Token generation for Registering Self Hosted Github Runner via REST API

Motivation

w.r.t https://www.narenvadapalli.com/blog/self-hosted-github-runner-registration-process/, while registering a windows host as github self hosted runner, you need to generate a Token for registration.

This blog will take you through the process of generating the token, using Github REST API

Github Personal Access token (Classic) Generation

You Need to sign in to Github org account by clicking on https://github.com/settings/tokens.

The token that was used with config.cmd (REF: self-hosted-github-runner-registration-process) is a one time registration token and we would have to generate a new token for each new self hosted github runner. But fortunately, there seems to be the required API calls with github to generate the token, that would be valid for an hour

REF: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/actions/self-hosted-runners?apiVersion=2022-11-28#create-a-registration-token-for-an-organization

Copy/backup the token for it to be used in the next step

Token Generation using Github's REST API for registering self hosted runner

Following would capture the Token in to a variable called $token when run in a Powershell.

Remember to replace the following in the command below with a Github Personal Access Token that has both repo and admin:org permissions

• <<GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN_REDACTED>>
• <<GITHUB_ORG>>

$token=$(Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post `
  -Uri https://api.github.com/orgs/<<GITHUB_ORG>>/actions/runners/registration-token `
  -Headers @{
    "Accept" = "application/vnd.github+json"
    "Authorization" = "Bearer <<GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN_REDACTED"
    "X-GitHub-Api-Version" = "2022-11-28"
  }).token

Print the token to check it

$token