che-server

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Introduction

Previously, two kind of recipes were available to bootstrap a cloud developer workspace and to make it portable: Chefile and Factories. As a continuation of this, the brand new devfile format was introduced, which combines simplicity and support for high variety of different tools available to develop a container based application.

What the devfile consists of

The minimal devfile sufficient to run a workspace from it, consists of the following parts:

Specification version
Name
A list of tools: the development tools and user runtimes

To get more functional workspace, the following parts can be added:

A list of projects: the source code repositories
A list of commands: actions to manage the workspace components like running the dev tools, starting the runtime environments etc...

Example of the minimal devfile with project and standard plugins set (Theia editor + exec plugin):


---
specVersion: 0.0.1
name: petclinic-dev-environment
projects:
  - name: petclinic
    source:
      type: git
      location: 'https://github.com/che-samples/web-java-spring-petclinic.git'
tools:
  - name: theia-editor
    type: cheEditor
    id: org.eclipse.che.editor.theia:1.0.0
  - name: exec-plugin
    type: chePlugin
    id: che-machine-exec-plugin:0.0.1

For the detailed explanation of all devfile components assignment and possible values, please see the following resources:

Getting Started

The simplest way to use devfile is to have it deployed into GitHub source repository and then create factory from this repo. This is as simple as create .devfile file in the root of your GH repo, and then execute the factory:

https://<your-che-host>/f?url=https://github.com/mygroup/myrepo

Also, it is possible to execute devfile by constructing the factory with the URL to it's raw content, for example,

https://<your-che-host>/f?url=https://pastebin.com/raw/ux6iCGaW

or sending a devfile to a dedicated REST API using curl/swagger, which will create new workspace and return it's configuration:

curl -X POST  -H "Authorization: <TOKEN>" -H "Content-Type: application/yaml" -d <devlile_content> https://<your-che-host>/api/devfile

If you're a user of chectl tool, it is also possible to execute workspace from devfile, using workspace:start command parameter as follows:

chectl workspace:start --devfile=.devfile

Please note that currently this way only works for the local (same machine) devfiles - URL can't be used here atm.

Supported Tool types

There are currently four types of tools supported. There is two simpler types, such as cheEditor and chePlugin and two more complex - kubernetes (or openshift) and dockerimage. Please note that all tools inside single devfile must have unique names. Detailed tool types explanation below:

cheEditor

Describes the editor which used in workspace by defining it's id. Devfile can only contain one tool with cheEditor type.

...
tools:
  - name: theia-editor
    type: cheEditor
    id: org.eclipse.che.editor.theia:1.0.0

chePlugin

Describes the plugin which used in workspace by defining it's id. It is allowed to have several chePlugin tools.

...
  tools:
   - name: exec-plugin
     type: chePlugin
     id: che-machine-exec-plugin:0.0.1

Both types above using composite id, which is colon-separated id and version of plugin from Che Plugin registry.
List of available Che plugins and more information about registry can be found on https://github.com/eclipse/che-plugin-registry

kubernetes/openshift

More complex tool type, which allows to apply configuration from kubernetes/openshift lists. Content of the tool may be provided either via local attribute which points to the file with tool content. Currently, devfile can only contain one tool with kubernetes or openshift type.

...
  tools:
    - name: mysql
      type: kubernetes
      local: petclinic.yaml
      selector:
        app.kubernetes.io/name: mysql
        app.kubernetes.io/component: database
        app.kubernetes.io/part-of: petclinic

Contents of the local file is currently read ONLY if the devfile and local file both placed in the same public GitHub repository. So, alternatively, if you need to post devfile with such tools to REST API, contents of K8S/Openshift list can be embedded into devfile using localContent field:

...
  tools:
    - name: mysql
      type: kubernetes
      local: petclinic.yaml
       localContent: |
           kind: List
           items:
            -
             apiVersion: v1
             kind: Pod
             metadata:
              name: ws
             spec:
              containers:
              ... etc

dockerimage

Tool type which allows to define docker image based configuration of container in workspace. Devfile can only contain one tool with dockerimage type.

 ...
 tools:
   - name: maven
     type: dockerimage
     image: eclipe/maven-jdk8:latest
     volumes:
       - name: mavenrepo
         containerPath: /root/.m2
     env:
       - name: ENV_VAR
         value: value
     endpoints:
       - name: maven-server
         port: 3101
         attributes:
           protocol: http
           secure: 'true'
           public: 'true'
           discoverable: 'false'
     memoryLimit: 1536M
     command: ['tail']
     args: ['-f', '/dev/null']

Commands expanded

Devfile allows to specify commands set to be available for execution in workspace. Each command may contain subset of actions, which are related to specific tool, in whose container it will be executed.

 ...
 commands:
   - name: build
     actions:
       - type: exec
         tool: mysql
         command: mvn clean
         workdir: /projects/spring-petclinic

Live working examples

Planned features

There is still a lot of plans to extend Devfile possibilities, such as support multiple kubernetes/openshift tools etc

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