feat: add post about macos large runners, add feed for blogs.eclipse.org

_config.yml

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ url: https://netomi.github.io
 author: Thomas Neidhart
 email: thomas.neidhart@gmail.com
 description: > # this means to ignore newlines until "show_exerpts:"
-  <a href="/about">Thomas</a> is a software engineer specialized in byte code engineering, scientific applications, simulations and anything <a href="/projects">interesting</a>.
+  <a href="/about">Thomas</a> is a software engineer specialized in byte code engineering, scientific applications, simulations and anything that <a href="/projects">interests</a> him.
 show_excerpts: false # set to true to show excerpts on the homepage
 github_username: netomi
 repository: netomi/netomi.github.io

_posts/2020-07-20-bat.markdown

@@ -10,14 +10,14 @@ The last couple of years I was busy with processing byte code with an amazing to
 to step back and take a break, I used the available spare time to work on my own tool to process any kind of byte code (class file, dex file)
 and perform some useful analysis on them.
 
-You can access my initial take on this in my github repo [bat](https://github.com/netomi/bat) which is an acronym for *byte code analysis toolkit*.
+You can access my initial take on this in my GitHub repo [bat](https://github.com/netomi/bat) which is an acronym for *byte code analysis toolkit*.
 
 The first useful utility that I created is a tool that copies the behavior of _dexdump_ with some additional options, e.g. ability to
 filter the output for specific classes only:
 
 {% highlight java %}
 java -cp /path/to/commands-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar com.github.netomi.bat.DexDumpCommand -c '**Hello**' classes.dex
-    
+
 ...
 
 Class #0 header:

_posts/2024-08-06-macos-large-runners.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title:  Controlling access to macOS large runners for GitHub Actions
+date:   2024-08-06 10:00:00
+tags:   github github-actions
+categories: eclipse
+comments_id: 29
+---
+
+In 2023, GitHub introduced new powerful macOS runners for GitHub Actions. 
+These [runners](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-github-hosted-runners/about-larger-runners/running-jobs-on-larger-runners?platform=mac#available-macos-larger-runners) 
+have a considerable higher amount of processors / memory and disk space allocated to them to speed up the execution of workflows.
+This advantage comes at a cost though, as billing per minute of executed workflow time is considerably higher as compared to normal runners (see [billing for runners](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions)), 
+on top of usual minute multiplier for macOS runners (each minute of executed workflow time on a macOS runner counts as 10 minutes for billing purposes).
+
+<br/>
+In order to use such a macOS large runner, you can simply add a `runs-on: <runner-type>` to your job definition, e.g. using `macos-latest-large` as runner type:
+
+{% highlight yaml %}
+name: learn-github-actions-testing
+on: [push]
+jobs:
+  build:
+    runs-on: macos-latest-large
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - name: Build
+        run: swift build
+      - name: Run tests
+        run: swift test
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+<br/>
+Additionally, your organization needs to have a `GitHub Team` or `GitHub Enterprise Cloud` plan to be able to use such a macOS large runner, otherwise execution of
+workflows using such a runner will fail to run. Once your organization is eligible to use large runners, you probably want to control the access to such runners for the repositories in your organization
+to avoid surprises when you receive your next invoice. GitHub offers a convenient way to define [runner groups](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-github-hosted-runners/about-larger-runners/controlling-access-to-larger-runners) to define which repositories can access such large runners.
+
+<br/>
+Unfortunately, such runner groups can only be defined for `linux` and `windows` runners, there is simply no way to prevent that `macOS` large runners are being used by any of your repositories once they are configured in a workflow as described above. 
+This poses a problem for non-profit organizations (like the [Eclipse Foundation](https://www.eclipse.org)) that host a lot of projects and their associated repositories on GitHub as it might result in higher than expected billing expenses as some projects try using such large runners
+to speed up their workflows without realizing the consequences.
+
+<br/>
+While it is possible to monitor the incurred costs of using GitHub Action minutes, this is a tedious and manual task and requires communication with projects to change their workflows if occurrences have been identified.
+
+<br/>
+The idea was born to add some automation to prevent the execution of workflows on such `macOS` large runners unless the project / repository is entitled to use such a runner.
+
+<br/>
+After studying the available [GitHub Rest API](https://docs.github.com/en/rest?apiVersion=2022-11-28) and preliminary testing, we figured out the following logic reliably prevents the execution of workflows on large runners:
+
+- listen to [workflow_job events](https://docs.github.com/en/webhooks/webhook-events-and-payloads?actionType=queued#workflow_job) with action `queued`
+- check whether the included `workflow_job` object has `labels` that indicate that the job is supposed to run on a macOS large runner
+- if the above evaluates to true and the repository is not eligible to use such a runner, [cancel the workflow_run](https://docs.github.com/en/rest/actions/workflow-runs?apiVersion=2022-11-28#cancel-a-workflow-run)
+
+<br/>
+To receive the necessary webhook events from GitHub in case a workflow is being scheduled to run you have to set up an organization or repository webhook, listen for the events and apply the logic. 
+
+<br/>
+At the [Eclipse Foundation](https://www.eclipse.org) we are operating an open-source project called [Otterdog](https://github.com/eclipse-csi/otterdog) in order configure our numerous organizations and repositories hosted on GitHub at scale.
+This tool is effectively a GitHub App and is installed for all our projects / organizations on GitHub and already can listen to various events sent from GitHub. So naturally we added the above logic to this tool and allowed to define 
+which organizations are allowed to use such large runners via a configuration file (see [this](https://github.com/eclipse-tractusx/.eclipsefdn/blob/main/otterdog/policies/macos_large_runners.yml) example).
+
+<br/>
+This allows us to control the use of macOS large runners which unfortunately is not yet possible through any of the administration consoles at GitHub. 
+On the other hand, our implemented workaround showcases the power of GitHub Apps how you can utilize them to adjust your GitHub experience to your organizational needs.
+
+<br/>
+Feel free to leave comments on other useful things that you would like to see in the near future.

tags/eclipse/feed.xml

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+layout:
+---
+
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
+  <channel>
+    <title>{{ site.title | xml_escape }}</title>
+    <description>{{ site.description | xml_escape }}</description>
+    <link>{{ site.url }}{{ site.baseurl }}/</link>
+    <atom:link href="{{ "/tags/eclipse/feed.xml" | prepend: site.baseurl | prepend: site.url }}" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
+    <pubDate>{{ site.time | date_to_rfc822 }}</pubDate>
+    <lastBuildDate>{{ site.time | date_to_rfc822 }}</lastBuildDate>
+    <generator>Jekyll v{{ jekyll.version }}</generator>
+    {% for post in site.posts limit:10 %}
+    {% if post.categories contains "eclipse" %}
+      <item>
+        <title>{{ post.title | xml_escape }}</title>
+        <description>{{ post.content | xml_escape }}</description>
+        <pubDate>{{ post.date | date_to_rfc822 }}</pubDate>
+        <link>{{ post.url | prepend: site.baseurl | prepend: site.url }}</link>
+        <guid isPermaLink="true">{{ post.url | prepend: site.baseurl | prepend: site.url }}</guid>
+        {% for tag in post.tags %}
+        <category>{{ tag | xml_escape }}</category>
+        {% endfor %}
+        {% for cat in post.categories %}
+        <category>{{ cat | xml_escape }}</category>
+        {% endfor %}
+      </item>
+    {% endif %}
+    {% endfor %}
+  </channel>
+</rss>