Lab: Runner - Ubuntu Latest

Introduction

In this lab, you will create and execute a simple GitHub Actions workflow that runs on the ubuntu-latest GitHub-hosted runner. This lab demonstrates how to display operating system information and print custom messages from within a workflow.

Estimated Duration: 15–20 minutes

Instructions

Step 1: Set up your repository

  1. Navigate to your GitHub repository where you want to create the workflow.

    • If you don’t have a repository yet, create a new one by clicking + > New repository.

Step 2: Create the workflow file

  1. In your repository, click the Code tab (if not already there).

  2. Navigate to the .github folder. If it doesn’t exist:

    • Click Add file > Create new file
    • Name the new file: .github/workflows/runner-ubuntu-latest.yml

  3. Paste the following YAML content into the file:

    name: Runner - Ubuntu Latest

on: workflow_dispatch

jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo "This is a message from ubuntu latest runner"
      - name: Display OS Information
        run: |
          uname -a
          lsb_release -a

  4. Click Commit new file to save the workflow.

Step 3: Understand the workflow

  1. Workflow name: Runner - Ubuntu Latest
  2. Trigger: workflow_dispatch – this means the workflow must be triggered manually via the GitHub UI.
  3. Runner: Uses GitHub-hosted ubuntu-latest environment.

  4. Steps:

    • The first step prints a custom message.
    • The second step displays operating system information using uname -a and lsb_release -a.

Step 4: Trigger the workflow manually

  1. Go to the Actions tab in your repository.
  2. Click on Runner - Ubuntu Latest from the workflow list.
  3. Click the Run workflow button and confirm by clicking the green Run workflow button in the dropdown.

Step 5: View the output

  1. Once the workflow is running, click on the latest workflow run listed.
  2. Click on the run job to expand it.

  3. Review the logs for:

    • The custom echo message.
    • The OS and kernel details returned by uname -a and lsb_release -a.

Summary

In this lab, you created a GitHub Actions workflow that runs on the ubuntu-latest runner and prints system-level details. This is useful for understanding the environment your GitHub Actions run in and for debugging platform-specific behavior.

Additional Resources