How to Install Drone on macOS

Drone is a Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) platform that enables developers to automate software testing and deployment processes. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Drone on macOS.

Prerequisites

  • macOS operating system
  • Docker Desktop for macOS installed
  • Homebrew package manager installed
  • Git installed

Step 1 - Install Drone CLI

Open a terminal window and run the following command to install the Drone CLI:

brew install drone-cli

The drone-cli is a command-line interface that allows you to interact with Drone and manage your builds.

Step 2 - Create a Drone Configuration File

Create a .drone.yml file in your project root directory to define your workflow. This file contains instructions for building, testing and deploying your application. Here is an example configuration file:

kind: pipeline
name: default

steps:
  - name: build
    image: node:12
    commands:
      - npm install
      - npm run build
  
  - name: test
    image: node:12
    commands:
      - npm test
  
  - name: deploy
    image: plugins/ssh
    settings:
      host: example.com
      username: deploy
      password:
        from_secret: ssh_password
      port: 22
      target: /home/deploy/app
      source: dist/

This configuration file defines three steps:

  • build step builds the project using the node:12 image.
  • test step runs the project's tests using the node:12 image.
  • deploy step deploys the project using the plugins/ssh image.

You can customize the pipeline steps according to your project's requirements.

Step 3 - Install Docker Runner

To execute your pipeline, you need to have a Docker Runner. A Docker Runner is a lightweight container that runs your pipeline on your local machine or a remote server.

Run the following command to install the Docker Runner:

docker run -d \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -e DRONE_RPC_PROTO=https \
  -e DRONE_RPC_HOST=drone.example.com \
  -e DRONE_RPC_SECRET=${DRONE_RPC_SECRET} \
  -e DRONE_RUNNER_CAPACITY=2 \
  -e DRONE_RUNNER_NAME=${HOSTNAME} \
  --restart always \
  --name runner \
  drone/drone-runner-docker:1

Here, replace the values of DRONE_RPC_HOST and DRONE_RPC_SECRET with your own values. The DRONE_RUNNER_CAPACITY specifies the number of pipelines that can run concurrently and the DRONE_RUNNER_NAME specifies the name of the runner.

You can run multiple runners on different machines or use Drone's managed runner to scale your pipelines.

Step 4 - Connect Drone to Git

To connect Drone to your Git repository, you need to create a Drone App on your Git provider and obtain an access token. Follow the instructions for your Git provider to create a Drone App and obtain an access token.

Here are the steps for connecting Drone to a GitHub repository:

  • Go to your GitHub account settings and select Developer settings > Personal access tokens.
  • Click on Generate new token, give it a name and select the repo and admin:repo_hook scopes.
  • Copy the access token.

Run the following command to tell Drone to watch your repository:

drone repo add <username>/<repository>

Here, replace <username> and <repository> with your own values.

Step 5 - Start the Drone Server

Run the following command to start the Drone Server:

docker run -d \
  --volume=/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  --env=DRONE_GITHUB_SERVER=https://github.com \
  --env=DRONE_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=<github_client_id> \
  --env=DRONE_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=<github_client_secret> \
  --env=DRONE_RPC_SECRET=${DRONE_RPC_SECRET} \
  --env=DRONE_SERVER_HOST=drone.example.com \
  --env=DRONE_SERVER_PROTO=https \
  --restart always \
  --publish=80:80 \
  --publish=443:443 \
  --name=drone \
  drone/drone:1

Here, replace <github_client_id> and <github_client_secret> with the values of your GitHub App. The DRONE_SERVER_HOST specifies the domain name or IP address of your Drone instance.

By default, the Drone Server listens on ports 80 and 443. You can change the ports and use HTTP or HTTPS depending on your requirements.

Step 6 - Verify Installation

Open a web browser and go to https://drone.example.com (replace drone.example.com with your own domain name). You should see the Drone UI and your repository listed there.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Drone on macOS and connected it to your Git repository. Now, you can create and manage pipelines to build, test and deploy your applications. We hope this tutorial was helpful. For more information, visit the official Drone documentation.