Chapter 1. Release notes

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces is a web-based integrated development environment (IDE). CodeReady Workspaces runs in OpenShift and is well-suited for container-based development.

This section documents the most important features and bug fixes in Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces. For the list of CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 release issues, see the Chapter 2, Known issues section.

1.1. About Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces

Having multiple CodeReady Workspaces deployments on the same cluster is not recommended, and the ability to do so may be removed in a future release.

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 provides an enterprise-level cloud developer workspace server and browser-based IDE. CodeReady Workspaces includes ready-to-use developer stacks for some of the most popular programming languages, frameworks, and Red Hat technologies.

This minor release of Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces is based on Eclipse Che 7.14 and offers a number of enhancements and new features, including:

  • Support for OpenShift Container Platform 4.4

    Using the CodeReady Workspaces Operator and crwctl, CodeReady Workspaces can be installed on OpenShift Container Platform versions 4.4, 4.3, and 3.11. Users can then benefit from all Red Hat-managed container application platform features.

    See OpenShift 4.4 - New features and enhancements. See Supported platforms for deploying Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces for a table of supported platforms and installation methods.

  • CodeReady Workspaces Air Gap with OpenShift 4.4

    On OpenShift 4.4, it is now possible to follow Configuring OperatorHub for restricted networks using OpenShift Container Platform and configure the CodeReady Workspaces Operator to be used this way.

  • Languages updates

    Provided versions:

    • Python - CodeReady Workspaces registries were updated with the vscode-python version 2020.5.86806.
  • Improvements to workspace startup and overall performance

  • New chapters in the documentation

    Installation Guide

    • Configuring CodeReady Workspaces Persistent Volumes strategy
    • Configuring CodeReady Workspaces with and without RH-SSO
    • Mounting a secret as a file or an environment variable into a workspace container

CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 is available in the Red Hat Container Catalog. Install it on OpenShift Container Platform, starting at version 3.11, by following the instructions in the Installing CodeReady Workspaces chapter of the Installation Guide.

CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 is available from the OperatorHub in OpenShift 4.3 and beyond. CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 is based on a new Operator that uses the Operator Lifecycle Manager. This makes the CodeReady Workspaces installation flow simpler and doable without leaving the OpenShift Console.​

To install CodeReady Workspaces for OpenShift 4.3 or later, get CodeReady Workspaces from the OperatorHub and follow the Installing CodeReady Workspaces on OpenShift 4 from OperatorHub chapter of the Installation Guide.

1.2. Notable enhancements

1.2.1. Operator available in OSD 4.3

1.2.2. Update to RHEL 8.2, SSO 7.4, EAP 7.3.1, and MongoDB 3.6

  • Security improvements and bug fixes

1.2.2.1. Added the ability to configure custom multiple devfile registries

Users with administration rights can now configure custom multiple devfile registries by editing the CustomResource to list more than one registry.

1.2.3. Update devfile editor with code assist from registries

  • Added defaultSnippets support for the devfile editor.
  • Provide code assist for the chePlugins from a registry.

1.2.4. Support for mounting Kubernetes secret into a workspace container

Users can mount a secret that contains sensitive data in a workspace container. This reapplies the stored data from the secret automatically for every newly created workspace. As a result, the user does not have to provide these credentials and configuration settings manually.

Suitable for:

  • Maven configuration, the settings.xml file
  • SSH key pairs
  • AWS authorization tokens

1.2.5. Option to run workspace in debug mode

To help diagnose issues with workspace start, users can start a workspace with additional debugging logs enabled.

1.2.6. Providing LogWatchers metrics in standard API

Using the LogWatchers metrics that are collected in the debug mode, users can track the load of all containers over a threads of logs simultaneously.

1.2.7. Added ability to choose in which namespace a workspace is going to be created

CodeReady Workspaces server can be configured to honor the user selection of a namespace when a workspace is created. This feature is disabled by default. To allow user-defined workspace namespaces:

  • For Operator deployments, set the allowUserDefinedWorkspaceNamespaces field in the CheCluster Custom Resource.

1.3. Other enhancements

1.3.1. Devfile updates to use new samples

Devfiles have been updated to provide more interesting and up to date sample code.

1.3.2. Update Java-based devfiles

Java-based devfiles have been migrated to use JDK 11 where possible, remove EAP if not required, and continue to use JDK 8 where needed. Since Maven 3.6 was moved into the JDK sidecar to support Quarkus, it is possible to use Quarkus with JDK 8 and 11 if a user sets up a custom devfile.

In addition, a new plugin-java8-rhel8 container replaces the old stacks-java-rhel8 container and also provides support for node and python in the same container. This reduces the install footprint for most devfiles and provides a single container for the most widely used languages.

1.3.3. RAM and CPU limits improvements

Pre-configured limits could exceed cluster-wide resources settings causing workspaces to be unable to start. This enhancement disables any kind of default limits/requests by setting them into -1 value by default.

  • Applying for chePlugin and Other components, a user is allowed to set or disable any default limits and requests.

1.3.4. Installing CodeReady Workspaces operator from the crwctl command line tool

Only supported for OCP 3.11. For OCP 4, please use the OperatorHub UI method.

1.3.5. Keybinding switching

Using a set of plug-ins, CodeReady Workspaces adds the ability for the Che-Theia editor to switch key bindings between Default, Vi, and Emacs options.

1.4. Supported platforms

1.4.1. Supported platforms and installation methods

The following section provides information about the availability of CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 on OpenShift Container Platform, OpenShift Dedicated, and about their supported installation methods.

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces can be installed on OpenShift Container Platform and OpenShift Dedicated starting at version 3.11.

Table 1.1. Availability of CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 on OpenShift Container Platform and OpenShift Dedicated

 

3.11

4.3

4.4

4.5

OpenShift Container Platform

✔

✔

✔

Technical Preview

OpenShift Dedicated

✔

✔

Technical Preview

Technical Preview

Table 1.2. Supported installation method for CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 on OpenShift Container Platform and OpenShift Dedicated

 

3.11

4.3

4.4

OpenShift Container Platform

crwctl

OperatorHub

OperatorHub

OpenShift Dedicated

crwctl

OperatorHub

N/A

It is possible to use the crwctl utility script for deploying CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 on OpenShift Container Platform versions 4.3, 4.4, and OpenShift Dedicated version 4.3. This method is considered unofficial and serves as a backup installation method for situations where the installation method using OperatorHub is not available.

1.4.2. Installing and deploying CodeReady Workspaces

For OpenShift 3.11, see the Installing CodeReady Workspaces chapter of the Administrator Guide.

For OpenShift 4.4, see the Installing CodeReady Workspaces from Operator Hub chapter of the Installation Guide.

1.4.3. Support policy

For Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.2, Red Hat will provide support for deployment, configuration, and use of the product.

CodeReady Workspaces 2.2 has been tested on Chrome version 83.0.4103.97 (Official Build) (64-bit).

For more information, see CodeReady Workspaces life-cycle and support policy.

1.5. Difference between Eclipse Che and Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces

The main differences between CodeReady Workspaces and Eclipse Che are:

  • CodeReady Workspaces is built on RHEL8 to ensure the latest security fixes are included, vs. Alpine distributions that take a longer time to update.
  • CodeReady Workspaces uses Red Hat Single Sign-On (SSO) instead of the upstream project Keycloak.
  • CodeReady Workspaces provides a smaller supported subset of plugins compared to Che. CodeReady Workspaces provides devfiles for working with other Red Hat technologies such as EAP and Fuse.
  • CodeReady Workspaces is supported on OpenShift Container Platform and OpenShift Dedicated; Che can also run on other Kubernetes clusters.

Red Hat also provides licensing, packaging, and support, so CodeReady Workspaces is considered a more stable product than the upstream Eclipse Che project.