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Chapter 1. Preparing the installation

To prepare a OpenShift Dev Spaces installation, learn about the OpenShift Dev Spaces ecosystem and deployment constraints:

1.1. Supported platforms

OpenShift Dev Spaces runs on OpenShift 4.11–4.14 on the following CPU architectures:

  • AMD64 and Intel 64 (x86_64)
  • IBM Power (ppc64le) and IBM Z (s390x)

Additional resources

1.2. Installing the dsc management tool

You can install dsc, the Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces command-line management tool, on Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS, and Linux. With dsc, you can perform operations the OpenShift Dev Spaces server such as starting, stopping, updating, and deleting the server.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Download the archive from https://developers.redhat.com/products/openshift-dev-spaces/download to a directory such as $HOME.
  2. Run tar xvzf on the archive to extract the /dsc directory.
  3. Add the extracted /dsc/bin subdirectory to $PATH.

Verification

  • Run dsc to view information about it. 

    $ dsc

Additional resources

1.3. Architecture

Figure 1.1. High-level OpenShift Dev Spaces architecture with the Dev Workspace operator

devspaces interacting with devworkspace

OpenShift Dev Spaces runs on three groups of components:

OpenShift Dev Spaces server components
Manage User project and workspaces. The main component is the User dashboard, from which users control their workspaces.
Dev Workspace operator
Creates and controls the necessary OpenShift objects to run User workspaces. Including Pods, Services, and PersistentVolumes.
User workspaces
Container-based development environments, the IDE included.

The role of these OpenShift features is central:

Dev Workspace Custom Resources
Valid OpenShift objects representing the User workspaces and manipulated by OpenShift Dev Spaces. It is the communication channel for the three groups of components.
OpenShift role-based access control (RBAC)
Controls access to all resources.

Additional resources

1.3.1. Server components

The OpenShift Dev Spaces server components ensure multi-tenancy and workspaces management.

Figure 1.2. OpenShift Dev Spaces server components interacting with the Dev Workspace operator

devspaces deployments interacting with devworkspace

Additional resources

1.3.1.1. Dev Spaces operator

The OpenShift Dev Spaces operator ensure full lifecycle management of the OpenShift Dev Spaces server components. It introduces:

CheCluster custom resource definition (CRD)
Defines the CheCluster OpenShift object.
OpenShift Dev Spaces controller
Creates and controls the necessary OpenShift objects to run a OpenShift Dev Spaces instance, such as pods, services, and persistent volumes.
CheCluster custom resource (CR)

On a cluster with the OpenShift Dev Spaces operator, it is possible to create a CheCluster custom resource (CR). The OpenShift Dev Spaces operator ensures the full lifecycle management of the OpenShift Dev Spaces server components on this OpenShift Dev Spaces instance:

Additional resources

1.3.1.2. Dev Workspace operator

The Dev Workspace operator extends OpenShift to provide Dev Workspace support. It introduces:

Dev Workspace custom resource definition
Defines the Dev Workspace OpenShift object from the Devfile v2 specification.
Dev Workspace controller
Creates and controls the necessary OpenShift objects to run a Dev Workspace, such as pods, services, and persistent volumes.
Dev Workspace custom resource
On a cluster with the Dev Workspace operator, it is possible to create Dev Workspace custom resources (CR). A Dev Workspace CR is a OpenShift representation of a Devfile. It defines a User workspaces in a OpenShift cluster.

Additional resources

1.3.1.3. Gateway

The OpenShift Dev Spaces gateway has following roles:

  • Routing requests. It uses Traefik.
  • Authenticating users with OpenID Connect (OIDC). It uses OpenShift OAuth2 proxy.
  • Applying OpenShift Role based access control (RBAC) policies to control access to any OpenShift Dev Spaces resource. It uses `kube-rbac-proxy`.

The OpenShift Dev Spaces operator manages it as the che-gateway Deployment.

It controls access to:

Figure 1.3. OpenShift Dev Spaces gateway interactions with other components

OpenShift Dev Spaces gateway interactions with other components

Additional resources

1.3.1.4. User dashboard

The user dashboard is the landing page of Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces. OpenShift Dev Spaces users browse the user dashboard to access and manage their workspaces. It is a React application. The OpenShift Dev Spaces deployment starts it in the devspaces-dashboard Deployment.

It needs access to:

Figure 1.4. User dashboard interactions with other components

User dashboard interactions with other components

When the user requests the user dashboard to start a workspace, the user dashboard executes this sequence of actions:

  1. Collects the devfile from the Section 1.3.1.5, “Devfile registries”, when the user is creating a workspace from a code sample.
  2. Sends the repository URL to Section 1.3.1.6, “Dev Spaces server” and expects a devfile in return, when the user is creating a workspace from a remote devfile.
  3. Reads the devfile describing the workspace.
  4. Collects the additional metadata from the Section 1.3.1.7, “Plug-in registry”.
  5. Converts the information into a Dev Workspace Custom Resource.
  6. Creates the Dev Workspace Custom Resource in the user project using the OpenShift API.
  7. Watches the Dev Workspace Custom Resource status.
  8. Redirects the user to the running workspace IDE.

1.3.1.5. Devfile registries

Additional resources

The OpenShift Dev Spaces devfile registries are services providing a list of sample devfiles to create ready-to-use workspaces. The Section 1.3.1.4, “User dashboard” displays the samples list on the Dashboard Create Workspace page. Each sample includes a Devfile v2. The OpenShift Dev Spaces deployment starts one devfile registry instance in the devfile-registry deployment.

Figure 1.5. Devfile registries interactions with other components

devspaces devfile registry interactions

Additional resources

1.3.1.6. Dev Spaces server

The OpenShift Dev Spaces server main functions are:

  • Creating user namespaces.
  • Provisioning user namespaces with required secrets and config maps.
  • Integrating with Git services providers, to fetch and validate devfiles and authentication.

The OpenShift Dev Spaces server is a Java web service exposing an HTTP REST API and needs access to:

  • Git service providers
  • OpenShift API

Figure 1.6. OpenShift Dev Spaces server interactions with other components

OpenShift Dev Spaces server interactions with other components

Additional resources

1.3.1.7. Plug-in registry

Each OpenShift Dev Spaces workspace starts with a specific editor and set of associated extensions. The OpenShift Dev Spaces plugin registry provides the list of available editors and editor extensions. A Devfile v2 describes each editor or extension.

The Section 1.3.1.4, “User dashboard” is reading the content of the registry.

Figure 1.7. Plugin registries interactions with other components

Plugin registries interactions with other components

Additional resources

1.3.2. User workspaces

Figure 1.8. User workspaces interactions with other components

User workspaces interactions with other components

User workspaces are web IDEs running in containers.

A User workspace is a web application. It consists of microservices running in containers providing all the services of a modern IDE running in your browser:

  • Editor
  • Language auto-completion
  • Language server
  • Debugging tools
  • Plug-ins
  • Application runtimes

A workspace is one OpenShift Deployment containing the workspace containers and enabled plugins, plus related OpenShift components:

  • Containers
  • ConfigMaps
  • Services
  • Endpoints
  • Ingresses or Routes
  • Secrets
  • Persistent Volumes (PV)

A OpenShift Dev Spaces workspace contains the source code of the projects, persisted in a OpenShift Persistent Volume (PV). Microservices have read-write access to this shared directory.

Use the devfile v2 format to specify the tools and runtime applications of a OpenShift Dev Spaces workspace.

The following diagram shows one running OpenShift Dev Spaces workspace and its components.

Figure 1.9. OpenShift Dev Spaces workspace components

workspace components with dw

In the diagram, there is one running workspaces.

1.4. Calculating Dev Spaces resource requirements

The OpenShift Dev Spaces Operator, Dev Workspace Controller, and user workspaces consist of a set of pods. The pods contribute to the resource consumption in CPU and memory limits and requests.

Note

The following link to an example devfile is a pointer to material from the upstream community. This material represents the very latest available content and the most recent best practices. These tips have not yet been vetted by Red Hat’s QE department, and they have not yet been proven by a wide user group. Please, use this information cautiously. It is best used for educational and 'developmental' purposes rather than 'production' purposes.

Procedure

  1. Identify the workspace resource requirements which depend on the devfile that is used for defining the development environment. This includes identifying the workspace components explicitly specified in the components section of the devfile.

    • Here is an example devfile with the following components:

      Example 1.1. tools

      The tools component of the devfile defines the following requests and limits: 

          memoryLimit: 6G
    memoryRequest: 512M
    cpuRequest: 1000m
    cpuLimit: 4000m

      Example 1.2. postgresql

      The postgresql component does not define any requests and limits and therefore falls back on the defaults for the dedicated container: 

          memoryLimit: 128M
    memoryRequest: 64M
    cpuRequest: 10m
    cpuLimit: 1000m

    • During the workspace startup, an internal che-gateway container is implicitly provisioned with the following requests and limits: 

          memoryLimit: 256M
    memoryRequest: 64M
    cpuRequest: 50m
    cpuLimit: 500m

  2. Calculate the sums of the resources required for each workspace. If you intend to use multiple devfiles, repeat this calculation for every expected devfile.

    Example 1.3. Workspace requirements for the example devfile in the previous step

    PurposePodContainer nameMemory limitMemory requestCPU limitCPU request

    Developer tools

    workspace

    tools

    6 GiB

    512 MiB

    4000 m

    1000 m

    Database

    workspace

    postgresql

    128 MiB

    64 MiB

    1000 m

    10 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces gateway

    workspace

    che-gateway

    256 MiB

    64 MiB

    500 m

    50 m

    Total

    6.4 GiB

    640 MiB

    5500 m

    1060 m

  3. Multiply the resources calculated per workspace by the number of workspaces that you expect all of your users to run simultaneously.

  4. Calculate the sums of the requirements for the OpenShift Dev Spaces Operator, Operands, and Dev Workspace Controller.

    Table 1.1. Default requirements for the OpenShift Dev Spaces Operator, Operands, and Dev Workspace Controller
    PurposePod nameContainer namesMemory limitMemory requestCPU limitCPU request

    OpenShift Dev Spaces operator

    devspaces-operator

    devspaces-operator

    256 MiB

    64 MiB

    500 m

    100 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces Server

    devspaces

    devspaces-server

    1 GiB

    512 MiB

    1000 m

    100 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces Dashboard

    devspaces-dashboard

    devspaces-dashboard

    256 MiB

    32 MiB

    500 m

    100 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces Gateway

    devspaces-gateway

    traefik

    4 GiB

    128 MiB

    1000 m

    100 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces Gateway

    devspaces-gateway

    configbump

    256 MiB

    64 MiB

    500 m

    50 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces Gateway

    devspaces-gateway

    oauth-proxy

    512 MiB

    64 MiB

    500 m

    100 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces Gateway

    devspaces-gateway

    kube-rbac-proxy

    512 MiB

    64 MiB

    500 m

    100 m

    Devfile registry

    devfile-registry

    devfile-registry

    256 MiB

    32 MiB

    500 m

    100 m

    Plugin registry

    plugin-registry

    plugin-registry

    256 MiB

    32 MiB

    500 m

    100 m

    Dev Workspace Controller Manager

    devworkspace-controller-manager

    devworkspace-controller

    1 GiB

    100 MiB

    1000 m

    250 m

    Dev Workspace Controller Manager

    devworkspace-controller-manager

    kube-rbac-proxy

    N/A

    N/A

    N/A

    N/A

    Dev Workspace webhook server

    devworkspace-webhook-server

    webhook-server

    300 MiB

    20 MiB

    200 m

    100 m

    Dev Workspace Operator Catalog

    devworkspace-operator-catalog

    registry-server

    N/A

    50 MiB

    N/A

    10 m

    Dev Workspace Webhook Server

    devworkspace-webhook-server

    webhook-server

    300 MiB

    20 MiB

    200 m

    100 m

    Dev Workspace Webhook Server

    devworkspace-webhook-server

    kube-rbac-proxy

    N/A

    N/A

    N/A

    N/A

    Total

    9 GiB

    1.2 GiB

    6.9

    1.3

Additional resources

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