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Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running win

Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows.

jchw 4y ago
This policy about which OS your laptop runs does not seem to preclude the use of Windows VMs (and presumably CI runners, though I bet we could see if that was the case ourselves) if it were needed. The open source nature of Gitlab also makes it easy for a developer to test things on an unprivileged personal device, I'd imagine. If that was not enough, I believe the CI runner is written in the Go programming language, which has a surprisingly decent abstraction of OS functionality in it's standard library. Imperfect as it may be, I suspect that helps reduce the amount of effort needed to ensure individual platforms work properly.
- trelane 4y ago
  This is exactly how I used to operate. I'd develop on Linux then ensure it works on Windows in a VM.
milkshakes 4y ago
This is a policy for personal workstations. Presumably, there is a different policy for QA/CI environments.
aikah 4y ago
> Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows. Maybe with a Windows VM.
- bart_spoon 4y ago
  If that’s the case then Windows isn’t actually prohibited at Gitlab.
  - jchw 4y ago
    It is prohibited at Gitlab according to this policy. On developer laptops. It is not necessarily prohibited in all contexts. The one-line title could've been slightly clearer, but I think it's a totally fair statement. The prohibition on developer laptops is not just a trivial or nitpicky detail; while the security of a VM obviously still matters, as you can't simply assume that malicious software in the VM can't escape, I would assume that the policy effectively means it would also be prohibited to setup a Linux dom0 and just run Windows under that and use it as your developer workspace. The benefit of only using Windows for testing is that you presumably won't be reading emails, talking on team chat, taking video calls, opening documents, etc. inside of Windows, only doing the thing you actually need (testing.) From a security standpoint, this can be helpful. I think that Windows vs Linux security is a rabbit hole not worth debating; both are very flawed and have many challenges, nothing is a panacea. However, I would say that every OS you don't need to harden is a huge operational advantage no matter how you slice it. You effectively cut off an entire slice of the malware market, and easily the largest slice in case of Windows.

Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows.

jchw 4y ago

This policy about which OS your laptop runs does not seem to preclude the use of Windows VMs (and presumably CI runners, though I bet we could see if that was the case ourselves) if it were needed. The open source nature of Gitlab also makes it easy for a developer to test things on an unprivileged personal device, I'd imagine. If that was not enough, I believe the CI runner is written in the Go programming language, which has a surprisingly decent abstraction of OS functionality in it's standard library. Imperfect as it may be, I suspect that helps reduce the amount of effort needed to ensure individual platforms work properly.

trelane 4y ago
This is exactly how I used to operate. I'd develop on Linux then ensure it works on Windows in a VM.

milkshakes 4y ago

This is a policy for personal workstations. Presumably, there is a different policy for QA/CI environments.

aikah 4y ago

> Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows. Maybe with a Windows VM.

bart_spoon 4y ago
If that’s the case then Windows isn’t actually prohibited at Gitlab.
- jchw 4y ago
  It is prohibited at Gitlab according to this policy. On developer laptops. It is not necessarily prohibited in all contexts. The one-line title could've been slightly clearer, but I think it's a totally fair statement. The prohibition on developer laptops is not just a trivial or nitpicky detail; while the security of a VM obviously still matters, as you can't simply assume that malicious software in the VM can't escape, I would assume that the policy effectively means it would also be prohibited to setup a Linux dom0 and just run Windows under that and use it as your developer workspace. The benefit of only using Windows for testing is that you presumably won't be reading emails, talking on team chat, taking video calls, opening documents, etc. inside of Windows, only doing the thing you actually need (testing.) From a security standpoint, this can be helpful. I think that Windows vs Linux security is a rabbit hole not worth debating; both are very flawed and have many challenges, nothing is a panacea. However, I would say that every OS you don't need to harden is a huge operational advantage no matter how you slice it. You effectively cut off an entire slice of the malware market, and easily the largest slice in case of Windows.