Add VS Code guidance

[felker]

Anecdotally, it seems like a majority of our users are using The Visual Studio Code Remote - SSH extension as their editor-of-choice on our production machines these days. Unfortunately, as an Electron app, it is quite wasteful with resources, even when running remotely. I believe it installs a separate VS Code server installation for every user that connects to each machine with this extension (in $HOME? in /tmp?). It has forced ALCF Ops to change tmpfs file system settings on Polaris to prevent VS Code from eating up memory and storage space on the login nodes and taking them down. Things like IntelliSense caching settings, and installing many VS Code extensions can make the problem worse.

We should see if there any VS Code settings that can make the editor better for both parties on our machines and document known issues, what to do if the editor locks up, gets OOM, etc. Advise disabling most extensions, etc.

• @adscovel I forgot the details of where VS Code was specifically dumping files / how large / how many?

• Document "ALCF officially-supported" editors both internally in the ALCF Software Committee Confluence, and somewhere in https://docs.alcf.anl.gov/. Warn that other editors will not be installed by default on Aurora/Polaris/etc., but that users can open tickets to record the request for future consideration. Possible list:

• nano

• micro

• emacs

• vi/vim

• vscode remote SSH extension

[adscovel]

/tmp/, presumably tunable via setting TMPDIR. As for amounts per vs-code session I can't say; it highly depends on what they were doing, but was frequently in the gigs.

…

________________________________ From: Kyle Gerard Felker ***@***.***> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2024 1:09 PM To: argonne-lcf/user-guides ***@***.***> Cc: Scovel, Adam D. ***@***.***>; Mention ***@***.***> Subject: [argonne-lcf/user-guides] Add VS Code guidance (Issue #511) Anecdotally, it seems like a majority of our users are using The Visual Studio Code Remote - SSH extension as their editor-of-choice on our production machines these days. Unfortunately, as an Electron app, it is quite wasteful with resources, ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart This Message Is From an External Sender This message came from outside your organization. ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerEnd Anecdotally, it seems like a majority of our users are using The Visual Studio Code Remote - SSH extension<https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!cTGIfVrCYy_UQ2a7m7iaP0qCfgto9VvnEWvyUAa8SUwQR8sBG3yLrceFbWEDnofvd3McGW5MGvcscUuHSAUBgsGg$> as their editor-of-choice on our production machines these days. Unfortunately, as an Electron app, it is quite wasteful with resources, even when running remotely. I believe it installs a separate VS Code server installation for every user that connects to each machine with this extension (in $HOME? in /tmp?). It has forced ALCF Ops to change tmpfs file system settings on Polaris to prevent VS Code from eating up memory and storage space on the login nodes and taking them down. Things like IntelliSense caching settings, and installing many VS Code extensions can make the problem worse. We should see if there any VS Code settings that can make the editor better for both parties on our machines and document known issues, what to do if the editor locks up, gets OOM, etc. Advise disabling most extensions, etc. * @adscovel<https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://github.com/adscovel__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!cTGIfVrCYy_UQ2a7m7iaP0qCfgto9VvnEWvyUAa8SUwQR8sBG3yLrceFbWEDnofvd3McGW5MGvcscUuHSHh8-pb4$> I forgot the details of where VS Code was specifically dumping files / how large / how many? * Document "ALCF officially-supported" editors both internally in the ALCF Software Committee Confluence, and somewhere in https://docs.alcf.anl.gov/<https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://docs.alcf.anl.gov/__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!cTGIfVrCYy_UQ2a7m7iaP0qCfgto9VvnEWvyUAa8SUwQR8sBG3yLrceFbWEDnofvd3McGW5MGvcscUuHSM1GEwOn$>. Warn that other editors will not be installed by default on Aurora/Polaris/etc., but that users can open tickets to record the request for future consideration. Possible list: * nano * micro * emacs * vi/vim * vscode remote SSH extension — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://github.com/argonne-lcf/user-guides/issues/511__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!cTGIfVrCYy_UQ2a7m7iaP0qCfgto9VvnEWvyUAa8SUwQR8sBG3yLrceFbWEDnofvd3McGW5MGvcscUuHSCw3rvvx$>, or unsubscribe<https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BCTP52HFRYLKSVKJWTKBWR3Z6JW45AVCNFSM6AAAAABQ63DH32VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ASLTON2WKOZSGYZDONJRHE4TMOA__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!cTGIfVrCYy_UQ2a7m7iaP0qCfgto9VvnEWvyUAa8SUwQR8sBG3yLrceFbWEDnofvd3McGW5MGvcscUuHSPPCQGT6$>. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[kaushikvelusamy]

On aurora, its on the home hidden folder.

kaushikvelusamy@aurora-uan-0009:~> du -sh .vscode-server/
2.5G	.vscode-server/
kaushikvelusamy@aurora-uan-0009:~> pwd
/home/kaushikvelusamy
kaushikvelusamy@aurora-uan-0009:~>