How do I delete/unregister a GitLab runner - gitlab-ci

Question

I have registered a personal GitLab runner several months ago, which I no longer use. How do I completely delete it so that it does not show up on my GitLab CI/CD settings page?

Answer 1

List runners to get their tokens and URLs:
sudo gitlab-runner list
Verify with delete option specifying runner's token and URL:
sudo gitlab-runner verify --delete -t YMsSCHnjGssdmz1JRoxx -u http://git.xxxx.com/

Answer 2

Get your runner token and id
First, go to the GitLab settings page and find the token (e.g. 250cff81 in the image below) and the id (e.g. 354472 in the image below) of the GitLab runner which you wish to delete.
Use the gitlab-runner CLI to unregister the runner
If you have access to the machine which was used to register the GitLab runner, you can unregister the runner using the following command, where you replace {TOKEN} with the token of your GitLab runner (e.g. 250cff81 in the example above).
gitlab-runner unregister --url https://gitlab.org/ --token {TOKEN}
Use the GitLab API to unregister the runner
If you no longer have access to the machine which was used to register the runner, or if the runner is associated with multiple projects, you can use the following Python script. Set RUNNER_ID to the id of your runner (e.g. 354472 in the example above) and GITLAB_AUTH_TOKEN to a GitLab token which you can generate from your profile page.
import os
import requests
GITLAB_AUTH_TOKEN = ...
RUNNER_ID = ...
headers = {"PRIVATE-TOKEN": GITLAB_AUTH_TOKEN}
r = requests.get(f"https://gitlab.com/api/v4/runners/{RUNNER_ID}", headers=headers)
runner_data = r.json()
for project in runner_data.get("projects", []):
r = requests.delete(
f"https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/{project['id']}/runners/{RUNNER_ID}",
headers=headers,
)
if not r.ok:
print("Encountered an error deleting runner from project:", r.json())
r = requests.delete(f"https://gitlab.com/api/v4/runners/{RUNNER_ID}", headers=headers)
if not r.ok:
print("Encountered an error deleting runner:", r.json())

Answer 3

Here's one-liner to remove offline runners (for GitLab 14.5):
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <private_token>" "https://<your-instance-address>/api/v4/runners/all?scope=offline&per_page=100" | jq '.[].id' | xargs -I runner_id curl --request DELETE --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <private_token>" "https://<your-instance-address>/api/v4/runners/runner_id"
You might run this more than once if you have more than 100 offline runners (per_page=100).

Answer 4

If you are talking about the runners listed in "Available group runners: ...", they can be deleted at the runner settings page of your group.

Answer 5

If you no longer have enough information related to a runner, GitLab (UI) will only allow you to disable it.
However, there is a workaround to delete runners via the GitLab UI (if you lost your info).
Create a new blank project within GitLab (called dummy, for instance)
Go to the CI/CD settings page (Settings -> CI/CD -> Runners)
Enable all runners you want to delete to be able to edit them
Lock every runner you wish to delete to the dummy project as shown below
Delete the dummy project
The runners are gone.
The overall idea was to lock all of the orphan runners to a dummy project, then delete that dummy.
PS: If runners are not visible in the dummy project, you may want to unlock them from the project they are associated with, then do the procedure again.
EDIT: This process is most particularly useful when
You do not have access to the machine host (especially in big organisations where rights are segmented), only to your GitLab instance.
You think that creating a runner via the UI should also give you the ability to delete a runner via the UI
You have enough rights but you don't want to fire up a Ruby instance (like described in the GitLab doc) to delete a runner.

Answer 6

With GitLab 15.5 (October 2022), you can also use the Web UI:
Bulk delete runners in the Admin Area
Bulk editing is a powerful and valuable feature when you need to visualize or manage large data sets. For administrators that manage a fleet of runners, the lack of a bulk delete option is a productivity drain and increases the operational overhead of maintaining runners.
Now, in the Admin Area, you can select multiple runners and delete them at the same time. You can also select and delete a full page of runners at once.
See Documentation and Issue.

Answer 7

You must make sure that you copy the value of thetoken=... entry from the config.toml file, or from the settings page.
Do not use the registration_token . The registration_token is different from the token.
In my case I had just created a runner, immediately realized that I had misconfigured the runner (or chosen the wrong executor), and wanted to delete it after first use:
This happened because I still had the gitlab CI/CD Settings webpage with the "Specific Runners // Shareed" Runners Section open and in focus.
I tried
# bad -long registration token
gitlab-runner unregister --url https://git.mycompany.de/ \
--token GR1348941LXUymFTPN5sdKFu1F5mQ`
#ERROR: Unregistering runner from GitLab forbidden runner=GR1348941LXUymFTP
#FATAL: Failed to unregister runner
# GOOD -shorter token from config.yml
gitlab-runner unregister --url https://git.mycompany.de/ \
--token N8Gsyebw_mpYnUBMKB25`
# Unregistering runner from GitLab succeeded runner=N8Gsyebw

Answer 8

If you've deleted the specific runner in your gitlab server, try to remove the unused runner through config.toml file (locally).
To show all runners:
$ gitlab-runner list
Or
$cat /Users/yourUser/.gitlab-runner/config.toml
If you try to delete a runner with this command:
$ gitlab-runner verify --delete -t Token-From-Your-Runner -u https://gitlab.com/
-> You'll have an error (Verifying runner... error) 'cause the process doesn't not match with your remote runner...
Then (To solve this trouble)
Delete all runners by the name with their indentation!
If you only have one, the file shows as:
concurrent = 1
check_interval = 0
[session_server]
session_timeout = 1800
[[runners]]