Looking for Help for generating .MSI on GITLAB Linux docker container

Question

Hi All, Good Morning/Evening! As a part of User Story, I need to generate a .MSI out of 3 Projects in .net and facing Issues in GITLAB CI/CD Pipeline.

GitLAB CI/CD pipeline will run these 3 Projects in GitLab runner and as we do no have ADMIN privileges for GITLAB, I am facing issues with one of the Project to run one of the project on Linux Docker Container(GitLab runner). Basically i was looking for Windows Docker Container for GITLAB Runner.

As an aletrnate Solution,In Local i was able to do it using Python and generate .MSI but facing issues when i run the same on GITLAB CI/CD Pipeline.

Any inputs and suggestions are highly Apprecited.

Answer 1

an alternative approach to Windows-based container

1. Use the .NET Core cross-platform tools to build your projects on a Linux container. Make sure your projects target .NET Core or .NET 5/6, which are cross-platform.
2. Use the .NET Core cross-platform tools to build your projects on a Linux container. Make sure your projects target .NET Core or .NET 5/6, which are cross-platform.

sample .gitlab-ci.yml file

image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0

stages:
  - build
  - package

before_script:
  - apt-get update
  - apt-get install -y wine
  - wine --version

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - dotnet restore
    - dotnet build --configuration Release

package:
  stage: package
  script:
    - wget https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix3/releases/download/wix3112rtm/wix311-binaries.zip
    - unzip wix311-binaries.zip -d wix
    - export PATH=$PATH:$(pwd)/wix
    - wine candle.exe -arch x64 your_wix_project.wxs
    - wine light.exe -ext WixUIExtension -ext WixUtilExtension -out your_package_name.msi your_wix_project.wixobj
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - your_package_name.msi

Please note that it is recommended to use a Windows-based GitLab runner when working with .NET Framework projects and MSI packages