Eclipse Che 7.84.0

Major Enhancements

Configure trusted extensions for Microsoft Visual Studio Code

With this release, you can specify which extensions are trusted and can access authentication tokens using the dedicated VSCODE_TRUSTED_EXTENSIONS environment variable defined in the devfile or ConfigMap:

   env:
     - name: VSCODE_TRUSTED_EXTENSIONS
       value: "<publisher1>.<extension1>,<publisher2>.<extension2>"

Find more details about the enhancement in the official documentation.

Editor Selector Improvements

In this release, the 'Editor Selector' dashboard widget has been improved with the 'Use a Default Editor', 'Choose an Editor', and 'Use an Editor Definition' sections:

Automation of the images expected to be used by ImagePuller

With this release, if the imagePuller option is enabled on the CheCluster Custom Resource level, the operator automatically fetches related images from both devfile and plugin registries to create and manage ImagePuller Custom Resource for faster workspace startup. Find more details about the enhancement in the official documentation.

Add an ability to revoke GitLab OAuth from Dashboard

Before this release, only revoking GitHub OAuth from the User Dashboard was supported. Recently, GitLab added a Revoke a token API and it is now possible to also revoke the GitLab OAuth access right from the User Dashboard. For other Git Services navigation to the provider website and following the instructions for revoking OAuth access is required.

Provide hover with full workspace name in Recent workspaces list

Hovering over a workspace from the 'Recent Workspaces' expands the name if it is long and does not fit the sidebar.

Screen.Recording.2024-04-01.at.15.32.39.mov

Add provider name annotation to Personal Access Token secret

Starting from this release, when you create a Personal Access Token on the User Dashboard, the "Provider" field will correspond to the dedicated Git Service.

Previously , oauth2- string with a random postfix was used. This resulted in poor visibility:

Major Bug fixes

persistUserHome does not work with per-workspace storage strategy

Previously, the persistUserHome CheCluster Custom Resource property was not working with the per-workspace storage strategy. The defect has been fixed in this release and now you can use the persistUserHome option with both the per-user and the per-workspace storage strategies. Find more details about the property in the official documentation.

CORS-related Network Error error when fetching editor devfile

Referencing an editor using che-editor URL parameter could result in a CORS-related Network Error. The defect has been fixed in this release.

Missing URL sanitization for Git URL from User Preferences Personal Access Token Dialog

Previously, when a developer created a Personal Access Token from the User Preferences, there was no validation of the Git URL. If the URL was invalid it led to login and dashboard usage issues due to a java.net.URISyntaxException: Illegal character exception. To resolve the access issue, you had to manually intervene with the generated secret. The defect has been fixed in this release.

Import from Git widget does not trim spaces in the input value

Before this release, trailing spaces were not trimmed in the input field of the "Import from Git" widget resulting in the "URL or SSHLocation is not valid" error:

Revoke OAuth button still in active state after OAuth revoked

Previously, the Revoke OAuth button continued to be active after the execution. The defect has been fixed in this release.

Eclipse Che 7.83.0

Major Enhancements

New "Editor Selector" panel on the User Dashboard

With this release, you can easily choose an editor when starting a workspace from the User Dashboard by using the brand-new "Editor Selector" panel:

Find more details about specifying a custom editor in the official documentation.

Support URL parameters in the custom definition of the getting started sample

Starting from this release, you can add parameters when defining a URL of a getting started sample:

     {
        "displayName": "Example", 
        "description": "Example", 
        "tags": ["example"], 
        "url": "https://example.com/my-project.git?df=next/base/devfile.yaml"
      }

Find more details about configuring getting started samples in the official documentation.

Major Bug fixes

"Restart Workspace from Local Devfile" fails with "You can only have 1 running workspace at a time."

Before this release, there was a sporadic defect affecting workspace startup after using the "Restart Workspace from local Devfile" functionality from che-code. The following error message would appear: "You can only have 1 running workspace at a time". With this release, the issue is fixed.

Workspace startup failures from Bitbucket server repository via OAuth2

Before this release, workspace startup from a Bitbucket Server private repository using OAuth2 failed with the "Repository/Devfile URL is missing" error. With this release, the issue is fixed.

Eclipse Che 7.82.0

Major Enhancements

The 'registry.devfile.io' registry used by default in Eclipse Che

With this release, the devfile registry hosted at registry.devfile.io is used by default for the Getting Started samples:

The administrator can still enable the embedded devfile registry using the disableInternalRegistry field in the CheCluster custom resource:

devfileRegistry:
      disableInternalRegistry: false

Support for running Che-Code in containers based on Red Hat Universal Base Image 9

Previously, the Che-Code editor failed to start in the Red Hat Universal Base Image 9. With this release, this issue is fixed and you can now explicitly reference those images in the components section of a devfile:

schemaVersion: 2.2.2
metadata:
  name: ubi9-minimal-demo
components:
  - name: tools
    container:
      image: registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9-minimal:9.3-1552@sha256:582e18f13291d7c686ec4e6e92d20b24c62ae0fc72767c46f30a69b1a6198055
      args: ['tail', '-f', '/dev/null']
      endpoints:
        - exposure: public
          name: nodejs
          protocol: http
          targetPort: 3000
      memoryLimit: 2Gi
      memoryRequest: 256Mi
      mountSources: true
    attributes:
      controller.devfile.io/merge-contribution: true

Configuring the number of replicas for operand deployments using HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA)

Starting from this release, you can configure the number of replicas for operands using HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA):

apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: scaler
  namespace: {operator-namespace}
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: __<deployment_name>__ 
  ...

The __<deployment_name>__ in the snippet above corresponds to one of the following deployments:

• che-server
• che-gateway
• dashboard
• plugin-registry
• devfile-registry

Find more details about the HPA setup in the official documentation.

Enabling fuse-overlayfs for Podman in the Cloud Development Environment

By default, the Universal Developer Image (UDI) contains Podman and Buildah which you can use to build and push container images within a Cloud Development Environment (CDE). However, Podman and Buildah in the UDI are configured to use the vfs storage driver which does not provide copy-on-write support. For more efficient image management, you can use the fuse-overlayfs storage driver which supports copy-on-write in rootless environments.

Find more details about fuse-overlayfs configuration in the official documentation.

Devfile walkthrough VSX extension available by default

With this release, the Devfile Walkthrough VSX extension is available by default in the Cloud Development Environment for the Che-Code editor:

Allow overriding the editor's image through the URL parameter

With this release, you can override the editor's image using a dedicated URL parameter when starting a Cloud Development Environment. Here are some examples:

• #https://github.com/eclipse-che/che-docs?editor-image=quay.io/che-incubator/che-code:next
• #https://github.com/eclipse-che/che-docs?che-editor=che-incubator/che-code/latest&editor-image=quay.io/che-incubator/che-code:next

Find more details about the editor-image URL parameter in the official documentation.

Major Bug fixes

Empty Workspace uses the/home/user directory instead of /projects by default in the terminal

Previously, there was an issue affecting projects created in/cloned into an empty workspace when the default folder for the projects was the /home/user directory instead of /projects. Due to this, the changes were not saved after workspace restart. The issue has been fixed in this release:

Error is not meaningful when workspace startup fails because of an exceeded route quota

Before this release, when a workspace failed to start due to a quota issue, no meaningful error was displayed, and the startup failed with a timeout. Now there is an explicit error when workspace startup is forbidden due to an exceeded quota:

Failed to set up networking for workspace: services "workspace82736d3c797e4150-service" is forbidden: exceeded quota: resource-quota-services, requested: count/services=1, used: count/services=1, limited: count/services=1

Documentation contains outdated instructions for "Configuring workspaces nodeSelector"

Outdated procedures for the nodeSelector and tolerations configuration have been fixed in this release and the updated instructions are now available in the official documentation.

Unexpected workspace restart due to scale down of a replicaset

The issue related to an unexpected workspace restart due to the scale down of a replicaset has been fixed in this release.

Cannot revoke Authorization - OAuth token for the user was not found

The bug related to revoking the GitHub Authorization has been fixed in this release. Now all the OAuth tokens are retrieved from the Kubernetes secrets explicitly and not from memory as it used to be beforehand.

Devfile error on starting a workspace from a repository hosted on Bitbucket Server

Before this release, workspace startup from a private repository hosted on Bitbucket Server with a manually added Personal Access Token (PAT) failed with the following error: Failed to create the workspace: Cannot build factory with any of the provided parameters. Please check parameters correctness, and resend query. With this release, the issue is fixed.

Opening a workspace from a repository hosted on Bitbucket Server integrated with OAuth2 leads to an error when credentials are not available

Previously, some SCM providers like BitBucket Server decode the callback URL in the response, which resulted in an IllegalArgumentException error. With this release, the issue is fixed.

Eclipse Che 7.81.0

Major Enhancements

Replication of Secrets, ConfigMaps, and PersistentVolumesClaims in all user namespaces

With this release, the administrator can configure Secrets, ConfigMaps, and PersistentVolumesClaims that will be replicated in the namespaces of all users. You can therefore share certificates, secrets, and configuration files across all the users.

For example, creating the following ConfigMap makes Maven's settings.xml file available in the Container Development Environment (CDE) of all the users:

kind: ConfigMap
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: user-settings-xml
  namespace: {prod-namespace}
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/part-of: che.eclipse.org
    app.kubernetes.io/component: workspaces-config
  annotations:
    controller.devfile.io/mount-as: subpath
    controller.devfile.io/mount-path: /home/user/.m2
data:
  settings.xml: |
    <settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
      <localRepository>/home/user/.m2/repository</localRepository>
      <interactiveMode>true</interactiveMode>
      <offline>false</offline>
    </settings>

Find more about the procedure in the official documentation and the demo video.

Allow pod-overrides for volumes and container-overrides for volumeMounts in Devfiles

With this release, you can use pod and container overrides for volumes and volumeMounts in the Devfile definition.

For example, you can add a CSI volume with the SharedSecret to a pod or container in the Container Development Environment (CDE):

schemaVersion: 2.2.2
attributes:
  controller.devfile.io/storage-type: per-workspace
metadata:
  name: pod-overrides-example
  attributes:
    pod-overrides:
      spec:
        volumes:
          - csi:
              driver: csi.sharedresource.openshift.io
              readOnly: true
              volumeAttributes:
                sharedSecret: my-share
            name: my-csi-volume
components:
- name: workspace
  attributes:
    container-overrides:
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /etc/my-csi-volume
           name: my-csi-volume
           readOnly: true
  container: 
    ...

Prevent starting workspaces based on SSH URLs if no SSH keys are configured

With this release, you can not start workspace based on SSH URLs until you configure the SSH keys in the User Dashboard:

download.mov

Major Bug fixes

"Conflict detected" error during Gitconfig name and email update

Before this release, updating the name and email in the Gitconfig could result in the Conflict detected error:

The UX defect has been fixed in this release, and you can update the name and email without errors:

Screen.Recording.2024-01-10.at.12.49.55.mov

"Route and path matches, but all pods are down" error during workspace startup

A sporadic defect resulting in the "Route and path matches, but all pods are down" error during workspace startup has been fixed in this release.

Operator gets stuck updating endpoint URLs whose hostnames are too long

Before this release, there was a defect related to the update of endpoint URLs whose hostnames were too long. This resulted in the operator getting stuck in a loop. With this release, the issue is fixed.

Length limitation for auto-generated workspace names

Before this release, workspaces started from repositories with names longer than 63 characters failed due to the RFC 1035 Label Names restriction. The issue has been fixed in this release and auto-generated workspace names are trimmed to be compatible with the standard.

Eclipse Che 7.80.0

Major Enhancements

Support workspace startup for every Git provider over SSH protocol

It is now possible to configure SSH keys and start workspaces using not only GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps, but also any other Git providers that were previously not supported, such as:

• gerrit
• gogs
• gitea
• gitolite
• sourcehut

Allow to copy and paste an SSH Key on the User Dashboard

It is now possible not only to upload but also to copy and paste an SSH Key on the the User Dashboard:

Screen.Recording.2023-12-20.at.15.45.57.mov

Support Devfiles version 2.2.1 and 2.2.2

Devfiles with schemaVersion 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 are now supported.

Documentation for Eclipse Che installation on the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Installation instructions for Eclipse Che on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) are now part of the official documentation. Before this release, only community-contributed blog post on this subject was available.

Major Bug fixes

Workspace from public GitHub Enterprise Server repo fails to start

Previously workspaces from public GitHub Enterprise Server repositories failed to start if no OAuth or Personal Access Token (PAT) was configured.

'defaultPlugins' defined in the Custom Resource are ignored and not applied during workspace startup

The regression related to processing the defaultPlugins defined in the Custom Resource has been fixed in this release, and extra sidecar plugins can be added using a devfile.yaml reference:

     devEnvironments:
       - editor: che-incubator/che-code/insiders
         plugins:
            - >-
              https://example.com/devfile.yaml 

Eclipse Che 7.79.0

Major Enhancements

Administrators can specify which users and groups are authorized to use Eclipse Che

In this release, new properties for advanced authorization have been added to the Custom Resource:

AllowUsers []string `json:"authorizedUsers,omitempty"`
AllowGroups []string `json:"authorizedGroups,omitempty"`
DenyUsers []string `json:"unauthorizedUsers,omitempty"`
DenyGroups []string `json:"unauthorizedGroups,omitempty"`

The new configuration allows setting up granular access for different groups and users:

 networking:
    auth:
      advancedAuthorization:
        allowUsers:
          - user-a
          - user-b
        denyUsers:
          - user-c
        allowGroups:
          - team-a
          - team-b
        denyGroups:
          - team-c

Users who are not allowed will see the following warning when trying to access the User Dashboard:

N.B. AllowGroups and DenyGroupsproperties are only supported on OpenShift.

Eclipse Che local development experience with IntelliJ IDEA

Initial support of the local desktop development using IntelliJ Thin Client connected to a remote DevWorkspace is now available:

Support multi-arch builds in next-build GH Workflow for DevWorkspace Operator

DevWorkspace Operator is now being built for the following platforms: linux/amd64, linux/arm64, linux/ppc64le and linux/s390x.
The related multi-arch images are available at:

• quay.io/devfile/devworkspace-controller:next
• quay.io/devfile/project-clone:next
• quay.io/devfile/devworkspace-operator-index:next
• quay.io/devfile/devworkspace-operator-index:next-digest
• quay.io/devfile/devworkspace-operator-bundle:next
• quay.io/devfile/devworkspace-operator-bundle:next-digest

Support for VS Code Extension services, such as Ansible Lightspeed, that use the OAuth authorization flow

OAuth2 authorization code flow using Callbacks and URI handlers is now supported, and Visual Studio Code Extensions that use this flow will work in the Eclipse Che workspaces. For instance, users of the Ansible VS Code extension can use its AI-powered Lightspeed service.

N.B. The Ansible VS Code Extension issue currently prevents the extension from working on remote development environments.

Major Bug Fixes

New projects are lost after a workspace restart

Before this release, VS Code launcher was adding projects from the devfile to .vscode-workspace configuration file only during the initial workspace startup. However, if a new project (or dependent project) was added to the devfile.yaml, and the workspace was restarted using the Restart Workspace from Local Devfile, the new project was not added to the .vscode-workspace configuration file, and the user was not able to see it in the VS Code, although all the projects were cloned in /projects folder. The defect has been fixed in this release and now the projects are correctly updated in the .vscode-workspace configuration file.

Bitbucket OAuth 1.0 is not displayed on Git Services tab

Bitbucket OAuth 1.0 is now correctly displayed on the 'Git Services' Tab of the User Dashboard:

Eclipse Che 7.78.0

Major Enhancements

Add a way to reject the authorization opt-out flag from the dashboard

Starting from this release a user can revoke the authorization for configured Git Services from the User Dashboard:

Add support for PATs in GitHub Enterprise Server

Personal Access Token (PAT) for the GitHub Enterprise Server (self-hosted instance) can be now configured from the User Dashboard. Before this release, only GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise Cloud were supported.

Improve options when workspace startup fails

In this release, a few major enhancements have been made for cases when a workspace fails to start for some reason:

Workspace startup page

A user can navigate to the OpenShift cluster and edit the DevWorkspace spec right from the workspace startup screen:

Workspaces list page

On the 'Workspaces' page the problematic workspace will be marked with the warning sign:

Workspace details page

it is now possible to navigate to the DevWorkspace object from the 'Overview' tab of the User Dashboard when running on OpenShift:

Support devfile private raw URLs with ?token parameter on github.com

The ?token URL parameter is now supported for resolving private devfiles from github.com e.g. raw.githubusercontent.com/account/repository/main/devfile.yaml?token=<token>.

Set Java 17 as the default in the Universal Developer Image

Java 17 is now used by default in the Universal Developer Image:

Major Bug Fixes

Issue accessing existing workspaces which shows "No PersonalAccessTokenFetcher configured" error

Before this update, re-opening an existing workspace resulted in a "No PersonalAccessTokenFetcher configured" error message. With this update, the token is refreshed on a workspace restart.

VS Code che-resource-monitor extension not working

To get the metrics, the resource monitor extension needs to know the pod name provided by the HOSTNAME environment variable.
However, sometimes the variable could be overridden with a different value which breaks the plugin. To avoid this problem it has been decided to copy the HOSTNAME env var to DEVWORKSPACE_POD_NAME env var before launching the editor and fall back on the new variable when necessary.

Eclipse Che 7.77.0

Major Enhancements

Support configuring OAuth for GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub SaaS simultaneously

Starting from this release it is possible to configure the OAuth flow for GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub SaaS simultaneously.
More details about this feature can be found in this demo video.

Support GitHub Device Authentication in VS Code to allow extensions such as GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot VS Code activation failed in a Dev Spaces workspace. That's because the web authorization flow is failing. To allow GitHub Copilot and other GitHub extensions to run on DevSpaces workspaces we have added support for the GitHub device activation flow.
To use GitHub Copilot in a workspace a user has to follow the following 2 steps:

1. Authenticate to GitHub using the new "Device Authentication" command
2. Install the GitHub Copilot extension through the upload of the VSX file (GitHub Copilot is not published on opens-vsx.org)

N.B. Step 1 needs to be executed only once. Step 2 needs to be repeated for every new workspace.

SSH key configuration from the User Dashboard

Now users can add their SSH key from the User Dashboard.

Generated routes for VS Code editor should use HTTPS protocol by default

Starting from this release routes generated for the VS Code editor are using HTTPS protocol by default.

Major Bug Fixes

Workspace URL parameters get lost after the user accepts OAuth authorization backported to branch 7.74.x

Before this release, URL parameters used during workspace startup such as <github-repo-url>?che-editor=che-incubator/che-idea/latest were lost after successful OAuth authentication.

OAuth tokens are not refreshed on workspace restart backported to branch 7.74.x

Before this release, OAuth tokens were not refreshed during a workspace restart.

Changes in workspace disappearing after 'Restart with default devfile' backported to branch 7.74.x

Before this release, the ephemeral mode was used for the 'Restart with default devfile' functionality. When restarted, any changes in the workspace were lost. With this update, restarting the workspace with the default devfile does not erase changes you made previously.

Azure DevOps Git repositories with white spaces in the URL

It was not possible to start a workspace based on the Azure DevOps Git repositories which contain white spaces. With this release, the issue is fixed.

Unauthorized errors when opening the IDE

Unauthorized errors when opening IDE are fixed in this release.

Enabling persistence of home directory breaks Universal Developer Image's home directory, PATH, and environment variables

Enabling the persistence of the home directory does not break the Universal Developer image's home directory, PATH, and environment variables anymore.

Impossible to build che-code docker image due to reaching the maximum amount of opened files

In this release, the amount of opened files has been increased for the Universal Developer Image which allows building images for repositories with a sufficient amount of files like che-code.

Pre-create common tooling config directories in Universal Developer Image

In this release, common tooling config directories are pre-created in the default Universal Developer Image with the right permissions allowing to write into them from the workspace:

• Maven: /home/user/.m2/
• Gradle: /home/user/.gradle/
• Pip: /home/user/.config/pip/
• Cargo: /home/user/.cargo/
• Sbt: /home/user/.sbt/1.0/
• PHP: /home/user/.composer/
• .NET: /home/user/.nuget

Eclipse Che 7.76.0

Major Enhancements

After stopping a workspace in VS Code, the user is now redirected to the Dashboard

Now when a user stops a workspace from the VS Code editor they will be redirected automatically to the User Dashboard.

Enhance OAuth integration when a user doesn't want to grant permissions

If a user rejects an SCM provider authorization request while creating or starting an existing workspace, their choice is saved in the workspace-preferences config-map in the namespace. During the subsequent workspaces startups, the prompt to proceed with the OAuth authorization for the rejected SCM provider does not appear anymore.

Support for devfile API events.preStop

It is now possible to specify preStop events in the devfile that would be executed before stopping the workspace. Similar to postStart , multiple devfile commands could be specified as preStop:

    events:
      preStop:
        - first-command
        - second-command
        - third-command

Major Bug Fixes

Rework "Backend is not available" error page

Better error handling on the User Dashboard. Instead of the general "Backend is not available" error page now the HTTP Error code together with the endpoint that threw the error is displayed:

Unauthorized when opening the IDE

The Unauthorized error occasionally shown during the workspace startup 'Open IDE' phase has been fixed in this release.

"Bearer Token Authorization" errors from the Dashboard

The Bearer Token Authorization errors occasionally occurring in the dashboard has been mitigated with the request retries functionality.

Eclipse Che 7.75.0

Major Enhancement

Configuration of the user's name and email from the User Dashboard for .gitconfig

Now it is possible to configure the user's name and email on the User Dashboard that will be used in the workspaces' .gitconfig settings.

Screen.Recording.2023-09-29.at.12.16.28.mov

Major Bug Fixes

VS Code data about a previously opened workspace is cached in the browser when switching workspaces (cherry-picked to 7.74.x branch)

When switching workspaces, or deleting and re-creating a workspace, data from previously opened workspaces will no longer be cached in the browser and used by VS Code.

An error appears on workspace start if the SCM authorization page is rejected

When a user rejects SCM authorization, no error will be shown, and the workspace will be started correctly. Note that since authorization is rejected by the user it will not be possible to git push from the workspace without any setup.