Example: Get system information about your microVM¶

This sample reveals system information about your runner.

Certified for:

x86_64
arm64

Use a private repository if you're not using actuated yet

GitHub recommends using a private repository with self-hosted runners because changes can be left over from a previous run, even when using Actions Runtime Controller. Actuated uses an ephemeral VM with an immutable image, so can be used on both public and private repos. Learn why in the FAQ.

Try out the action on your agent¶

Create a specs.sh file:

#!/bin/bash

echo Hostname: $(hostname)

echo whoami: $(whoami)

echo Information on main disk
df -h /

echo Memory info
free -h

echo Total CPUs:
echo CPUs: $(nproc)

echo CPU Model
cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep "model name"

echo Kernel and OS info
uname -a

if ! [ -e /dev/kvm ]; then
  echo "/dev/kvm does not exist"
else
  echo "/dev/kvm exists"
fi

echo OS info: $(cat /etc/os-release)

echo PATH: ${PATH}

echo Egress IP:
curl -s -L -S https://checkip.amazonaws.com

Create a new file at: .github/workflows/build.yml and commit it to the repository.

name: CI

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - '*'
  push:
    branches:
      - master

jobs:
  specs:
    name: specs
    runs-on: actuated-4cpu-12gb
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - name: Check specs
        run: |
          ./specs.sh

Note how the hostname changes every time the job is run.

Perform a basic benchmark¶

Update the specs.sh file to include benchmarks for disk and network connection:

echo Installing hdparm

sudo apt update -qqqqy && sudo apt install -qqqqy hdparm

echo Read speed

sudo hdparm -t $(mount |grep "/ "|cut -d " " -f1)

echo Write speed

sync; dd if=/dev/zero of=./tempfile bs=1M count=1024; sync

echo Where is this runner?

curl -s http://ip-api.com/json|jq

echo Information on main disk

df -h /

echo Public IP:

curl -s -L -S https://checkip.amazonaws.com

echo Checking speed
sudo pip install speedtest-cli
speedtest-cli

For the fastest servers backed by NVMes, with VMs running on a dedicated drive, we tend to see:

Read speeds of 1000+ MB/s.
Write speeds of 1000+ MB/s.

The Internet speed test will give you a good idea of how quickly large artifacts can be uploaded or downloading during jobs.

The instructions for a Docker registry cache on the server can make using container images from public registries much quicker.