How To: Use Liquibase Enterprise with a GitLab CI/CD dedicated runner.

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Last updated: May 22, 2024 by Amy Smith
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Liquibase Enterprise can be integrated with GitLab CI/CD to deploy your database code. Visit the GitLab website to learn more about Get started with GitLab CI/CD | GitLab .

This document explains how to setup a GitLab CI/CD pipeline with a dedicated runner to execute Liquibase Enterprise operations. A GitLab runner can be shared among multiple Liquibase projects, so one runner can serve several teams. This example uses a Linux server for the runner. You can learn more about GitLab runners here: GitLab Runner | GitLab .

Prerequisites

Before following the steps in this document, setup your databases and create the Liquibase project.

Liquibase Enterprise requires two repositories which are referred to as projects in GitLab. In GitLab create the following two projects:

  • The Liquibase Project repository.

  • The SQL code repository.

Push the Liquibase project configuration files to the project repository in GitLab.

git init --initial-branch=main git remote add origin git@gitlab.com:lbe/demo_project.git git add . git commit -m "Initial commit" git push -u origin main

 

Step 1: Install Liquibase Enterprise on a Linux Server

The Linux server can be a VM on a cloud platform such as AWS. Make sure to use a supported version of Linux. Hardware, Software, and Database Requirements

Follow these instructions to install Liquibase Enterprise: Using the CLI and the Composite Repository to Install Liquibase Enterprise on Linux Systems

Make sure that git is installed on the Linux server as it will be needed by the Liquibase Enterprise Deploy Packager. SCM Requirements and Features

Step 2: Install GitLab Runner on the Linux Server

Install GitLab Runner using the official GitLab repositories | GitLab

Login to the Linux VM and run the following commands.

curl -L "https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/runner/gitlab-runner/script.rpm.sh" | sudo bash sudo yum install gitlab-runner

This example uses SSH keys for git authentication. You can find information on using SSH keys with GitLab here: Use SSH keys to communicate with GitLab | GitLab . Copy the SSH private key to /home/gitlab-runner/.ssh.

Step 3: Register the Runner

Registering runners | GitLab

  1. Login to GitLab.

  2. Navigate to the SQL repo.

  3. Go to Settings > CI/CD

  4. Expand the Runners section.
    Copy the registration token.

  5. Start a terminal session on the GitLab runner. Run the “gitlab-runner register” command.
    You will be prompted for the required information. We recommend creating a tag for the runner so that GitLab CI/CD jobs for Liquibase can be associated with this runner. The executor for the runner should be “shell”.

    sudo gitlab-runner register Runtime platform arch=amd64 os=linux pid=11051 revision=5316d4ac version=14.6.0 Running in system-mode. Enter the GitLab instance URL (for example, https://gitlab.com/): https://gitlab.com Enter the registration token: <the token that was copied above> Enter a description for the runner: [ip-172-30-3-12.ec2.internal]: myrunner.mydomain.com Enter tags for the runner (comma-separated): liquibase Registering runner... succeeded runner=q8McuSyX Enter an executor: docker, parallels, virtualbox, docker+machine, kubernetes, custom, shell, ssh, docker-ssh+machine, docker-ssh: shell Runner registered successfully. Feel free to start it, but if it's running already the config should be automatically reloaded!

Step 4: Create an Access Token

  • The Access Token (PAT) is needed to download artifacts.

  • To create a personal access token:

    • Login to GitLab.

    • On the top-right corner, select your avatar.

    • Select Edit Profile

    • On the left sidebar, select Access Tokens.

    • Enter a name.

    • Leave expiry date blank (never expires).

    • Select access token scope: api

    • Select create personal access token.

    • Save token. It cannot be retrieved later.

  • If you would prefer to use a Project Access Token, the instructions are here: Project access tokens | GitLab .

Step 5: Configure the .gitlab-ci.yml file

Deploy Packager jobs will be triggered automatically by commits to the packaging branch of the SQL repo. Forecast and Deploy jobs will be triggered manually from the GitLab web interface. The Logging job will always run to generate a .zip of files to be used for debugging errors.

The example .gitlab-ci.yml file should be placed in the top level of the SQL repo. Update the GitLab URLs for your Repos.

Note: You may need to manually initialize the git SSH key for both of the Repos.

 

Step 6: Configure variables for the pipeline.

Variables are a good way to store database credentials. They also allow the same script to be configured to work for different projects.

  1. Login to GitLab.

  2. Navigate to the SQL repo for the project.

  3. Go to Settings > CI/CD

  4. Expand the Variables section.

The sample script requires the variables shown below.

appname: Name of your Liquibase project

pipeline: Name of the pipeline in the Liquibase project

branch: Branch in the SQL repo that is used for packaging

ddb_repo: Name of the Liquibase project repository

sql_repo: Name of the SQL repository

DDB_USER: Database user name

DDB_PASS: Database password

DDB_DMCDB_USER: Database user for DMCDB

DDB_DMCDB_PASS: Database password for DMCDB

Step 7: Test your pipeline.

Commit a change to the packaging branch in your SQL repo. GitLab should run the pipeline Packaging job using your runner.

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