CI/CD with GitHub Actions Using AWS self-hosted Runner

Introduction

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) is a core practice in modern DevOps workflows. While GitHub Actions provides powerful cloud-hosted runners, sometimes you need more control over the build environment — for cost savings, performance, or custom setups.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through setting up a self-hosted GitHub Actions runner on an AWS EC2 instance, and then use it to deploy a simple Node.js app automatically. You’ll learn how to:

• Launch and configure an EC2 instance

• Register it as a GitHub self-hosted runner

• Set up a secure deployment pipeline

By the end, you’ll have a working CI/CD system running on your own AWS infrastructure.

✅ 1. Prerequisites

• AWS account

• GitHub account

• Basic knowledge of Node.js & Linux

• SSH key setup

✅ 2. Launching and Preparing the EC2 Instance

• Choose Amazon Linux 2 or Ubuntu

• Configure instance (t2.micro for testing)

• Open required ports (e.g., SSH, app port)

• SSH into EC2 and install:

  • First update EC2 sudo apt update
  • Install Docker sudo apt-get install docker.io -y

✅ 3. Installing and Registering GitHub Self-Hosted Runner

• Go to your GitHub repo → Settings → Actions → Runners

• Choose Linux x64

• Download and configure the runner on EC2

✅ 4. Setting Up the CI/CD Workflow

• Add at root level of your project.github/workflows/deploy.yml

• Refer this repo for yml file GitHub

✅ 5. Testing and Verifying Deployment

• Push code to main branch

• Watch self-hosted runner logs

• Check if app is running (via browser or curl)

✅ 6. Troubleshooting Tips

• Open the required ports in AWS security group

✅ 7. Conclusion

• What you’ve accomplished:

  • EC2 instance as GitHub runner
  • CI/CD using your infrastructure

• Benefits of self-hosted vs GitHub-hosted runners

  • Scale to multiple EC2 runners
  • Add database integration

✅ 8. Resources & Links
GitHub