Failed to install gitlab-runner: Init already exists

Question

I installed gitlab-runner via sudo apt install gitlab-runner, configured it according to the tutorial and it worked well.

Now I want to change the user of the gitlab-runner. So I stop the service with service gitlab-runner stop and try to change the user via

sudo gitlab-runner install --user=my-user --working-directory=/home/my-user 

I get following error message:

FATAL: Failed to install gitlab-runner: Init already exists: /etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service

How to proceed?

Answer 1

1. Rename the init file with

   sudo mv /etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service  /etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service.bak
   

2. and execute again

   sudo gitlab-runner install --user=my-user --working-directory=/home/my-user
   

3. cleanup the backup file

   sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service.bak
   

Finally you can start the runner again with service gitlab-runner start.

Answer 2

You can simply remove this file:

rm /etc/systemd/system/gitlab-runner.service

Or:

gitlab-runner uninstall

And then install gitlab-runner again.