School of Computer Science Wiki

The following is a set of possible use cases for Kubernetes/Containers based on existing workflows - particularly related to CIS Undergraduate Courses.

SoCS Students are increasingly using remote code execution through Visual Studio Code to write and test their assignments. Assignments are coded through VS Code on a students personal computer, which then connects to a remote environment in which it executes the code. This is currently typically done on the SoCS Linux/NoMachine cluster.

It is also possible to use Kubernetes containers as a remote execution environment. This has two major benefits.

• Each container is run independently of any other student environments. This makes it easier to limit resources
• As each development environment is a Docker container, it is easy to provide a customized environment for courses or even individual requirements.

Below are two VSCode Remote Kubernetes Options.

• Instructors will define the software required for their course/assignment/project.
• SoCS IT will build a Docker Container based on these specifications.
• A customized yaml file will be provided to each student which defines their work environment to use the specified Docker Container. See an example below.

name: socslinux-test
image: socsguelph/socslinux:latest
autocreate: true
workdir: /tmp
command: ["bash"]
namespace: vscodetest
volumes:
  - /root/.vscode-server    # persist vscode extensions
securityContext:
  capabilities:
    add:
    - SYS_PTRACE
persistentVolume:
  enabled: true
  storageClass: nfs-client

First set up the dev environment to install the extensions and configuration files required to connect to Kubernetes. These steps only need to be done once.

• Install the Okteto Extension in VSCode.
• Download the Kubeconfig and add to local machine.

Set up the project. This needs to be done once for each project.

• Create a folder/git repo to hold code, and add the above yaml file to it.
• Create a namespace in Kubernetes to work within.

Daily Workflow.

• Run Okteto Extension from within VSCode to connect to remote environment
• Code and Test