docs: how to pre install JetBrains editors into VM / container image so that it doesn't have to download every time

[bpmct]

Installing a JetBrains IDE can be slow. I believe sharkymark has some v2 templates with IntellIJ pre installed. Can we formalize these docs?

[matifali]

@bpmct AFAIR, Those templates were using the now deprecated JetBrains projector.
To document this will require investigating where the Gateway puts the downloaded IDE backend.

Additionally, the download happens only on the first connection to a workspace; all subsequent connections should be instant, given they are pinning the IDE versions and the workspace directory is persisted across restarts.

[roshvin]

Hi @bpmct thanks for creating the issue
hi @matifali , when we restart the Workspace or close / open the GW client , its downloading the packages again .

[matifali]

@roshvin This package is JetBrainsClient. It's being downloaded to the client machine and not the workspace. I am currently unable to reproduce this. For me, this gets downloaded only the first time or if a newer version is available. It's being handled by Gateway automatically.

[code-asher]

Yeah the backend should only be downloaded once per workspace and the client only once per client machine, if not then there could be a bug but I just tried and have not been able to reproduce as of yet.

The backend can be pre-installed anywhere, you just have to register it (basically it just creates a symlink in the right spot, you could probably do this manually too). For example, suppose you download and extract the editor to ~/.cache/editors/IU-232.10203.10:

~/.cache/editors/IU-232.10203.10/bin/remote-dev-server.sh registerBackendLocationForGateway

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/remote-development-a.html#register_backend_IDE

I am not sure where the client goes though.

[code-asher]

Also, if you ever want to check what is registered with Gateway without having to launch Gateway, I am not sure there is a better way but this does the trick for me (note the hash might be different for others):

$ ~/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/remote-dev-worker/remote-dev-worker_fcf8a611ab8f9110082dc5a71cb4e287dc9ee35120fb7880e4e56e6b92abec56 installed-ides | jq '.data[] | fromjson | .idePath'
"/home/coder/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/dist/5bffcb8389003_PhpStorm-241.15989.66"
"/home/coder/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/dist/CL-233.14475.31"
"/home/coder/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/dist/CL-241.14494.229"
"/home/coder/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/dist/GO-233.14808.20"
"/home/coder/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/dist/IU-233.15026.9"
"/home/coder/.cache/JetBrains/RemoteDev/dist/IU-241.15989.69"