gitlab-runner shell executor WARNING: Preparation failed: shell /usr/bin/bash not found

Question

i am trying to set up an oracle cloud ubuntu vm as a gitlab runner instance with a shell executor.

I am getting this error when i try to run a job on it:

Running with gitlab-runner 15.11.0 (xxx)
  on bob_the_builder_aarch64_shell xxx, system ID: xxx
Preparing the "shell" executor 00:09
ERROR: Preparation failed: shell /usr/bin/bash not found
Will be retried in 3s ...
ERROR: Preparation failed: shell /usr/bin/bash not found
Will be retried in 3s ...
ERROR: Preparation failed: shell /usr/bin/bash not found
Will be retried in 3s ...
ERROR: Job failed (system failure): shell /usr/bin/bash not found

WARNING: Preparation failed: shell /usr/bin/bash not found

On the Ubuntu vm in tried to check the bash path and it seems to be correct:

$ which bash
/usr/bin/bash

Tried as well:

/bin/bash

I also tried sh:

$ which sh
/usr/bin/sh

But the same outcome..

Here is my config.toml:

concurrent = 1
check_interval = 0
shutdown_timeout = 0

[session_server]
  session_timeout = 1800

[[runners]]
  name = "bob_the_builder_aarch64_shell"
  url = "https://gitlab.com/"
  id = xxx
  token = "xxx"
  token_obtained_at = 2023-05-08T01:17:42Z
  token_expires_at = 0001-01-01T00:00:00Z
  executor = "shell"
  shell = "/usr/bin/bash"
  [runners.cache]
    MaxUploadedArchiveSize = 0

I also tried running gitlab-runner with sudo and using the config file at /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml with the same settings..

What on earth am i doing wrong / missing here?

Thank you for your time in advance!

Answer 1

The shell configuration key is expected to be just the shell name, e.g., bash, not the path to the executable.

So change:

  shell = "/usr/bin/bash"

to

  shell = "bash"

See: shells supported by GitLab Runner