Howto run test on test computer instead of build computer, using gitlab

Question

I'm learning gitlab and am asking for advice / best practice here.

I want to install a program to a different machine than the build computer, and run some automatic tests on that machine. How is this best done?

I think this can be accomplished with the "multi project pipeline" feature. Is this the simplest/best way?

Here is my plan:

I could have one (shell) runner and project for my build machine, and a different runner and project for my test machine. The two would be connected using "multi project pipeline" feature. The artifacts from the build pipeline would be installed on the test machine and then system tests would run on the test machine.

Is this the best way to solve this? Or is there a simpler/better way?

Edit: The test machine has special hardware/enviornment necessary for the program to run. That's why program needs to be installed there.

Answer 1

Answering my own question here. "Multi project pipeline" is not necessary here. You simply have a single project and mark jobs with different "tags". You can then register runners for these different tags, on different machines.

(Artifacts are transferred from one job to the next the same, regardless if the runners are run on the same machine or on different ones)

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/README.html#tags