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GitHub Actions Runner 1-Click Application

Deploy a self-hosted GitHub Actions Runner on Ubuntu 24.04 with Docker pre-installed. Connect the Droplet to your repository, organization, or enterprise and run CI/CD jobs on DigitalOcean infrastructure you control.

What is Included

System Requirements

Choose a Droplet size that matches your workflow resource needs when creating the Droplet from the Marketplace.

Software Included

Creating an App using the Control Panel

Click the Deploy to DigitalOcean button to create a Droplet based on this 1-Click App. If you aren’t logged in, this link will prompt you to log in with your DigitalOcean account.

Creating an App using the API

In addition to creating a Droplet from the Github Actions Runner 1-Click App using the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API. As an example, to create a 4GB Github Actions Runner Droplet in the SFO2 region, you can use the following curl command. You need to either save your API access token to an environment variable or substitute it in the command below.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
         -H 'Authorization: Bearer '$TOKEN'' -d \
        '{"name":"choose_a_name","region":"sfo2","size":"s-2vcpu-4gb","image":"githubactionsrun"}' \
        "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets"

Getting Started After Deploying Github Actions Runner

1. Create a registration token on GitHub:

   Repository or Organization → Settings → Actions → Runners → New self-hosted runner.

2. Deploy this 1-Click from the DigitalOcean Marketplace.

3. SSH into the Droplet: ssh root@your-droplet-ip

4. Complete the setup wizard (runs on first login), or run:

/etc/setup-github-runner.sh

Enter:

• GitHub URL (for example https://github.com/ORG/REPO or https://github.com/ORG)
• Registration token (expires in about one hour; input is hidden)
• Optional runner name and labels

1. Confirm the runner shows as Idle under your GitHub Runners page.

Manual registration

cd /home/runner/actions-runner
sudo -u runner ./config.sh --url https://github.com/ORG/REPO --token YOUR_TOKEN
/opt/start-github-runner.sh

Service Management

/opt/status-github-runner.sh
/opt/start-github-runner.sh
/opt/stop-github-runner.sh
/opt/restart-github-runner.sh
journalctl -u actions-runner -f

Using the Runner in Workflows

Target the self-hosted runner with:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: self-hosted
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: echo "Running on DigitalOcean"

Add custom labels during setup to select specific Droplets:

runs-on: [self-hosted, linux, production]

Docker is available for jobs that use the container: key or build images.

Updating

On a live Droplet:

/opt/update-github-runner.sh           # latest release
/opt/update-github-runner.sh <VERSION> # specific version (e.g. from actions/runner releases)

Or follow GitHub’s upgrade documentation. To change the version baked into new Marketplace images, rebuild with an updated application_version in template.json.

Security Notes

• Prefer private repositories with self-hosted runners.
• Forks of public repositories can run untrusted workflow code on this machine.
• Treat registration tokens as secrets; they expire quickly.
• Restrict SSH access with a DigitalOcean Cloud Firewall when possible.
• Docker API ports are not exposed; only SSH is allowed through UFW.

Support and Resources

• About self-hosted runners
• Adding self-hosted runners
• actions/runner releases
• DigitalOcean Community