Gitlab CI: How to use the bash shell on a Windows runner

Question

From the GitLab CI documentation the bash shell is supported on Windows.

Supported systems by different shells:
Shells  Bash    Windows Batch   PowerShell
Windows     ✓   ✓ (default)     ✓

In my config.toml, I have tried:

[[runners]]
  name = "myTestRunner"
  url = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  token = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  executor = "shell"
  shell = "bash"

But if my .gitlab-ci.yml attempts to execute bash script, for example

stages:
  - Stage1 
testJob:
  stage: Stage1
  when: always
  script:
    - echo $PWD  
  tags:
    - myTestRunner

And then from the folder containing the GitLab multi runner I right-click and select 'git bash here' and then type:

gitlab-runner.exe exec shell testJob

It cannot resolve $PWD, proving it is not actually using a bash executor. (Git bash can usually correctly print out $PWD on Windows.)

Running with gitlab-runner 10.6.0 (a3543a27)
Using Shell executor...
Running on G0329...
Cloning repository...
Cloning into 'C:/GIT/CI_dev_project/builds/0/project-0'...
done.
Checking out 8cc3343d as bashFromBat...
Skipping Git submodules setup
$ echo $PWD
$PWD
Job succeeded

The same thing happens if I push a commit, and the web based GitLab CI terminal automatically runs the .gitlab-ci script.

How do I correctly use the Bash terminal in GitLab CI on Windows?

Answer 1

Firstly my guess is that it is not working as it should (see the comment below your question). I found a workaround, maybe it is not what you need but it works. For some reason the command "echo $PWD" is concatenated after bash command and then it is executed in a Windows cmd. That is why the result is "$PWD". To replicate it execute the following in a CMD console (only bash is open):

bash && echo $PWD

The solution is to execute the command inside bash with option -c (it is not the ideal solution but it works). The .gitlab-ci.yml should be:

stages:
  - Stage1 
testJob:
  stage: Stage1
  when: always
  script:
    - bash -c "echo $PWD"  
  tags:
    - myTestRunner