/a>-based virtual machines. It’s ideal for organizations, freelancers, and hobbyists looking to reduce workflow queue times, minimize costs, and decrease maintenance overhead<\/strong>.<\/p>

Find detailed instructions on how to install, configure, and use the application at Fireactions.io<\/a> or visit the Fireactions repository<\/a> for the code, quickstart guide, and contribution opportunities.<\/p>

The problems we needed to solve<\/h2>

Like many software companies, we utilize a CI\/CD pipeline to streamline code integration, testing, and deployment.<\/p>

We heavily rely on GitHub Actions to manage the process. However, with the rapid expansion of microservices and the growing number of repositories, our increased CI\/CD workload created stability and scalability challenges<\/strong>.<\/p>

The immediate pain point was the lengthy delays due to queued jobs, slowing down our entire development and release process.<\/p>

With plenty of bare metal on hand, we decided to run self-hosted GitHub runners on our own infrastructure. This way, we could optimize build times, enhance efficiency, and ensure a more reliable and scalable CI\/CD pipeline<\/strong> as we continue to grow.<\/p>

There are several options to do this, such as Actions Runner Controller<\/a>, but it requires Kubernetes and privileged containers, which add complexity, increase maintenance overhead, and pose potential security risks.<\/p>

We needed a more flexible solution. We wanted the same level of control, reliability, and security as with GitHub-hosted runners but without their limitations, such as long startup times and limited resources.<\/p>

What Fireactions is and how it works<\/h2>

We chose Firecracker<\/strong>, an open-source virtual machine monitor (VMM)<\/strong>, to deploy workloads in micro virtual machines (microVMs)<\/strong>.<\/p>

MicroVMs are ideal for running untrusted workloads, such as CI\/CD jobs. Unlike containers that share the host operating system, microVMs run their own lightweight kernel. This provides stronger isolation and security while maintaining speed and resource efficiency.<\/p>

However, it takes time and effort to set up and maintain the GitHub runners. This is where Fireactions<\/strong> steps in. It’s a completely free, open-source self-hosted CI\/CD solution that automates GitHub runners<\/strong>.<\/p>

Here’s how it works:<\/p>

\n
\"How<\/figure><\/div>

First, Fireactions loads the configuration file<\/strong> to determine the setup, and starts<\/strong> pools<\/strong> of runners. It continuously checks to ensure there are enough runners available.<\/p>

For a new runner, Fireactions requests a token from GitHub<\/strong>, then quickly creates an isolated microVM<\/strong> using Firecracker. Once the job is complete, Fireactions destroys the microVM<\/strong>. Just like with GitHub-hosted runners, no state is preserved between jobs.<\/p>

Fireactions automatically scales the number of runners based on incoming workflow events. You can define job labels and customize virtual machine resources to fit your needs.<\/p>

You can run Fireactions on any regular bare metal server or a virtual machine that supports nested virtualization<\/strong> – virtual machines running within other virtual machines. For example, you can use Fireactions VPS template<\/a> to easily set up the application on Hostinger VPS hosting.<\/p>

Our results<\/h2>

Fireactions has paid off in spades, and all the teams working with CI\/CD workflows have felt the impact.<\/p>

To put things in perspective, we recorded 835,186 minutes of build time<\/strong> on Fireactions over the past month alone. This figure includes all CI\/CD workflows, from simple tests to complex deployment pipelines.<\/p>

Our initial and critical target was reducing job queue times by at least 90%. Instead, we’ve reduced the queues to zero<\/strong>.<\/p>

Depending on the configuration of the bare metal server and its resources, Fireactions builds can take up to 20x less time than GitHub-hosted runners<\/strong>, particularly for resource-intensive tasks.<\/p>

The average GitHub runner startup time on Fireactions is 20 seconds<\/strong>. Meanwhile, creating and booting runners on traditional virtual machines typically takes a minute or more.<\/p>

Giving back to the community<\/h2>

At Hostinger, we use many open-source tools and want to give back to the community. Therefore, we developed Fireactions as an open source from the very beginning.<\/p>

It took approximately three months for our core development team of two engineers to develop a robust solution while managing other responsibilities.<\/p>

We moved all GitHub workflows to Fireactions and fixed issues in almost a year. This includes three major refactorings, enhancing performance, scalability, and maintainability based on the feedback and challenges encountered during the initial deployment and scaling phases.<\/p>

We continue enhancing Fireactions based on user feedback. We also encourage and value all types of contributions to the project.<\/p>

Fireactions is our second open-source project launched recently. We launched AI assistant Kodee<\/a> in September, and shared an open-source Kodee demo repository<\/a> with instructions how you can set up a similar system<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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