Edit in Gitpod

Configure the Kubernetes nodes in your Gitpod Self-Hosted installation

⚠️ Deprecated Content

The content of this page assumes you are using Helm, which is now deprecated. Please use the Installer instead.

Configure the nodes (computers or virtual machines) that Kubernetes runs Gitpod’s workspace pods on.

Assign workload to Nodes

Gitpod schedules two kinds of workloads: the Gitpod installation itself (which we refer to as meta) and the workspaces. Ideally both types of workloads run on separate nodes to make makes scaling easier. Depending on your cluster size that may not be feasible though. Either way, you need two node labels in your cluster:

  • gitpod.io/workload_meta=true which marks the “meta” nodes and
  • gitpod.io/workload_workspace=true which marks the workspace nodes.

If you want to “mix ‘n match”, i.e., don’t separate the nodes, you can simply run:

language icon language: 
bash
kubectl label node --all gitpod.io/workload_meta=true gitpod.io/workload_workspace=true

Node Filesystem Layout

Gitpod relies on the node’s filesystem for making workspace content available, as well as for storing Theia. By default workspace data is placed in /data and Theia is copied to /theia. Depending on your node setup the root filesystem maybe read-only or slow. We recommend you change those two paths so that they’re located on an SSD or some other form of fast local storage.

To do this:

  1. Merge the following into your values.custom.yaml:

    language icon language: 
    yml
    components:
    imageBuilder:
        # The image builder deploys a Docker-in-Docker-daemon. By default that Docker daemon works in an empty-dir on the node.
        # Depending on the types of node you operate that may cause image builds to fail or not perform well. We recommend you give the Docker daemon
        # fast storage on the node, e.g. an SSD.
        hostDindData: /mnt/disks/ssd0/docker
    wsDaemon:
        # Workspace data is stored on the nodes. This setting configures where on the node the workspace data lives.
        # The faster this location is (in terms of IO) the faster workspaces will initialize.
        hostWorkspaceArea: /mnt/disks/ssd0/workspaces

  2. Do a helm upgrade --install -f values.custom.yaml gitpod gitpod.io/gitpod --version=0.10.0 to apply the changes.

    Note that Helm does not merge hierarchies in a single file. Please make sure there is only ever one components hierarchy or the last one overwrites all previous values.

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