Ways to mount folder inside host machine to auxiliary machine?

[soanni]

Hello, Codenvy Team.

Is there any possible way to share the /projects folder inside workspace machine to auxiliary machine?
The picture is like that:

1. I have a workspace with a project source code. It is mounted from host to workspace /projects/<name_of_project> folder.
2. There is a ready docker image with all configured services (for example TomCat)
3. I can create in current workspace additional "treatment" machine form that image
4. I made some development on the code base. Then i built it and had new .war file as a result.
5. I need a way to inject this file to the "treatment" machine's TomCat webapps folder in order to check how my app behaves after my development.
6. I am a regular user of the system and i don't have access to SSH codenvy host.

As far as i understand workspace machine is run like that

docker run - v /projects ...

How can i run the additional treatment machine the same way?

Thank you.

[TylerJewell]

Yes - there is a way. But you need to have a small sense of adventure.

Your workspace dev machine has sshd running inside of it. It is possible to use sshfs from within the auxiliary machine to connect to the workspace machine and then mount a specific /projects folder within the auxiliary machine. We have a form of this sophistication built into an experimental CLI for Che that we have, though it is more complicated than what you need because it also uses the unison framework, which you will not need.

You'd then need to make sure that the public / private key-pair between the dev & auxiliary machine is properly configured so that sshfs can work directly.

If you need some specific code on how sshfs works between the containers, I will need some time to get that uploaded. It's currently in an unmarked branch for experimentation, though it seems to work very reliably.

[ghost]

@soanni another option is to use rsync

[ghost]

@soanni let me know if you need help with this - I have a few ready to use commands that you can try right away.

[soanni]

@eivantsov thank you. i'm interested in everything new regarding Codenvy so i'm ready to try your commands.

[MuhamadSherif]

@eivantsov would you please provide these commands you have as I am now facing issue with this, I need to mount my container with a NAS server.

[ghost]

@MuhamadSherif I do not think rsync commands will solve mounting problem. Perhaps, if you elaborate on the use case, I can be more explicit.

[TylerJewell]

@eivantsov @JamesDrummond - we are getting this question quite a bit, so its maybe time for us to start to prepare a list of ways to mount external folders into a workspace. This is my starting list. This may not be accurate or complete.

1: Install your own Codenvy Enterprise. Within CE, we give admins the ability to mount additional host directories into users workspaces. So this would be a situation where you have a closed environment and host mounting is allowed.

2: You can sshfs mount a workspace directory in /projects into another system using sshfs. We use this in the che mount facility today. Can link on how this is possible. This then requires the person who performs the mount to then do a copy / move / rsync exercise. This is a scenario where the external system is reaching into the workspace.

3: You can setup a unison command, which does a recurring synchronization between a workspace and another external drive. This also requires ssh access to the workspace. This is a scenario where the external system is reaching into the workspace.

4: In scenarios where the workspace wants to push out - then the full range of FTP / SFTP / rsynch / SSH commands from one system to another is available.

[tolusha]

@TylerJewell If we allow admin to mount extra volumes It will have effect per installation. Each user will have the same mounted directories.

[tolusha]

IMHO it make sense for CHE only.

[TylerJewell]

Yeah - we understand the risk and limits of this. There are some advantages temporarily though.

[tolusha]

So, user story will be:
As a admin I should able to mount the same volumes for all machines for all users.

[TylerJewell]

Yes.

[bmicklea]

I'm still not clear on why volumes_from is critical here.

From what I have read, volumes_from is just a way to allow a container to use a set of volumes already defined in another container. It seems like a shortcut to having to re-define volumes in each container of a compose environment. But I thought that in M1 we weren't going to be able to do the volume mount at all - is that wrong?

What I'm trying to understand is that if we give 5.0.0-M1 to a customer can they try it and expect to be able to mount volumes in Codenvy?

[tolusha]

Postponed to 5.0.0-M3

[bmicklea]

@tolusha - the che issue (eclipse-che/che#2366) may get pushed to M3 (Alex is working on it now), but so far it's not clear to me that the Che issue is the full solution to this issue. I need more information or explanation.

[JamesDrummond]

#728 Extra volume mounting.

[tolusha]

machine.server.extra.volume has been introduces. It is a way to mount extra volumes into docker container.

For instance:

machine.server.extra.volume=/home/user/folder1:/mnt/folder1:ro,Z;/home/user/folder2:/mnt/folder2:ro,Z

[bmicklea]

@tolusha I believe we still need the fix for eclipse-che/che#2366 before we can close this. Your PR alone doesn't really let us do the second use case smoothly.

[tolusha]

They are two separated issues.

[bmicklea]

I understand that your PR and the Che issue are separate and cover different use cases but this issue is about the two use cases outlined here: #499 (comment)

So I don't want to close this issue until both are complete and smooth.

[bmicklea]

Adjusted milestone to match the release where VOLUMES_FROM will be fixed.

[bmicklea]

Closing issue as eclipse-che/che#2366 has been closed in M4 as well.