Install machine runner 3.0 on macOS

Prerequisites

To install machine runners and run jobs, you will need to have root access, and have the following utilities and tools installed on your system:

Homebrew
curl (installed by default on macOS)
sha256sum (if not pre-installed):
- brew install coreutils
tar
The CircleCI CLI if you wish to install runners from the command line

Self-hosted runner terms agreement

1. Create namespace and resource class

2. Install CircleCI runner on macOS

You can install runner on macOS with Homebrew.

On the target macOS machine with Homebrew installed, run the following command to add the CircleCI repository:
```
brew tap circleci-public/circleci
```
Run the following command to install the circleci-runner package:

You may see a notification indicating a background item for Circle Internet Services Inc. has been added.
```
brew install circleci-runner
```

Open the runner config.yaml file with the text editor of your choice, and modify the runner.name and api.auth_token values.

nano $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.circleci.runner/config.yaml

runner:
  name: "my-macos-runner"
  working_directory: "/Users/$USER/Library/com.circleci.runner/workdir"
  cleanup_working_directory: true
api:
  auth_token: "your-auth-token"

Replace api.auth_token with the token generated in the steps above, and choose a name for your runner.

If you are using CircleCI server you will need to provide the URL for your install. You can do this by either setting the CIRCLECI_RUNNER_API_URL environment variable:
```
export CIRCLECI_RUNNER_API_URL="your server domain"
```
Or by adding the URL to $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.circleci.runner/config.yaml using text editor of your choice.
```
api:
  auth_token: "your-auth-token"
  # On server, set url to the hostname of your server installation.
  url: https://your.domain.here
```

If you are migrating an existing configuration from a previous runner installation, you may move the existing launch agent file from its current path to the new path.

This will overwrite the default config file installed via brew and replace it with your existing config file.

mv /Library/Preferences/com.circleci.runner/launch-agent-config.yaml $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.circleci.runner/config.yaml

After copying the file, you may remove the logging block to send logs to the default location for machine runner 3.0 (specified below):

# remove this block from your existing config
logging:
  file: /Library/Logs/com.circleci.runner.log

3. Review and accept the Apple signature notarization

The binary must be approved to run on your macOS system because the self-hosted runner is not compiled from source during installation. This can be done via the macOS UI by accepting the pop-up asking if you wish to run the binary from the internet, or programmatically.

Verify the signature and notarization with this command:

spctl -a -vvv -t install "$(brew --prefix)/bin/circleci-runner"

It should return an output that looks like this:

/opt/homebrew/bin/circleci-runner: accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID
origin=Developer ID Application: Circle Internet Services Inc.

When ready, run the command to accept the notarization. You will need to enter the macOS system password.
```
sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine "$(brew --prefix)/bin/circleci-runner"
```

4. Start macOS machine runner 3.0

To start the macOS machine runner 3.0 for the first time, you will need to bootstrap the service. Depending on whether you are using a GUI or non-GUI session (for example, when remotely tunneling into the machine), the commands to bootstrap the service will differ:

Machine runner configuration example

Once you have installed configuration runner, select Continue in the CircleCI web app and you will be presented with an example configuration snippet showing a job configured to use your new self-hosted runner resource class.

The fields you must set for a specific job to run using your machine runners are:

machine: true
resource_class: <namespace>/<resource-class>

Simple example of how you could set up a job:

version: 2.1

workflows:
  build-workflow:
    jobs:
      - runner
jobs:
  runner:
    machine: true
    resource_class: <namespace>/<resource-class>
    steps:
      - run: echo "Hi I'm on Runners!"

The job will then execute using your self-hosted runner when you push the .circleci/config.yml to your VCS provider.

Stop macOS machine runner 3.0

To stop the machine runner service, run the following command to disable the machine runner service, depending on the service target used in the previous step:

Uninstall machine runner 3.0 on macOS

To uninstall machine runner 3.0 from your macOS device, follow these steps.

Stop the machine runner service by using the following command to disable it, depending on the service target used during installation:
Targeting the GUI domain:

launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/com.circleci.runner
Targeting the user domain:

launchctl bootout user/$(id -u)/com.circleci.runner
Uninstall machine runner:
To uninstall without purging logs and configuration files, run the following command.

brew uninstall --cask circleci-public/homebrew-circleci/circleci-runner
This command will purge all logs and configuration files.

To uninstall and purge all logs and configuration files, run the following command.

brew uninstall --cask --zap circleci-public/homebrew-circleci/circleci-runner

Access runner logs

On your macOS machine, logs from circleci-runner are located in the following directory by default.

$HOME/Library/Logs/com.circleci.runner/runner.log