Blog News Upgrading the operating system version of our SaaS runners on Linux
Published on: October 4, 2023
2 min read

Upgrading the operating system version of our SaaS runners on Linux

With GitLab 17.0, we are updating the operating system version of our SaaS runners on Linux. Learn what will change and how to mitigate potential incompatibilities.

security-pipelines.jpg

GitLab 17.0, due in May 2024, comes with an upgrade to the container-optimized operating system (COS) of the ephemeral VMs used to execute jobs for SaaS runners on Linux. That COS upgrade includes a Docker Engine upgrade from Version 19.03.15 to Version 23.0.5, which introduces a known compatibility issue.

Who will be impacted by the change?

The fleet of SaaS runners on Linux with the tags saas-linux-*-amd64 will receive an update. This change does not affect the SaaS Runners on macOS and Windows.

Using Docker-in-Docker

Using Docker-in-Docker based jobs with a version prior to 20.10 on a host that uses Docker Engine 20.10 or newer, you'll get the following error:

cgroups: cgroup mountpoint does not exist: unknown

Using Kaniko

Using Kaniko to build container images is another impacted use case. Kaniko versions older than v1.9.0, are unable to detect the container runtime and fail with the error:

kaniko should only be run inside of a container, run with the --force flag if you are sure you want to continue

How to fix the issue

To fix this, simply update the version of Docker-in-Docker or Kaniko images used in your job. In general, we strongly advise the regular testing and updating to the latest possible version, and referencing it explicitly in the job definition. This will prevent your jobs from randomly failing when image updates are published.

Using Docker-in-Docker

Update your jobs to use docker:dind in Version 20.10 or newer, such as:

job:
  services:
  - docker:24.0.5-dind
  image: docker:24.0.5
  script:
  - ...

Using Kaniko

Update your jobs to use gcr.io/kaniko-project/executor in Version v1.9.0 or newer, such as:

job:
  image: gcr.io/kaniko-project/executor:v1.14.0
  script:
  - ...

Read more

We want to hear from you

Enjoyed reading this blog post or have questions or feedback? Share your thoughts by creating a new topic in the GitLab community forum. Share your feedback

Ready to get started?

See what your team could do with a unified DevSecOps Platform.

Get free trial

Find out which plan works best for your team

Learn about pricing

Learn about what GitLab can do for your team

Talk to an expert