The Remote Development Operator, is a Kubernetes operator and Custom Resource Definition (CRD) for deploying remote development environments. It has been developed within Dell ISG Edge, to facilitate the development efforts of Dell NativeEdge, the edge operations platform. The Remote Development Operator can be leveraged to facilitate the development of any software project that can be deployed on Kubernetes.
We define a new Kubernetes custom resource named DevEnv. Each DevEnv can target one or more k8s deployments or statefulsets using label selectors. For each DevEnv, the operator creates a DNS record, a PVC for storing the code or binaries, and starts an SSH server, configured to accept the specified SSH keypairs. Each DevEnv, provides a command that can be used to configure the end user's IDE (e.g. VSCode). This configuration will synchronize over SSH the local code that's stored on the developer's device to the PVC that's attached to the DevEnv pod. After the first sync is complete, the DevEnv gets enabled and mounts the code PVC to the target pods.
There are two supported modes of operation.
In modify mode the operator will edit the definition of the target deployments or statefulsets, mounting the code PVC on the target path, which will override the original code that's burned into the image.
In clone mode the operator will launch a new deployment or statefulset, with the PVC mounted on the target path, while leaving the original deployment or statefulset untouched. A new service and ingress is also generated, to expose a port of the cloned deployment over HTTPS.
When working on a large application that consists of numerous microservices, the clone mode allows multiple developers to work in parallel, leveraging the same deployed application. There may still be cases were the cloned devenv may affect the original application, e.g. when working on DB schema changes. Developers that leverage the clone mode should coordinate with the peers to ensure they're not breaking their development environments. When in doubt, modify is the safest option, however it mostly requires a dedicated application deployment for each developer.
Apply the Kopf CRD
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/nolar/kopf/raw/main/peering.yaml
Apply the DevEnv CRD
kubectl apply -f operator/crd.yaml
Install the operator chart
helm upgrade --install remote-development-operator operator/chart
Once the operator is installed, you can start creating DevEnvs. Copy examples/devenv.yaml to my-devenv.yaml and edit my-devenv.yaml, updating the following properties under the spec section according to your needs:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| mode | Can be clone or modify. |
| baseDomain | The base domain name for the devenvs. e.g. dev.nativeedge.dell.com. |
| port | The port of the target resource to be exposed over HTTPS when using the clone mode. |
| image | The docker image for the devenv. You can leave the default value here. |
| albGroupName | The ALB group name that will be assigned to the ingress, when using clone mode on Amazon EKS. |
| authorizedKeys | A list of public SSH keys authorized to access the SSH server as the docker user. |
| mounts | A list of mounts |
| excludedPaths | The repository paths to be excluded from syncing. |
| reloadSignal | The UNIX signal that will force the target resource to reload its code. Can be TERM or HUP. |
| reloadCmd | A command to run on the pod of the target resource when reloading the code. |
| postMountPodCmd | A command to run on the pod of the target resource after mounting the code PVC. |
After you save my-devenv.yaml with the appropriate, apply it to create the new DevEnv.
kubectl apply -f my-devenv.yaml
To see the status of the new DevEnv run the following command, replacing mydevenv with the name you specified in my-devenv.yaml.
kubectl get devenv mydevenv
Once the new DevEnv has been created, you can get the command that should run on every file save. The following command uses jq to parse the DevEnv in JSON format and select the command from the status.
kubectl get devenv mydevenv -o json| jq ".[].status.create_update_dev_env.cmd"
Once you have the command, then configure the respective setting on your IDE. For VSCode you can install a plugin like emeraldwalk.runonsave.
We appreciate feedback and contribution to this project! Before you get started, please see the Contributors guidelines.
This repo is covered under Apache License 2.0.