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Chapter 1. Preparing the installation

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

1.1. Supported platforms

OpenShift Dev Spaces runs on OpenShift 4.10 and 4.11 on the following CPU architectures:

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

Additional resources

1.2. 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 PeristentVolumes.
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

1.2.1. 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

1.2.1.1. 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

1.2.1.2. 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

1.2.1.3. 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

1.2.1.4. 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 need 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 1.2.1.5, “Devfile registries”, when the user is creating a workspace from a code sample.
  2. Sends the repository URL to Section 1.2.1.6, “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 1.2.1.8, “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.

1.2.1.5. 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 1.2.1.4, “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

1.2.1.6. 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:

Figure 1.6. OpenShift Dev Spaces server interactions with other components

OpenShift Dev Spaces server interactions with other components

Additional resources

1.2.1.7. PostgreSQL

OpenShift Dev Spaces server uses the PostgreSQL database to persist user configurations such as workspaces metadata.

The OpenShift Dev Spaces deployment starts a dedicated PostgreSQL instance in the postgres Deployment. You can use an external database instead.

Figure 1.7. PostgreSQL interactions with other components

PostgreSQL interactions with other components

Additional resources

1.2.1.8. 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 1.2.1.4, “User dashboard” is reading the content of the registry.

Figure 1.8. Plugin registries interactions with other components

Plugin registries interactions with other components

Additional resources

1.2.2. User workspaces

Figure 1.9. 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 1.10. OpenShift Dev Spaces workspace components

workspace components with dw

In the diagram, there is one running workspaces.

1.3. 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. Learn how to calculate resources, such as memory and CPU, required to run Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces.

Procedure

  1. Identify the workspace components explicitly specified in the components section of your devfile. When this section is empty, OpenShift Dev Spaces only loads the implicit components.

    Table 1.1. Devfile specified workspace components memory requirements
    PurposePodContainer nameMemory limitMemory requestCPU limitCPU request

    Your developer tools

    workspace

    		     

    Total

    		    

  2. Identify the implicit workspace components that OpenShift Dev Spaces loads: developer tools, editor, and OpenShift Dev Spaces gateway.

    Table 1.2. Implicit workspace components default requirements
    PurposePodContainer nameMemory limitMemory requestCPU limitCPU request

    Developer tools

    workspace

    universal-developer-image

    1 GiB

    256 MiB

    500 m

    30 m

    Editor

    workspace

    che-code

    128 MiB

    32 MiB

    500 m

    30 m

    OpenShift Dev Spaces gateway

    workspace

    che-gateway

    256 Mi

    64 Mi

    500 m

    50 m

    Total

    2.4 GiB

    480 MiB

    1.5

    110 m

  3. Sum up the resources required for each workspace, and multiply them by the running workspaces count.

  4. Sum up the server components requirements.

    Table 1.3. OpenShift Dev Spaces server components default requirements
    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 Gi

    512 MiB

    1

    1 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

    1

    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 Mi

    32 Mi

    500 m

    100 m

    Plugin registry

    plugin-registry

    plugin-registry

    256 Mi

    32 Mi

    500 m

    100 m

    PostgreSQL database

    postgres

    postgres

    1 Gi

    512 Mi

    500 m

    100 m

    Dev Workspace Controller Manager

    devworkspace-controller-manager

    devworkspace-controller

    1 GiB

    100 MiB

    1

    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

    29 MiB

    200 m

    100 m

    Dev Workspace 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

    9.5 GiB

    1.6 GiB

    7.4

    2.31

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