Running Visual Studio Code Server on Kubernetes

I would like to be able to code from anywhere, or at least have a development environment that doesn't depend on my PC. Visual Studio Code Server seems like one of the best and/or most popular options out there, so I decided it to try.

Since I've already got my Kubernetes cluster running, the best option seems to be the lscr.io/linuxserver/code-server docker image. I took the deployment from Deploying VSCode on a Kubernetes Cluster and added an Nginx ingress.

First, create a dedicated directory in the partition with plenty of space available:

# mkdir /home/k8s/code-server/
# chown -R coder.coder /home/k8s/code-server/

A persistent volume is necessary because otherwise everything (settings and uncommitted changes) is lost when the container is restarted, including when the node is restarted. Tried claiming a persistent volume from the default storage class local-path but never managed to get the pod to see the claim, until the claim was changed to the manual storage class to get a hostPath volume, which worked immediately (only, after granting coder all rights on the hostPath directory).

Then create code-server.yaml with the deployment and apply it:

Kubernetes deployment: code-server.yaml
code-server.yaml
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apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: code-server
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: code-server
namespace: code-server
spec:
ports:
- port: 80
  targetPort: 8080
selector:
  app: code-server
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: code-server-pv
  labels:
    type: local
  namespace: code-server
spec:
  storageClassName: manual
  capacity:
    storage: 10Gi
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  hostPath:
    path: "/home/k8s/code-server"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: code-server-pv-claim
  namespace: code-server
spec:
  storageClassName: manual
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 3Gi
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: code-server
  name: code-server
  namespace: code-server
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: code-server
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: code-server
    spec:
      volumes:
        - name: code-server-storage
          persistentVolumeClaim:
            claimName: code-server-pv-claim
      containers:
      - image: codercom/code-server
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
        name: code-server
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8080
        env:
        - name: PASSWORD
          value: "*************************"
        volumeMounts:
          - mountPath: "/home/coder"
            name: code-server-storage
---
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: code-server-ingress
  namespace: code-server
  annotations:
    acme.cert-manager.io/http01-edit-in-place: "true"
    cert-manager.io/issue-temporary-certificate: "true"
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt-prod
spec:
  ingressClassName: nginx
  rules:
    - host: "code.ssl.uu.am"
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              service:
                name: code-server
                port:
                  number: 80
  tls:
    - secretName: tls-secret
      hosts:
        - "code.ssl.uu.am"

$ kubectl apply -f code-server.yaml

Add an A record for code.ssl.uu.am pointing to the external IP and go to https://code.ssl.uu.am to get the certificate creation started, forward port 80 to the NodePort of the cm-acme-http-solver:

$ kubectl -n code-server get svc
NAME                        TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
cm-acme-http-solver-dcwjx   NodePort    10.109.153.157   <none>        8089:31691/TCP   8m53s