The default project directory seems to be not working correctly

[webarchymeta]

• code-server 2.1655-vsc1.39.2
• OS Version: ubuntu 18.0.4 server

Description

We run multiple code server instances each of which has a default project directory specified using the path command line argument, e.g. run

[path to]/code-server --host x.x.x.x --port 8447 --auth none .

in the corresponding directory. It was ok in 2.1523-vsc1.38.1. But now default project directories seem always be set by the first opened instance

Steps to Reproduce

(in separate systemd services)

cd dir1
[path to]/code-server --host x.x.x.x --port 8443 --auth none .
cd dir2
[path to]/code-server --host x.x.x.x --port 8444 --auth none .
cd dir3
[path to]/code-server --host x.x.x.x --port 8445 --auth none .

then

1. open http://x.x.x.x:8443, which opens directory dir1
2. open http://x.x.x.x:8444. It opens dir1 directory again, instead of dir2

the same happens to opening http://x.x.x.x:8445

[code-asher]

code-server was modified to open the last opened directory which is probably what is causing this. There is a `coder.json` file in the data directory that stores this information. I think the only solution if you need to run multiple instances would be to have a separate data directory for every running instance otherwise they will step on each other's toes. Alternatively, you could spawn a single code-server instance and use the `folder` query parameter in the URL to open the desired directory. For example `http://x.x.x.x:8443?folder=/path/to/dir1`.

[webarchymeta]

ok, i see. thanks ...

[code-asher]

No problem. BTW if you have any thoughts on how to better improve this behavior or need additional functionality I'm happy to hear it. I think there may be cases where we don't always want to open the last directory. For example when code-server is first ran we might want to prioritize whatever is passed on the command line instead of the last opened directory but I'm not sure.

[webarchymeta]

I think this particular feature could be realized by coverting the data structure in the original coder.json into a table with port number (of the code-server instance) as the key and the original data as the value and factoring the common settings across instances out ... just a thought

[code-asher]

Ohh that's neat. I opened a new issue that contains this idea: #1132