Manage virtual machines with VM Service

Server v4.2

Server Admin

VM provider

The following configuration options are for the VM provider: either AWS or GCP.

AWS

Configure VM Service to work with AWS EC2 in your values.yml. During installation you will have set up a security group and authentication. See the Installation Phase 3 - Execution Environments page for more information.

The information in this section describes post-installation configuration options for VM service.

Windows image

If you require Windows executors, you can supply an AMI ID in your values.yaml file. To create a Windows image, use the CircleCI server Windows image builder.

vm_service:
  providers:
    ec2:
      ...
      windowsAMI: "<my-windows-ami>"

Alternative Linux VM image

If you wish to provide a custom AMI for Linux machine executors, you can supply an AMI ID in your values.yaml file. To create a Linux image, use the CircleCI server Linux image builder.

vm_service:
  providers:
    ec2:
      ...
      linuxAMI: "<my-linux-ami>"

Default AWS AMI lists

The default AMIs for server v4.2 are based on Ubuntu 22.04.

x86 AMI list

Region	AMI
`us-east-1`	`ami-03dc54f7559144972`
`ca-central-1`	`ami-0575d605472840942`
`ap-south-1`	`ami-047ef6196620f56ca`
`ap-southeast-2`	`ami-0521f8d70ef9dbd24`
`ap-southeast-1`	`ami-0ef0354f4eb3b7428`
`eu-central-1`	`ami-0a8286fff7b5ed33a`
`eu-west-1`	`ami-093618a1d0185f9e8`
`eu-west-2`	`ami-08f00d41b17d3ea0a`
`sa-east-1`	`ami-064b0bfe97e6ec04c`
`us-east-2`	`ami-068cb131f91632f12`
`us-west-1`	`ami-0a4b7cf088a798be3`
`us-west-2`	`ami-018e05f98628cf5e5`
`ap-northeast-1`	`ami-06f32ec6aeecbeaa6`
`ap-northeast-2`	`ami-084c1abb1e8dabffd`
`eu-west-3`	`ami-09b3e24bccae3252f`
`us-gov-east-1`	`ami-0de525cac9ac9bea8`
`us-gov-west-1`	`ami-02abf947586cae56b`

Arm AMI list

Region	AMI
`us-east-1`	`ami-0b11ce74f44e45578`
`ca-central-1`	`ami-07400e987dd82901d`
`ap-south-1`	`ami-072fe819d7b94b095`
`ap-southeast-2`	`ami-0510826f7f3a83b3e`
`ap-southeast-1`	`ami-0e5b703665f3e4517`
`eu-central-1`	`ami-045ea67b0f35ef1ef`
`eu-west-1`	`ami-044ac39c87438d89d`
`eu-west-2`	`ami-0a399817fbbb240e4`
`sa-east-1`	`ami-0ebc0e64fb943e191`
`us-east-2`	`ami-01f7dc2f8590b1611`
`us-west-1`	`ami-085fb1dd323aa02c7`
`us-west-2`	`ami-0e5ea38c131f05c8f`
`ap-northeast-1`	`ami-02c8fac0dbbbad74f`
`ap-northeast-2`	`ami-022e2eacee7328cca`
`us-gov-east-1`	`ami-0bb797dcfa52ce04d`
`us-gov-west-1`	`ami-0ab175883ff460b17`

GCP

Configure VM Service to work with GCP in your values.yml file. During installation you will have set up a security group and authentication. See the Installation Phase 3 - Execution Environments page for more information.

The information in this section describes post-installation configuration options for VM service.

Windows image

If you require Windows executors, you can supply an AMI ID in your values.yaml file. To create a Windows image, use the CircleCI server Windows image builder.

vm_service:
  providers:
    gcp:
      ...
      windowsImage: "<my-windows-image>"

Alternative Linux VM image

If you wish to provide a custom AMI for Linux machine executors, you can supply an AMI ID in your values.yaml file. To create a Linux image, use the CircleCI server Linux image builder.

vm_service:
  providers:
    gcp:
      ...
      linuxImage: "<my-linux-image>"

Instance preallocation

If Docker Layer Caching (DLC) is used, VM Service instances need to be spun up on demand. For this to happen, either ensure any preallocated instances are in use, or set both remote Docker and machine preallocated instance fields to 0.

When using preallocated instances be aware that a cron job is scheduled to cycle through these instances once per day to ensure they do not end up in an unworkable state.

To configure server to keep instances preallocated, use the keys shown in the following values.yaml examples:

For a full list of options, see the Installation Reference page.

vm_scaler:
  # -- Number of replicas to deploy for the vm-scaler deployment.
  replicas: 1
  # -- Configuration options for, and numbers of, prescaled instances for remote Docker jobs.
  prescaled:
    - type: l1.medium
      image: docker-default
      docker-engine: true # remote Docker environment
      cron: ""
      count: 2

vm_scaler:
  # -- Number of replicas to deploy for the vm-scaler deployment.
  replicas: 1
  # -- Configuration options for, and numbers of, prescaled instances for remote Docker jobs.
  prescaled:
    - type: l1.medium
      image: default
      docker-engine: false # machine execution environment
      cron: ""
      count: 2

Apply changes

Apply the changes made to your values.yaml file:

namespace=<your-namespace>
helm upgrade circleci-server oci://cciserver.azurecr.io/circleci-server -n $namespace --version 4.2.7 -f <path-to-values.yaml>