Che: Persisting Custom Stacks in Eclipse Che

[SharkJ]

How do I make a custom stack to exist permanently in Eclipse che. I have an LS-sidecar stack that I have to remake every time I restart Che. How do I make it permanent so that it will be in the list of stacks just like Java, .NET, Android etc. ?

[SharkJ]

Building Che assemblies seems like a deprecated approach now. So what is the correct approach to customize che? I tried building the assembly after adding a new stack into stacks.json file in "che-core-ide-stacks -> target -> classes" path. However, the new stack was not added into che. Is it something wrong in the way I did it, or does this approach no longer work?

[skabashnyuk]

Hello @SharkJ . Stack database populated only once on the first start. So maybe you have already initialized stack database. That is why they are not loaded.

[SharkJ]

Hello @SharkJ . Stack database populated only once on the first start. So maybe you have already initialized stack database. That is why they are not loaded.

Hi @skabashnyuk! Is there a new procedure to add a permanent stacks to eclipse che?

[SharkJ]

Is there any way to persist a stack instead of adding it to the assembly?

[skabashnyuk]

@SharkJ yes https://www.eclipse.org/che/docs/stacks.html#stack-sharing-and-system-stacks

[SharkJ]

@skabashnyuk Thank You! I'll go through it.

[skabashnyuk]

Let me know if its working/not working for you. AFAIK @eivantsov checked this functionality when he edited this document

[SharkJ]

Let me know if its working/not working for you. AFAIK @eivantsov checked this functionality when he edited this document

I do not find the permission tab in swagger. What do you think the reason must be? I ran the browser as administrator, but it made no difference.
The other thing I do not understand is the location where I should change the che.env file. Do I need to clone the che repo and rebuild it after I changed the che.env file, or can I do it without cloning the che repo at all?

[ghost]

@SharkJ it's in your local directory that you mounted into :/data when starting Che.

[SharkJ]

@eivantsov Once I changed che.env, I need to restart che with the same :/data path, am I correct?

[SharkJ]

This is what I get when I try to access "/swagger/#!/permissions" as stated in "https://www.eclipse.org/che/docs/stacks.html#stack-sharing-and-system-stacks".
Why don't I get the permissions tab?

[ghost]

@SharkJ is it single user Che?

[SharkJ]

@eivantsov I guess you mean it is not required to set permission since it is single user. WHat I want to do now is to make a custom stack permanent. For this, I need to edit stacks.json and set CHE_PREDEFINED_STACKS_RELOADONSTART=true in che.env.
Now where I get confused is, can I input my new stack into stacks.json without cloning and editing the che repo? Can I add my stack into stacks.json by posting a new stack in swagger? If it doesn't become permanent after posting in swagger, what is the actual purpose of swagger/stacks/POST?
I have already built a stack in Dashboard. Is swagger/stacks/POST have the same function as creating a stack using Dashboard?

[ghost]

After a POST request it will be persisted in a DB. And as long as you don't flush it, it will be there

[SharkJ]

@eivantsov @skabashnyuk I created a stack using Swagger. But when I restarted my PC, it was no longer existing.
I followed this https://www.eclipse.org/che/docs/stacks.html#community-supported-stacks and added a mydsl-stack.json file to \che\instance\data\templates Still I do not get a different outcome.
Could you kindly help me to understand what I can do to have my stack permanently existing even when I restarted my PC?

[ghost]

Templates are sample apps not stacks.

Having added a stack using Swagger it should be in a database. And database is persisted. As long as you do not reset your Docker for Windows your stack should be there.

[SharkJ]

@eivantsov Here's what I did.
I went to http://localhost:8080/swagger/#!/stack/createStack, and entered the below code into "body" under "Parameters" section: -

{
  "id": "my-dsl-1",
  "scope": "general",
  "description": "New MyDSL Stack",
  "id": "stackoagu6iqbdkatncv3",
  "creator": "che",
  "tags": [
    "Java 1.8",
    "MYDSL 1.0"
  ],
  "workspaceConfig": {
    "attributes": {},
    "description": "string",
    "defaultEnv": "default",
    "environments": {
        "default": {
          "machines": {
            "dsl-language-server-ls": {
              "env": {},
              "volumes": {},
              "installers": [],
              "servers": {
                "mydsl1-ls": {
                  "attributes": {
                    "languageRegexes": "[ {\"languageId\":\"mydsllang\", \"regex\":\".*\\\\.mydsl$\"}]",
                    "internal": "true",
                    "id": "mydsl-ls",
                    "type": "ls"
                  },
                  "protocol": "tcp",
                  "port": "4417"
                }
              },
              "attributes": {
                "memoryLimitBytes": "2147483648"
              }
            },
            "dev-machine": {
              "env": {},
              "volumes": {},
              "installers": [
                "org.eclipse.che.terminal",
                "org.eclipse.che.ws-agent"
              ],
              "servers": {},
              "attributes": {
                "memoryLimitBytes": "2147483648"
              }
            }
          },
          "recipe": {
            "contentType": "text/x-yaml",
            "type": "compose",
            "content": "services:\n dsl-language-server-ls:\n  image: sharkj/mydsl1\n  mem_limit: 1073741824\n dev-machine:\n  image: eclipse/ubuntu_jdk8\n  mem_limit: 2147483648\n  depends_on:\n   - dsl-language-server-ls\n"
          }
        }
    },
    "commands": [],
    "projects": [],
    "name": "default",
    "links": []
  },
  "components": [],
  "name": "MyDSL1",
  "links": []
}

Then I hit the "Try it out!" button, and got a code of 201. Then I browsed for localhost and saw my stack in the list of stacks in eclipse che. I closed all windows and restarted my COMPUTER. Once I logged in again, I waited till Docker automatically started, and then navigated to localhost (Eclipse Che) and rechecked for my stack. It was not there. I didn't restart docker or anything. I just restarted my computer.

[SharkJ]

I guess it is impossible to keep docker from restarting each time the PC restarts. I'm closing my issue. If there is any possible method to persist stacks, please post it.