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Chapter 1. Release notes

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Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces is a web-based integrated development environment (IDE). CodeReady Workspaces runs in OpenShift and is well-suited for container-based development.

This section documents the most important features and bug fixes in Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces. For the list of CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 release issues, see the Chapter 2, Known issues section.

  • To deploy applications to an OpenShift cluster from CodeReady Workspaces, users must log in to the OpenShift cluster from their running workspace using oc login.
  • Having multiple CodeReady Workspaces deployments on the same cluster is not recommended, and the ability to do so may be removed in a future release.

1.1. About Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 provides an enterprise-level cloud developer workspace server and browser-based IDE. CodeReady Workspaces includes ready-to-use developer stacks for some of the most popular programming languages, frameworks, and Red Hat technologies.

This minor release of Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces is based on Eclipse Che 7.16.2 and offers a number of enhancements and new features, including:

  • Operator available to all OSD 4.3 customers
  • Support for Maven configuration injection in workspaces
  • Support for OpenShift cluster-wide proxy configuration
  • Improvements to workspace startup and overall performance
  • Languages updates

    • Uses Java 11 instead of Java 8 in SpringBoot stack
    • Java-related extensions updated to the latest version
  • Dependency Analytics updated from 0.0.13 to 0.1.0

CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 is available in the Red Hat Container Catalog. Install it on OpenShift Container Platform, starting at version 3.11.

CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 is available from the OperatorHub in OpenShift 4.3 and beyond. CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 is based on a new Operator that uses the Operator Lifecycle Manager. This makes the CodeReady Workspaces installation flow simpler and doable without leaving the OpenShift Console.​

To install CodeReady Workspaces for OpenShift 4.4 or later, get CodeReady Workspaces from the OperatorHub and follow the Installing CodeReady Workspaces on OpenShift Container Platform chapter of the Installation Guide.

To install CodeReady Workspaces for OpenShift 3.11, follow the instructions in the Installing CodeReady Workspaces using the CLI management tool on OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 chapter of the Installation Guide.

1.2. Notable enhancements

1.2.1. Support for asynchronous volume mounts added for workspaces

  • A new type of storage with fast disk input/output that saves changes as in traditional persistent mode.
  • Asynchronous storage is added to CodeReady Workspaces by a plug-in, which is automatically added to the workspace configuration if a user selects the asynchronous storage type.
  • The plug-in initiates the restore command on workspace start and backs up all sources on workspace stop. Changes are periodically backed up while the workspace is running.
  • This feature is currently only available for the Common PVC strategy.

1.2.2. Support for OpenShift cluster-wide proxy configuration

  • Users can now configure a proxy for OpenShift clusters, the configuration of which is used by CodeReady Workspaces automatically.
  • Operator automatically detects that OpenShift cluster-wide proxy configuration exists and uses it to configure its components.
  • Specifying an additional non-proxy host is possible by setting the spec.server.nonProxyHosts field in the CodeReady Workspaces custom resource (CR). The value of the CR is merged with the corresponding value of the OpenShift proxy configuration.
  • Users can define or override OpenShift cluster-wide proxy configuration by setting a proxy in the CR.

    Self-signed certificates for endpoints behind a proxy have to be added as a trust-store for CodeReady Workspaces to access them securely.

1.2.3. Support for OCP 4.5

CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 now supports OpenShift Container Platform 4.5.

1.2.4. New devfile for EAP XP 1.0 adds support for Microprofile applications development and debugging

This update provides CodeReady Workspaces support for a MicroProfile devfile. With this new devfile, users can easily develop and debug MicroProfile applications using EAP 7.3.1, launched directly from the Get Started page in CodeReady Workspaces. The required JBoss EAP XP image used by the devfile will be downloaded from Red Hat Container Catalog.

1.2.5. Specific namespace suggestion during Operator subscription to CodeReady Workspaces

The CodeReady Workspaces Operator now recommends the eclipse-che namespace as the installation namespace. If this option is selected, the Operator automatically creates this namespace during the activation of the Operator subscription.

1.2.6. Improvements in connection stability

The connection to machine exec and overall stability during che task operations have been improved.

1.3. Other enhancements

1.3.1. A list of recently used workspaces available from Che-Theia

Users can find a new command in File Open Recent Workspace that allows them to see a list of recently used workspaces from the IDE. For proper functionality, use Google Chrome.

1.3.2. Setting a maximum time for running workspaces

The custom resource property for hard timeout, che.limits.workspace.idle.hard.timeout, adds the possibility to set a maximum time for running workspaces. After a specified number of minutes, a workspace is idled even if the checker detects workspace activity.

1.3.3. Server component migration to Java 11

Because of CodeReady Workspaces server migration to Java 11, CodeReady Workspaces server contributors will be able to use modern language features of Java 11 in future releases.

Additional benefits:

  • Native container support
  • TLS 1.3 support
  • Language and performance improvements
  • More minimalistic server image (20%)

1.3.4. Passing credentials in settings.xml now possible

Sensitive information such as passwords or configuration files can be mounted as Kubernetes secrets to remote Maven repositories.

1.3.5. Various plug-ins updated to latest versions

  • update to redhat/dependency-analytics/0.1.0
  • update to redhat/java/0.63.0 (and java8 and java11)
  • update to redhat/quarkus-java11/1.5.0
  • update to redhat/vscode-apache-camel/0.0.25
  • update to redhat/vscode-camelk/0.0.15
  • update to sonarsource/sonarlint-vscode/1.16.0

1.3.6. More memory for native compilation with Quarkus devfiles

The new limit for the memory was set to 4927 MiB.

1.3.7. Update for Java-based devfiles

Java-based devfiles have been migrated to use JDK 11 where possible, remove EAP if not required, and continue to use JDK 8 where needed. Since Maven 3.6 was moved into the JDK sidecar to support Quarkus, it is possible to use Quarkus with JDK 8 and 11 if a user sets up a custom devfile.

In addition, a new plugin-java8-rhel8 container replaces the previous stacks-java-rhel8 container and also provides support for Node.js and Python in the same container. This reduces the installation footprint for most devfiles and provides a single container for the most widely used languages.

1.3.8. Installing the CodeReady Workspaces Operator using the crwctl command-line tool

Only supported for OCP 3.11. For OCP 4, use the OperatorHub UI method.

1.3.9. Adding support for the Didact extension

Didact merges markup, such as Markdown and AsciiDoc, and provides an interactive link that makes it possible to use the markup in VS Code commands.

1.3.10. CloudShell editor removed

The CloudShell editor has been removed. However, it is still possible to create a CloudShell Workspace using an appropriate configuration in a standard devfile.

1.3.11. Metrics collection enabled by default for Operator CodeReady Workspaces installations

  • CodeReady Workspaces server automatically exposes related metrics at a specific endpoint, allowing users to get to them without further action.
  • OpenShift Cluster Monitoring is set to read the metrics from the exposed endpoint. This setup is enabled during the CodeReady Workspaces installation on OpenShift Container Platform.

1.3.12. An additional CLI endpoint allows users to open files from CLIs

Using the Che-Theia terminal, users can use the che binary to call UI commands, such as File→Open File.

  • This is possible to use with Bash scripts.
  • For more information, see the Demo.

1.4. Supported platforms and installation methods

This section provides information about the availability of CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 on OpenShift Container Platform and OpenShift Dedicated, and about their supported installation methods.

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces for OpenShift Container Platform can be installed on OpenShift Container Platform starting at version 3.11.

Table 1.1. Supported deployment environments for CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 on OpenShift Container Platform
 

3.11

4.4

4.5

OpenShift Container Platform

crwctl

OperatorHub

OperatorHub

Table 1.2. Supported deployment environments for CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 on OpenShift Dedicated
 4.3

OpenShift Dedicated

Add-On

It is possible to use the crwctl utility script for deploying CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 on OpenShift Container Platform versions 4.4 and 4.5. This method is considered unofficial and serves as a backup installation method for situations where the installation method using OperatorHub is not available.

1.4.1. Installing and deploying CodeReady Workspaces

To install CodeReady Workspaces for OpenShift 4.4 or later, get CodeReady Workspaces from the OperatorHub and follow the Installing CodeReady Workspaces on OpenShift Container Platform chapter of the Installation Guide.

To install CodeReady Workspaces for OpenShift 3.11, follow the instructions in the Installing CodeReady Workspaces using the CLI management tool on OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 chapter of the Installation Guide.

1.4.2. Support policy

For Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.3, Red Hat will provide support for deployment, configuration, and use of the product.

CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 has been tested on Chrome version 83.0.4103.97 (Official Build) (64-bit).

For more information, see CodeReady Workspaces life-cycle and support policy.

1.5. Difference between Eclipse Che and Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces

The main differences between CodeReady Workspaces and Eclipse Che are:

  • CodeReady Workspaces is built on RHEL8 to ensure the latest security fixes are included, vs. Alpine distributions that take a longer time to update.
  • CodeReady Workspaces uses Red Hat Single Sign-On (SSO) instead of the upstream project Keycloak.
  • CodeReady Workspaces provides a smaller supported subset of plugins compared to Che. CodeReady Workspaces provides devfiles for working with other Red Hat technologies such as EAP and Fuse.
  • CodeReady Workspaces is supported on OpenShift Container Platform and OpenShift Dedicated; Che can also run on other Kubernetes clusters.

Red Hat also provides licensing, packaging, and support, so CodeReady Workspaces is considered a more stable product than the upstream Eclipse Che project.

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