The term namespace (Kubernetes) is used interchangeably with project (OpenShift).

The namespace strategies are configured using the CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT environment variable.

There are legacy variables CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE and CHE_INFRA_OPENSHIFT_PROJECT. These should be left unset for new installations. Changing these variables during update can lead to data loss.

One namespace per workspace strategy

The strategy creates a new namespace for each new workspace.

To use the strategy, the CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT variable value must contain the <workspaceid> identifier. It can be used alone or combined with other identifiers or any string.

Example 1. One namespace per workspace

To assign namespace names composed of a che-ws prefix and workspace id, set:

CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT=che-ws-<workspaceid>

One namespace for all workspaces strategy

The strategy uses one predefined namespace for all workspaces.

To use the strategy, the CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT variable value must be the name of the desired namespace to use.

Example 2. One namespace for all workspaces

To have all workspaces created in che-workspaces namespace, set:

CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT=che-workspaces
To run more than one workspace at a time when using this strategy together with the common PVC strategy, configure persistent volumes to use ReadWriteMany access mode.

One namespace per user strategy

The strategy isolates each user in their own namespace.

To use the strategy, the CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT variable value must contain one or more user identifiers. Currently supported identifiers are <username> and <userid>.

Example 3. One namespace per user

To assign namespace names composed of a che-ws prefix and individual usernames (che-ws-user1, che-ws-user2), set:

CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_DEFAULT=che-ws-<username>

To run more than one workspace at a time when using this strategy together with the common PVC strategy, configure persistent volumes to use ReadWriteMany access mode.

To limit the number of concurrently running workspaces per user to one, set the CHE_LIMITS_USER_WORKSPACES_RUN_COUNT environment variable to 1.

To limit the number of concurrently running workspaces per user to one (1):

  • For Helm Chart deployments: set the .global.workspace.number parameter to 1.

  • For Operator deployments: set the spec.server.cheCustomProperties.CHE_LIMITS_USER_WORKSPACE_RUN_COUNT variable of the CheCluster Custom Resource (CR) to 1.

Allowing user-defined workspace namespaces

Che server can be configured to honor the user selection of a namespace when a workspace is created. This feature is disabled by default. To allow user-defined workspace namespaces, set:

CHE_INFRA_KUBERNETES_NAMESPACE_ALLOWUSERDEFINED=true