Share files and folders between containers within a workspace

[svkr2k]

I would like to share a large set of files between two containers in a workspace.

Currently, in order to share the certain files under a folder, I included the following mount paths in the plugin description yaml (which is referenced in devfile) for both the containers:

  containers:
     volumes:
         - mountPath: "/home/testFolder"
           name: myTestFolder

This seem to work when the testFolder is empty. so that the files generated by one container can be accessed by another container.

But, I would like to share the folders that are "pre-populated" or it already contains a large set of files and multiple containers with in a workspace needs to use them.

How can it be done ? mountPath doesnt seem to work. When I tried to mounth the path as shown above, the container sees an empty mounted folder. Please help.

[skabashnyuk]

@svkr2k Thank you for your question. I think you can't do that at this moment.
Most likely this can help you.

• User should be able to set/retrieve secrets and see them mounted and/or as env variables #14680 User should be able to set/retrieve secrets/configmap and see them mounted and/or as env variables
• devfile: che plugins (vscode) and che editors should accept volumes #13318 devfile: che plugins (vscode) and che editors should accept volumes
• Support volumes for components of type kubernetes/openshift #15122 Support volumes for components of type kubernetes/openshift

[svkr2k]

Hi @skabashnyuk , thank you !
Kindly clarify:

In the example https://github.com/eclipse/che-plugin-registry/blob/master/v3/plugins/eclipse/che-theia/next/meta.yaml#L70, "/plugins" folder is mounted.

1. So, can't this folder be "pre-populated" in the cheEditor while building it's image?
2. Can this folder be shared with other container in the same workspace?

[tsmaeder]

@svkr2k as far as I know, volumes always start empty in kubernetes/OpenShift. There were conversations in the past about cases where this is possible, but it sounded like not the thing to do.
What you can do is put the content in an init container and copy it to the persistent volume on startup. If you check for existence, you would only have to do this once.

[svkr2k]

Thank you, @tsmaeder . I shall try...

[nickboldt]

@ericwill can you add update here?

[ericwill]

Documentation for mounting maven-settings instead of /projects has been merged. The remaining work is the last two bullet points from #16832:

• Automatically inject settings.xml as a secret in workspaces that need it User should be able to set/retrieve secrets and see them mounted and/or as env variables #14680 Implement Airgapped Configuration Mechanism #15518
• Update the documentation for settings.xml and add a doc to support use cases as in I would like to specify my maven settings once for all my maven workspaces #16857

I believe these items are belong to the platform team, cc @skabashnyuk

[nickboldt]

4 weeks later... slip to backlog.

[ericwill]

The issues at hand here have been documented already, there is nothing pending from the plugins side.

Please reopen the issue if you continue to experience a problem.