How to Install Cockpit Web Console in CentOS 8

Introduction

The Cockpit is a web console with an easy to use web-based interface that enables you to carry out administrative tasks on your servers.Also being a web console, it means you can also access it through a mobile device as well.

Cockpit is a web-based graphical interface for servers, intended for everyone, especially those who are:

• new to Linux (including Windows admins)
• familiar with Linux and want an easy, graphical way to administer servers
• expert admins who mainly use other tools but want an overview on individual systems

The Cockpit web console enables you a wide range of administration tasks, including:

• Managing services
• And Managing user accounts
• Managing and monitoring system services
• Configuring network interfaces and firewall
• Reviewing system logs
• Managing virtual machines
• Creating diagnostic reports
• Setting kernel dump configuration
• Configuring SELinux
• Updating software
• Managing system subscriptions

The Cockpit web console utilizes the same system APIs as you would in a terminal, and tasks performed in a terminal are quickly reflected in the web console.In addition, you can configure the settings directly in the web console or through the terminal.

Simple to use

Cockpit makes Linux discoverable.You don’t have to remember commands at a command-line.See your server in a web browser and perform system tasks with a mouse.It’s easy to start containers, administer storage, configure networks, and inspect logs.Basically, you can think of Cockpit like a graphical “desktop interface”, but for individual servers.

Installing Cockpit Web Console in CentOS 8

 In addition to with CentOS 8 minimal install, the cockpit is not installed by default and you can install it on your system by using the command below, which will install the cockpit with its required dependencies.

# yum install -y cockpit

 Next, enable and start the cockpit.socket service to connect to the system through the web console and verify the service and running the cockpit process using the following commands.

# systemctl start cockpit.socket
# systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket
# systemctl status cockpit.socket
# ps auxf|grep cockpit

So If you are running a firewalld on the system, you need to open the cockpit port 9090 in the firewall.

# firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit --permanent
# firewall-cmd --reload

Log-in to the Cockpit Web Console

The following instructions show the first login to the Cockpit web console using a local system user account credentials. In addition to  Cockpit uses a certain PAM stack authentication found at /etc/pam.d/cockpit, which enables you to log in with the user name and password of any local account on the system.

 Open the Cockpit web console in your web browser at the following URL’s:

Local:

 https://localhost:9090

Remotely with the server’s hostname:

 https://example.com:9090

Remotely with the server’s IP address:

 https://192.168.12.128:9090

Enter sername and password

You can also sign in as a root

From Health section you can fix any Bugs available

And install Updates as shown

If you are using a self-signed certificate, you will get a warning on the browser, simply verify the certificate and accept the security exception to proceed further with the login.The console calls a certificate from the /etc/cockpit/ws-certs.d  directory and uses the .cert  extension file. To avoid having to prompt security warnings, install a certificate signed by a certificate authority (CA).

 In the web console login screen, enter your system user name and password.

 So After successful authentication, the Cockpit web console interface opens.

Conclusion

The cockpit is an easy to use web console that allows you to perform administrative tasks on CentOS 8 server. To learn more about web console