New Feature: Pod Replacing

With dev.replacePods we introduced a new feature that gives you the option to exchange an already running or just deployed pod with a modified version. This is especially useful if you:

• Need to configure or disable an option on a pod which is not configurable via your helm chart or manifests
• Do not want to use DevSpace for your pipeline and instead only want to use DevSpace for development
• Want to debug a setup with an already deployed app by exchanging a single pod temporarily with modifications

For example:

version: v1beta10
deployments:
- name: my-app
  helm:
    componentChart: true
    values:
      containers:
      - name: my-container
        image: idonotexist:neverexisted # this will create a failing pod
dev:
  # DevSpace will try to find a pod with the given label selector. If found (even if its currently in a failed state)
  # DevSpace will copy the pod, scale down the owning ReplicaSet, Deployment or StatefulSet
  # and create the new modified pod in the cluster.
  replacePods:
    - labelSelector:
        app.kubernetes.io/component: my-app
      replaceImage: ubuntu:latest # you could also use image(default):tag(default) if you want to make this more dynamic
      patches:
        - op: replace
          path: spec.containers.name=my-container.command
          value: ["sleep"]
        - op: replace
          path: spec.containers.name=my-container.args
          value: ["9999999999"]
        - op: replace
          path: spec.containers.name=my-container.workingDir
          value: "/workdir"
  # This will create a terminal to the replaced pod
  terminal:
    labelSelector:
      app.kubernetes.io/component: my-app
  # This will sync to the replaced pod's working directory
  sync:
    - labelSelector:
        app.kubernetes.io/component: my-app

For more informations take a look at the devspace docs

Dependency Changes

With v5.12.0, we greatly improved dependencies and you are now able to reference dependency images and reuse dependency dev configuration. This makes it possible to create much more flexible pipelines and enables you to outsource parts of your devspace.yaml enterly.

For example, you can now reference dependency images in every imageName field via dependency1.image1. In deployment values, you can now use image(dependency1.image1):tag(dependency1.image1) to insert an image that was built within a dependency. You can even reference dependencies of dependencies via depdency1.dependency2.image1. You can also run a command of a dependency with devspace run dependency1.command now.

For example ./devspace.yaml:

version: v1beta10
dependencies:
- name: dep1
  source:
    path: ./dep1
  dev:
    ports: true
deployments:
- name: quickstart
  helm:
    componentChart: true
    values:
      containers:
      - image: image(dependency1.image1):tag(dependency1.image1)  # will be replaced with -> myrepo/image:xxxx
dev:
  # Will open a terminal to the pod with the 
  # image from dep1
  terminal:
    imageName: dep1.image1

Then the dependency ./dep1/devspace.yaml could look like this:

version: v1beta10
images:
  image1:
    image: myrepo/image
dev:
  ports:
  - imageName: image1
    forward:
    - port: 3000

This makes it a lot easier to divide your devspace.yaml into multiple parts or to build a much complexer pipeline with multiple build and deploy steps.

For more informations take a look at the devspace docs

New Config Version v1beta10

With the new config version v1beta10 we cleaned up some options that were now deprecated for a while (especially dev.interactive was changed). Older config versions will still continue to work as expected and there are no breaking changes as DevSpace will convert them automatically in memory, you can see how DevSpace translates your current config by running devspace print. We changed the following options with v1beta10:

• Removed dev.interactive completely. We also removed all related documentation regarding interactive mode and encourage users to use dev.terminal instead, which opens a terminal without touching the Dockerfile and is much easier to understand. If you need to exchange the entrypoint of the container with DevSpace, we encourage you to use either images[*].entrypoint & images[*].cmd, set command & args in your deployment (if thats supported by your helm chart or manifests) or use the new feature dev.replacePods to modify the pod's spec.containers[*].command & spec.containers[*].args
• New section dev.terminal which if set, will tell DevSpace to open a terminal by default instead of printing logs.
• dev.sync[*].waitInitialSync is now true by default
• Removed images[*].tagsAppendRandom & images[*].preferSyncOverRebuild
• dependencies[*].name is now required (for older config versions, the array index will be used as dependency name)
• New section dependencies[*].dev to specify which dev config should be reused from the dependency (currently only ports and sync are supported)

Removal of deprecated commands

We removed the deprecated commands devspace add deployment, devspace add image, devspace add port, devspace add sync, devspace remove deployment, devspace remove image, devspace remove port, devspace remove sync, devspace status sync and devspace update config.

Other New Features

• You can now execute hooks or variables with source: command via the integrated golang shell. The advantage of this shell is that it works cross platform and you can use logical expressions such as echo 123 && echo 456. DevSpace will use the shell if no hooks[*].args or vars[*].args are provided and only a hooks[*].command or vars[*].command is configured:

vars:
- name: MY_VAR_FROM_SHELL
  command: "echo value"
- name: MY_VAR_DIRECT
  command: "echo"
  args: ["value"]
hooks:
- command: "echo 123 && echo 456"
  when:
    before:
      images: all

• New vars[*].value that is a shortcut for using vars[*].source: none and vars[*].default
• New command devspace reset pods to reset changes made by dev.replacePods
• New commands[*].args that if defined will execute the command directly instead of in a golang shell
• The helpers image() and tag() that can be used within helm deployment values or kubectl manifests can now also be used to reference an image key in images.* or in a dependency. If naming of an image key name and the actual image collide, the image key has precedence. For example

version: v1beta10
images:
  default:
    image: myusername/devspace
deployments:
  - name: quickstart
    helm:
      componentChart: true
      values:
        containers:
          - image: image(default):tag(default) # <- will be replaced during deploy with myusername/devspace:xxxxx. You can also use dependency1.image1 to reference a dependency image instead

• New flag --all/-a for devspace purge to purge dependencies as well (the old flag --dependencies is now deprecated)
• New predefined variable ${DEVSPACE_USER_HOME} that holds the user's home directory

Other Changes

• Completely refactored devspace init: there are now more options to choose from how you want to initialize your devspace.yaml. We also set dev.replacePods with dev.terminal now by default instead of printing logs and reloading the container process.
• profiles[*].patches and dev.replacePods[*].patches with op: replace patches do not fail if the target path does not exist anymore and behave like a op: add instead
• profiles[*].patches and dev.replacePods[*].patches with op: remove patches do not fail if the target path does not exist anymore and do nothing instead
• Fixed an issue where image build caching of dependencies was sometimes not working correctly
• Fixed an issue where hooks[*].when.before.images was triggered even though the image was not built
• Updated kaniko to v1.5.2
• Updated internal kubernetes version to v1.20.4
• Improvements to dependency execution and output

New Features

• Added buildkit & buildkit incluster support to devspace (#1383). This will use docker buildx to build images either with the local docker daemon (or minikube daemon if available) or build images directly in the kubernetes cluster with the buildkit kubernetes driver (see the devspace docs for more information). For example:

images:
  myBuildKitImage:
    image: buildkit/local
    build:
      # This will enable building with build kit
      buildKit: {}
  myInClusterBuildKitImage:
    image: buildkit/incluster
    build:
      buildKit:
        # By default this will use the devspace target namespace to build
        # within kubernetes. This will deploy a new priviledged
        # deployment that acts as daemon for docker to build with.
        inCluster: {}
          # You can also use rootless building with buildKit
          # rootless: true
          # You could also use another namespace with a shared
          # build deployment to have a global cache.
          # namespace: shared-builder

• It is now allowed to use variables in the command, args or commands field of other variables. For example these variable definitions are now valid:

vars:
- name: SPECIAL_NAMESPACE
  command: "./script.sh"
  args: ["${DEVSPACE_NAMESPACE"}]
- name: OTHER_VARIABLE
  command: "${SPECIAL_NAMESPACE}"
  args: ["other-args-${DEVSPACE_NAMESPACE}"]

• New config option dev.sync.arch and dev.ports.arch to specify the target container architecture. Currently amd64 and arm64 are supported (#1389)

Fixes

• Fixed an issue on older windows versions where DevSpace could panic with Invalid standard handle identifier
• Fixed an issue where an error during namespace create was ignored (#1382)
• Fixed an issue where .dockerignore was used even though a devspace.dockerignore existed
• Fixed an issue where DevSpace would not respect the docker proxy settings for building (#1378)
• Fixed an issue where DevSpace could install broken plugins. DevSpace will now check before installing or updating if the plugin binary is executable and returns a zero exit code if executed without arguments. (#1379)
• Fixed an issue where building images with minikube and docker.useCli or docker.useBuildKit would not target the minikube daemon correctly (#1386)
• Fixed an issue where devspace use profile and devspace list profiles would try to fill in config variables

Other Changes

• DevSpace will now create non existing namespaces during devspace build for kaniko builds (#1384)
• DevSpace will now add .devspace/ to the .dockerignore during devspace init (#1371)
• DevSpace will now print executed helm commands during helm deployment
• DevSpace will now use the deployment, statefulset or replicaset name instead of the pod name for the log streaming prefix if no app.kubernetes.io/component label is found

Deprecation

Deprecation of commands devspace add deployment, devspace add image, devspace add port, devspace add sync, devspace remove deployment, devspace remove image, devspace remove port, devspace remove sync, devspace status sync and devspace update config. We feel these commands are rarely used, mostly outdated in terms of config options and are an increasing maintenance burden. The commands are still available, however DevSpace will now print a warning if you use them. The commands will be removed in a future DevSpace version.

New Features

• DevSpace now allows you to specify variables within other variables default values, which makes it possible to compose variables of other variables. To use a variable in a default value, the variable that is used needs to be specified prior or needs to be a predefined variable. For example:

version: v1beta9
images:
  default:
    image: ${IMAGE}
vars:
  - name: IMAGE_REPOSITORY
    default: myrepository
    source: none
  - name: IMAGE_NAME
    default: devspace
    source: none
  - name: IMAGE
    default: ${IMAGE_REPOSITORY}/${IMAGE_NAME}
    source: none
  - name: NAMESPACE
    default: ${DEVSPACE_NAMESPACE}
    source: none

• New option images.*.rebuildStrategy that can either take always or ignoreContextChanges to specify when DevSpace should rebuild an image (#1353)
• New flag --max-concurrent-builds that limits the amount of concurrent image during devspace build, devspace dev, devspace render or devspace deploy (#1347)
• New option images.*.build.kaniko.envFrom that allows you to specify environment variables from a config map or secret for the kaniko build pod (#1348)
• Added support for devspace.dockerignore that will take precedence over a regular .dockerignore during image build (#1356)
• New --output flag for devspace list vars that accepts the values keyvalue or json
• New --overwrite flag for devspace set var that if set to false will not overwrite the variable when found in cache

Other Changes

• Flags such as --sequential-build, --max-concurrent-builds and --skip-push-local-kube will now also apply to dependency builds
• Fixed an issue where devspace set var would fail with base64 encoded strings
• Fixed an issue where a nil pointer could occur if using a hooks.when.after.purgeDeployments hook (#1361)
• DevSpace will now not return a fatal error if devspace update plugin cannot update the plugin because it is the newest version (#1352)
• devspace list vars will now print all resolved variables of the current applied config instead of only all cached variables

Changes

• Fixed an issue where questions asked by devspace could return an empty string although an option was selected and ultimately lead to erroneous behaviour
• Fixed an issue where devspace enter would hang in certain proxy scenarios

Changes

• Fixed an issue where questions asked by devspace could return an empty string although an option was selected and ultimately lead to strange behaviour
• Fixed an issue where devspace enter would hang in certain proxy scenarios

New Features

• Added a new hook type wait that will wait for containers or pods to be running before continuing with the pipeline. This can be useful if you want to ensure a certain pod is running before you continue with the pipeline, like a database. For more information please take a look at the docs. An example configuration could look like this:

...
deployments:
- name: my-database
  helm:
    componentChart: true
    values:
      ...
hooks:
# This hook will ensure that everytime the deployment
# my-database is deployed DevSpace will wait until
# all pods and containers that match the labelSelector
# app.kubernetes.io/component=my-database are running
- wait:
    # DevSpace will wait for all containers that match the label selector below to become running. 
    # If there are init containers, make sure to set terminatedWithCode as well.
    running: true
    # This can be needed if there are for example init containers
    # that terminate instead of become running.
    terminatedWithCode: 0
  where:
    container:
      labelSelector:
        app.kubernetes.io/component: my-database
        # You could also select just a specific container with
        # containerName: database-container
  when:
    after:
      deployments: my-database
...

• Added a new hook type logs that can print logs of a selected container. This can be useful to print logs of jobs or print the logs of init containers that would not be printed otherwise during devspace dev. For more information, check out the docs.
• Added a new flag --wait to devspace logs that waits for pods to become running before printing the logs
• Added a new global flag --inactivity-timeout that will exit DevSpace automatically if the user is idle for the given amount of time (#1313)

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where devspace sync on linux would miss files on after recreating a folder multiple times locally (#1296)

New Features

• Added a new hook type wait that will wait for containers or pods to be running before continuing with the pipeline. This can be useful if you want to ensure a certain pod is running before you continue with the pipeline, like a database. For more information please take a look at the docs. An example configuration could look like this:

...
deployments:
- name: my-database
  helm:
    componentChart: true
    values:
      ...
hooks:
# This hook will ensure that everytime the deployment
# my-database is deployed DevSpace will wait until
# all pods and containers that match the labelSelector
# app.kubernetes.io/component=my-database are running
- wait:
    # DevSpace will wait for all containers that match the label selector below to become running. 
    # If there are init containers, make sure to set terminatedWithCode as well.
    running: true
    # This can be needed if there are for example init containers
    # that terminate instead of become running.
    terminatedWithCode: 0
  where:
    container:
      labelSelector:
        app.kubernetes.io/component: my-database
        # You could also select just a specific container with
        # containerName: database-container
  when:
    after:
      deployments: my-database
...

• Added a new hook type logs that can print logs of a selected container. This can be useful to print logs of jobs or print the logs of init containers that would not be printed otherwise during devspace dev. For more information, check out the docs.
• Added a new flag --wait to devspace logs that waits for pods to become running before printing the logs
• Added a new global flag --inactivity-timeout that will exit DevSpace automatically if the user is idle for the given amount of time (#1313)

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where devspace sync on linux would miss files on after recreating a folder multiple times locally (#1296)

Upgrading from DevSpace Version v5.8.2

Unfortunately DevSpace version v5.8.2 has a small bug where devspace upgrade will sometimes run into a nil pointer panic. In order to upgrade from v5.8.2 to v5.8.4, please run instead:

# Only needed if you have version v5.8.2
devspace upgrade --version v5.8.4

Changes

• Fixed an issue where devspace upgrade would lead to a nil pointer exception
• Fixed an issue where the devspace helper couldn't be executed on docker desktop v3.2.0 (#1334)
• Fixed an issue where negating exclude patterns were not working correctly for sync download (#1335)

Changes

• Fixed an issue where devspace upgrade would lead to a nil pointer exception
• Fixed an issue where the devspace helper couldn't be executed on docker desktop v3.2.0 (#1334)
• Fixed an issue where negating exclude patterns were not working correctly for sync download (#1335)

Changes

• DevSpace will now restrict its logs in size and delete old logs automatically (#1328)
• DevSpace will now limit the table column width to a maximum of 64 characters to avoid odd looking output in commands such as devspace list deployments, devspace list profiles etc. (#1327)
• DevSpace will now print the config variable command's stderr and stdout on failure (#1325)
• New --version flag for devspace upgrade to select a specific devspace version (including alpha and beta versions) (#1330)
• New environment variable DEVSPACE_DISABLE_VARS_ENCRYPTION that will disable automatic config variable encryption if set to true (#1326)

Changes

• Devspace will now encrypt the config variables saved in .devspace/generated.yaml with a private key
• Fixed an issue where the type of config variables was not aligned with the default value of that variable
• Devspace will now fail during kaniko building if it detects an issue during build pod startup
• Devspace will now print a warning during port-forwarding, sync or terminal forwarding if the pod has issues to start
• devspace init now allows you to use an image registry even though you are not authenticated to it
• Fixed an issue where devspace would fail if --save-vars was specified and the target namespace was not found

New Features

• New option images.*.build.custom.skipImageArg to prevent devspace from adding an argument to the custom command with the image name and tag
• New option images.*.build.custom.imageTagOnly to add only the image tag instead of the full image name with tag as argument to the custom command (my-image-repo.com/repo/image:my-tag will just become my-tag)
• New option images.*.build.custom.commands to change the base command depending on the operating system. For example:

images:
  default:
    image: test
    tags:
    - my-tag
    build:
      custom:
        # Use this command as fall back
        command: './scripts/my-bash-build-script.sh'
        # Use a special base command for windows
        commands:
        - command: './scripts/my-powershell-build-script.ps' 
          os: windows
        # DevSpace will then build on windows with:
        # ./scripts/my-powershell-build-script.ps test:my-tag
        # And on any other operating system with:
        # ./scripts/my-bash-build-script.sh test:my-tag

Changes

• Log ui errors to file instead of console (logs can be found under .devspace/logs/ui.log)
• Fixed an issue where an UI error could lead to a nil pointer panic
• Update golang version to v1.16