Using your own machines
Why you might
Containers here are fine for most work. Sometimes they are not: you need a GPU, or a machine that is already set up, or something that has to run inside your own network. A machine you own can join your workspace and be used exactly like a container is.
How it works
From Environments, choose to add a remote machine. You are given a single line to paste onto it. That installs a small remote agent which runs as your own user, with no root and no system service, so nobody has to be granted special access to the machine or raise a change request to put it there. It holds a credential for this workspace only and dials out to your address to wait for work.
Nothing is opened to the internet
The connection is outbound only. Your machine does not need a public address, an open port or a hole in your firewall. If it can reach the internet, it can join. If it stops being able to, it stops picking up work, and anything aimed at that machine does not run while it is away. Environments shows when it last called in.
Two kinds
- The machine itself - agents work directly on it, with the same access your own user has and no more.
- Containers on that machine - work runs in a sealed space of its own, so it cannot touch anything else on the machine. It installs Docker there to do that. This is the usual choice, and the right one for a machine other people also use.
Removing one
Remove it from Environments and the agent is told to uninstall itself the next time it calls in. If the machine is already gone, there is an uninstall script in the agent's own directory.