~/.ssh/ is cleared between runs

[0xJem]

Bug description

If a workspace encounters a timeout and is relaunched, the contents of the ~/.ssh/ directory are cleared. This makes it cumbersome to get running again, as the keys need to be copied over.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open a workspace in VSCode (probably on the web too, but I've only tested VSCode)
2. Copy across keys into ~/.ssh/
3. Let the workspace timeout. VSCode won't re-connect.
4. Open Gitpod.io, launch the same workspace.
5. ~/.ssh/ will only contain authorized_keys and supervisor_env

Workspace affected

magenta-prawn-qs8g067f

Expected behavior

The contents of the ~/.ssh/ directory should persist.

Example repository

No response

Anything else?

No response

[atduarte]

Currently, only the /workspace/ folder is backed up and therefore preserved.

We are planning to tackle this issue by implementing a "full backup of the workspace". See #7719. Given that, will mark this as a duplicate.

[axonasif]

@0xJem in your .gitpod.yml before: task you can do such a thing:

tasks:
  - before: rm -rf $HOME/.ssh; mkdir -p /workspace/.ssh; ln -sf /workspace/.ssh $HOME/.ssh

This will persist your ~/.ssh dir on re-launch.

Also, you can utilize the dotfiles¹ install.sh if you want to avoid doing this for each and every repo via .gitpod.yml.
And in fact, you can save your ssh keys as an env var on https://gitpod.io/variables and use that to configure them for each workspace via scripting install.sh of the dotfiles feature. Although I wouldn't recommend you doing so.

Footnotes

1. https://www.gitpod.io/docs/config-dotfiles ↩

[0xJem]

Thanks all for the feedback/suggestions!

Not entirely comfortable putting SSH keys into the variables, so the before task will have to do.