tests: k8s: rely more on free runners

We were running most of the k8s integration tests on AKS. The ones that
don't actually depend on AKS's environment now run on normal
ubuntu-24.04 GitHub runners instead: we bring up a kubeadm cluster
there, test with both containerd lts and active, and skip attestation
tests since those runtimes don't need them. AKS is left only for the
jobs that do depend on it.

Signed-off-by: Fabiano Fidêncio <ffidencio@nvidia.com>
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>

.github/workflows/ci.yaml

@@ -297,6 +297,21 @@ jobs:
       AZ_TENANT_ID: ${{ secrets.AZ_TENANT_ID }}
       AZ_SUBSCRIPTION_ID: ${{ secrets.AZ_SUBSCRIPTION_ID }}
 
+  run-k8s-tests-on-free-runner:
+    if: ${{ inputs.skip-test != 'yes' }}
+    needs: publish-kata-deploy-payload-amd64
+    permissions:
+      contents: read
+    uses: ./.github/workflows/run-k8s-tests-on-free-runner.yaml
+    with:
+      tarball-suffix: -${{ inputs.tag }}
+      registry: ghcr.io
+      repo: ${{ github.repository_owner }}/kata-deploy-ci
+      tag: ${{ inputs.tag }}-amd64
+      commit-hash: ${{ inputs.commit-hash }}
+      pr-number: ${{ inputs.pr-number }}
+      target-branch: ${{ inputs.target-branch }}
+
   run-k8s-tests-on-arm64:
     if: ${{ inputs.skip-test != 'yes' }}
     needs: publish-kata-deploy-payload-arm64

.github/workflows/run-k8s-tests-on-aks.yaml

@@ -42,17 +42,6 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        host_os:
-          - ubuntu
-        vmm:
-          - clh
-          - dragonball
-          - qemu
-          - qemu-runtime-rs
-          - cloud-hypervisor
-        instance-type:
-          - small
-          - normal
         include:
           - host_os: cbl-mariner
             vmm: clh
@@ -80,6 +69,7 @@ jobs:
       KUBERNETES: "vanilla"
       K8S_TEST_HOST_TYPE: ${{ matrix.instance-type }}
       GENPOLICY_PULL_METHOD: ${{ matrix.genpolicy-pull-method }}
+      RUNS_ON_AKS: "true"
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683 # v4.2.2
         with:

.github/workflows/run-k8s-tests-on-free-runner.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+# Run Kubernetes integration tests on free GitHub runners  with a locally
+# deployed cluster (kubeadm).
+name: CI | Run kubernetes tests on free runner
+on:
+  workflow_call:
+    inputs:
+      tarball-suffix:
+        required: false
+        type: string
+      registry:
+        required: true
+        type: string
+      repo:
+        required: true
+        type: string
+      tag:
+        required: true
+        type: string
+      pr-number:
+        required: true
+        type: string
+      commit-hash:
+        required: false
+        type: string
+      target-branch:
+        required: false
+        type: string
+        default: ""
+
+permissions: {}
+
+jobs:
+  run-k8s-tests:
+    name: run-k8s-tests
+    strategy:
+      fail-fast: false
+      matrix:
+        environment: [
+          { vmm: clh, containerd_version: lts },
+          { vmm: clh, containerd_version: active },
+          { vmm: dragonball, containerd_version: lts },
+          { vmm: dragonball, containerd_version: active },
+          { vmm: qemu, containerd_version: lts },
+          { vmm: qemu, containerd_version: active },
+          { vmm: qemu-runtime-rs, containerd_version: lts },
+          { vmm: qemu-runtime-rs, containerd_version: active },
+          { vmm: cloud-hypervisor, containerd_version: lts },
+          { vmm: cloud-hypervisor, containerd_version: active },
+        ]
+    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
+    permissions:
+      contents: read
+    env:
+      DOCKER_REGISTRY: ${{ inputs.registry }}
+      DOCKER_REPO: ${{ inputs.repo }}
+      DOCKER_TAG: ${{ inputs.tag }}
+      GH_PR_NUMBER: ${{ inputs.pr-number }}
+      KATA_HOST_OS: ubuntu
+      KATA_HYPERVISOR: ${{ matrix.environment.vmm }}
+      KUBERNETES: vanilla
+      K8S_TEST_HOST_TYPE: baremetal-no-attestation
+      CONTAINER_ENGINE: containerd
+      CONTAINER_ENGINE_VERSION: ${{ matrix.environment.containerd_version }}
+      GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683 # v4.2.2
+        with:
+          ref: ${{ inputs.commit-hash }}
+          fetch-depth: 0
+          persist-credentials: false
+
+      - name: Rebase atop of the latest target branch
+        run: |
+          ./tests/git-helper.sh "rebase-atop-of-the-latest-target-branch"
+        env:
+          TARGET_BRANCH: ${{ inputs.target-branch }}
+
+      - name: get-kata-tools-tarball
+        uses: actions/download-artifact@d3f86a106a0bac45b974a628896c90dbdf5c8093 # v4.3.0
+        with:
+          name: kata-tools-static-tarball-amd64${{ inputs.tarball-suffix }}
+          path: kata-tools-artifacts
+
+      - name: Install kata-tools
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh install-kata-tools kata-tools-artifacts
+
+      - name: Remove unnecessary directories to free up space
+        run: |
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/local/.ghcup
+          sudo rm -rf /opt/hostedtoolcache/CodeQL
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/android
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/share/dotnet
+          sudo rm -rf /opt/ghc
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/boost
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/jvm
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/share/swift
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/powershell
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/local/julia*
+          sudo rm -rf /opt/az
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/chromium
+          sudo rm -rf /opt/microsoft
+          sudo rm -rf /opt/google
+          sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/firefox
+
+      - name: Deploy k8s (kubeadm)
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh deploy-k8s
+
+      - name: Install `bats`
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh install-bats
+
+      - name: Deploy Kata
+        timeout-minutes: 20
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh deploy-kata
+
+      - name: Run tests
+        timeout-minutes: 60
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh run-tests
+
+      - name: Report tests
+        if: always()
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh report-tests
+
+      - name: Delete kata-deploy
+        if: always()
+        timeout-minutes: 15
+        run: bash tests/integration/kubernetes/gha-run.sh cleanup
+