Gitpod provides automated dev-environments built for the cloud enabling developers to describe their dev-environment as code, and spin up workspaces within seconds. Workspaces are based on user-configurable Docker images which provide developers with all required tools. Whenever code changes, Gitpod pre-builds the workspace, so that when it’s opened all dependencies have been downloaded and code is compiled. One of the most requested features has been Docker support within a Gitpod workspace, i.e. a running Docker daemon. Behind the scenes, Gitpod workspaces are Kubernetes pods which made supporting this feature challenging. Together with our friends at Kinvolk, we managed to implement this feature.


This webinar is all about “rootless workspaces”, specifically
– an overview of current user namespace efforts in Kubernetes
– how we employed user namespaces to provide good isolation of workspaces
– about the challenges we had to overcome to make rootless Docker work
– giving an overview of upcoming technologies that enable the next generation of rootless containers

Presented by:

Christian Weichel, Chief Architect @Gitpod

Alban Crequy, Director of Kinvolk Labs @Kinvolk