Getting Started on Okteto Cloud with Ruby

Okteto Cloud gives you free access to secure Kubernetes namespaces, fully integrated with remote development capabilities. Develop your Kubernetes applications in Okteto Cloud and forget about slow and tedious local development forever.

This tutorial will show you how to create an account in Okteto Cloud and how to develop a Ruby sample applicatio.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Deploy the Ruby Sample App

Get a local version of the Ruby Sample App by executing the following commands:

1
2
$ git clone https://github.com/okteto/ruby-getting-started
$ cd ruby-getting-started

The k8s.yml file contains the Kubernetes manifests of the Ruby Sample App. Deploy a dev version of the application by executing:

1
$ kubectl apply -f k8s.yml
1
2
deployment.apps "hello-world" created
service "hello-world" created

Open your browser and go to the URL of the application. You can get the URL by logging into Okteto Cloud and clicking on the application’s endpoint:

Did you notice that you are accessing your application through an HTTPs endpoint? This is because Okteto Cloud will automatically create them for you when you deploy your application. Cool no 😎?

Step 2: Start your remote development environment

We are going to use the dev version of the Ruby Sample App we just deployed as our remote development environment. To do that, run the following command:

1
$ okteto up
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
 ✓  Development environment activated
 ✓  Files synchronized
    Namespace: cindy
    Name:      hello-world
    Forward:   8080 -> 8080
               1234 -> 1234

Welcome to your development environment. Happy coding!
okteto>

The okteto up command starts a remote development environment, which means:

  • The Ruby Sample App container is updated with the docker image okteto/hello-world:ruby-dev. This image contains the required dev tools to build, test, debug and run a Ruby application. Check the Dockerfile to see how it is generated.
  • A file synchronization service is created to keep your changes up-to-date between your local filesystem and your application pods.
  • Container ports 8080 (the application) and 1234 (the debugger) are forwarded to localhost.
  • A remote shell is started in your remote development environment. Build, test and run your application as if you were in your local machine.

All of this (and more) can be customized via the okteto.yml manifest file. You can also use the file .stignore to skip files from file synchronization. This is useful to avoid synchronizing vendor dependencies or git metadata.

Working in your remote development environment is the same as working on your local machine. Start the application in hot-reload mode by running the following command:

1
okteto> ruby app.rb
1
2
3
4
[2020-03-20 09:23:04] INFO  WEBrick 1.6.0
[2020-03-20 09:23:04] INFO  ruby 2.7.0 (2019-12-25) [x86_64-linux]
== Sinatra (v2.0.8.1) has taken the stage on 8080 for development with backup from WEBrick
[2020-03-20 09:23:04] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=66 port=8080

Step 3: Develop directly in Okteto Cloud

Open the app.rb file in your favorite local IDE and modify the response message on line 7 to be Hello world from the cluster!. Save your changes.

1
2
3
4
get "/" do
  message = "Hello world from the cluster!"
  message
end

Okteto will synchronize your changes to your development environment in Kubernetes and Sinatra automatically detects them and reloads your application.

Go back to the browser and reload the page. Your code changes were instantly applied. No commit, build or push required 😎!

Step 4: Debug directly in Okteto Cloud

Okteto enables you to debug your applications directly from your favorite IDE. Let’s take a look at how that works in VS Code, one of the most popular IDEs for Ruby development. If you haven’t done it yet, install the Ruby extension available from Visual Studio marketplace. This extension comes with debug definitions covering the default ruby-debug-ide client setup.

Now, cancel the execution of ruby app.rb from the remote shell by pressing ctrl + c. Rerun your application in debug mode:

1
okteto> rdebug-ide --host 0.0.0.0 app.rb
1
Fast Debugger (ruby-debug-ide 0.7.0, debase 0.2.4.1, file filtering is supported) listens on 0.0.0.0:1234

Open the Run view in VS Code and run the Connect to okteto debug configuration (or press the F5 shortcut):

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Connect to okteto",
            "type": "Ruby",
            "request": "attach",
            "remotePort": "1234",
            "remoteHost": "localhost",
            "remoteWorkspaceRoot": "/app",
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
        }
    ]
}

Add a breakpoint on app.rb, line 8. Go back to the browser, and reload the page. The execution will halt at your breakpoint. You can then inspect the request, the available variables, etc…

Your code is executing in Okteto Cloud, but you can debug it from your local machine without any extra services or tools. Pretty cool no? 😉

Next steps

Congratulations, you just developed your first Kubernetes application in Okteto Cloud 🚀.

Okteto lets you develop your applications directly in Kubernetes. This way you can:

  • Reduce local setup and eliminate integration issues by developing the same way your application runs in production
  • Test your application as fast as you type code, without typing either docker or kubectl in your inner loop cycle
  • No more CPU cycles wasted in your machine. Hardware and network just limited by the power of the cloud

Okteto uses the okteto.yml file to determine the name of your development environment, the docker image to use and where to upload your code. Check the Okteto manifest docs to customize your development environments with your own dev tools, images, and dependencies to adapt Okteto to your own application.

Don’t forget to join our #okteto channel in the Kubernetes community Slack. Sign up here if you don’t have a Kubernetes slack account.