I don't think this is possible with the predefined variables since they only contain CI_RUNNER_DESCRIPTION, CI_RUNNER_ID and CI_RUNNER_TAGS.

You could create a workaround by using the environment setting in the runner config.toml as described in this section and the example:

[[runners]]
  name = "ruby-2.1-docker"
  url = "https://CI/"
  token = "TOKEN"
  limit = 0
  executor = "docker"
  builds_dir = ""
  shell = ""
  environment = ["ENV=value", "CI_RUNNER_VERSION=10.2"]
  clone_url = "http://gitlab.example.local

If you use stuff like Ansible, Puppet, Chef or another provisioning tool you could make sure they update the config when they upgrade the runner e.g.

Or create a bash script that replaces the CI_RUNNER_VERSION value in the config.toml based on a every day/night and restarts the runner service. That would be pretty easy.

You can get the version or your runner (and only the exact version) by running:

$ gitlab-runner --version | head -n 1 | awk '{print $2}'

Ok the problem was solved by using the manual update described at:

https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/install/linux-manually.html

Stop the service (you need elevated command prompt as before):

sudo gitlab-runner stop

Download the binary to replace Runner's executable:

sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/binaries/gitlab-runner-linux-386
sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/binaries/gitlab-runner-linux-amd64

You can download a binary for every available version as described in Bleeding Edge - download any other tagged release.

Give it permissions to execute:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner

Start the service:

sudo gitlab-runner start

"latest" - may install a beta so it is important to select the right tag (also described in the link)

As described in the documentation you are following to install on the first paragraph:

You can download a binary for every available version as described in Bleeding Edge - download any other tagged release.

Following the link in this sentence allow your to find the tag list page

Last version in 1.X (Hence compatible with 8.X versions of Gitlab is 1.11.2 at time of writing, you can download it from The tag details page

If you prefer another archive format, you can choose in the dropdown of download at the right of the tag page description: