MariaDB: 5. GitLab CI

This documentation is part of the GitHub Actions & GitLab CI guide. View the full guide here: Spin up a real MariaDB service from your GitHub Actions or GitLab CI pipeline, run your tests against it, and tear it down automatically.

👋 Welcome to Stackhero documentation

Stackhero provides a ready-to-use MariaDB cloud service designed for production workloads. You get:

Unlimited connections and data transfers.

Built-in phpMyAdmin web interface for database management.

One-click updates for easy maintenance.

High performance and strong security on private, dedicated infrastructure.

Launch a fully managed MariaDB instance in minutes. Stackhero handles setup, updates, and security so you can focus on your application. Learn more about MariaDB cloud hosting.

You can save this configuration as .gitlab-ci.yml. With this setup, every pipeline run spins up a fresh real MariaDB for your tests.

test:
  image: ubuntu:24.04
  variables:
    STACK_NAME: "ci-mariadb-$CI_PIPELINE_ID-$CI_JOB_ID"
    INSTANCE: "10G"   # Change this as needed (see step 3)
    REGION: "europe"
    SERVICE_STORE: "mariadb"
  # STACKHERO_TOKEN comes from the CI/CD variable you created in step 1.
  script:
    - set -euo pipefail
    - curl -fsSL https://www.stackhero.io/install.sh | sh
    - apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends jq curl mariadb-client
    - STACK_ID=$(stackhero --format=script stack-create --name="$STACK_NAME")
    - echo "STACK_ID=$STACK_ID" >> deploy.env
    - SERVICE_ID=$(stackhero --format=script service-add --stack="$STACK_ID" --service-store="$SERVICE_STORE" --instance="$INSTANCE" --region="$REGION")
    - echo "SERVICE_ID=$SERVICE_ID" >> deploy.env
    - stackhero service-wait-for --service="$SERVICE_ID"
    - config=$(stackhero service-configuration-get --service="$SERVICE_ID" --format=json)
    - host=$(echo "$config" | jq -r '.configuration.domain')
password=$(echo "$config" | jq -r '.configuration.mariadbRootPassword')
    # Run a trivial query against the database.
    - mariadb --host="$host" --port=3306 --user=root --password="$password" --ssl -e "SELECT 1;"
    - echo "✅ MariaDB is reachable from CI."
    # You can run your own test suite here using the credentials above ...
  after_script:
    - test -f deploy.env && . ./deploy.env || true
    - >
      if [ -n "${SERVICE_ID:-}" ]; then
        stackhero service-delete --service="$SERVICE_ID" --confirm
        stackhero service-wait-for --service="$SERVICE_ID"
      fi
    - >
      if [ -n "${STACK_ID:-}" ]; then
        stackhero stack-delete --stack="$STACK_ID" --confirm
      fi

In GitLab, cleanup happens inside after_script. This section is always executed, even if the job fails, so your MariaDB resources are removed and you are not charged for resources you are not using.

In GitLab, after_script runs in a fresh shell. To handle this, the script writes the service and stack IDs to deploy.env during the job and reloads them before teardown. This makes sure that even if something fails mid-job, your resources are still cleaned up.

That is the complete CI lifecycle for MariaDB: create a stack, add the service, wait, retrieve credentials, smoke-test, and always tear down. Each pipeline run gets a real, isolated service, nothing left running when you are done. For more information about available commands and non-interactive STACKHERO_TOKEN authentication, you may want to explore the full CLI documentation.

MariaDB: 5. GitLab CI

👋 Welcome to Stackhero documentation

Continue reading this guide

Other articles for MariaDB