How To Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 & Fedora 28

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Cockpit is a free web-based administration tool for the system admin to perform tasks, such as storage management, network configuration, inspecting logs, managing containers, and so on.

Cockpit is released under the LGPL v2.1+, and it is available for Debian, Redhat, CentOS, Fedora, Atomic, Arch Linux, and Ubuntu.

Features

  1. Manage multiple Cockpit machines from a single Cockpit session
  2. Create and manage Docker containers
  3. Create and manage KVM, oVirt Virtual Machines
  4. Modify the network settings
  5. Manage user accounts
  6. Web-based shell in a terminal
  7. View system performance in a graph.
  8. Collect system configuration and diagnostic information with the use of sosreport.
Cockpit comes installed by default in Fedora Server.

Here, we will see how to install Cockpit on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 & Fedora 28 WS.

Install Cockpit

Cockpit a in CentOS 7 base repository and available in Extras repository on RHEL 7.

Enable Extras repository on RHEL 7.

subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-server-extras-rpms

Install the Cockpit package.

### CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 ###

yum install -y cockpit cockpit-networkmanager cockpit-dashboard cockpit-storaged cockpit-packagekit

### Fedora ###

sudo dnf install -y cockpit

Additional Packages

You can additionally install below packages to manage other tasks using Cockpit.

Package Name Purpose
cockpit-docker Managing Docker Containers
cockpit-kubernetes Visualizing and Configuring Kubernetes Cluster
cockpit-machines Manage KVM Virtual Machines
cockpit-sosreport Create diagnostic report with the sosreport tool
cockpit-selinux Troubleshoot SELinux Issues
cockpit-kdump Configure Kernel Crash Dumps
cockpit-subscriptions Manage System subscription
cockpit-machines-ovirt Manage oVirt Virtual Machines
cockpit-pcp Reading PCP metrics and Loading PCP archives

Enable the Cockpit service.

### CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 ###

systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

### Fedora ###

sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

Firewall

Add the firewall rules to allow Cockpit to communicate with remote machines as well as to allow us to access Cockpit dashboard from external machines.

### CentOS 7 ###

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

### RHEL 7 ### 

sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit 
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit --permanent

### Fedora ###

sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=cockpit --permanent

Working with Cockpit

Once you start the Cockpit service, you access the Cockpit console by going to below URL using the browser.

https://ip.add.re.ss:9090

You would need to add a Security Exception in the browser to access the Cockpit for the first time.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Add SSL Exception
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Add SSL Exception

Log in with your local user account. In my case; it is “root”.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Cockpit Login Screen
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Cockpit Login Screen

Once you have logged in into Cockpit, it will take you to the System page where you can see a complete overview of the system.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Cockpit Dashboard
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Cockpit Dashboard

You can see the details of running services by clicking on Services. Here, you can manage (start, stop, restart, etc.) the services by clicking on a particular service.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Manage System Service with Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Manage System Service with Cockpit

If you would like to manage the Docker containers, you have to go to Containers page. Here, you can run, stop, delete and commit a container.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Manage Docker Containers with Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Manage Docker Containers with Cockpit

You can troubleshoot your machine by having a look at Logs.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - View System Logs with Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – View System Logs with Cockpit

Manage the system users by going to Accounts.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - User Management with Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – User Management with Cockpit

You can also take the terminal of the server by clicking on the Terminal.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Access Machine with Remote Shell using Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Access Machine with Remote Shell using Cockpit

You can seamlessly update the system packages using Software Updates.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Handle System Updates with Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Handle System Updates with Cockpit

Generate sosreport and share with support team by going to Diagnostic Reports using Cockpit.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Generate System Diagnostic Report with Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Generate System Diagnostic Report with Cockpit

Manage kernel crash dump by going to Kernel Dump.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Manage Kernel Crash Dump Configurations
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Manage Kernel Crash Dump Configurations

Manage Multiple Servers with Cockpit

To manage multiple servers with Cockpit, click on Dashboard and then click on Plus sign icon and add them one by one.

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Add Machines to Cockpit
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Add Machines to Cockpit
If the user on the remote Cockpit machine is different from the currently logged in user, then you would need to re-authenticate with the username and password.
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Password Authentication for remote machine
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Password Authentication for the remote machine

List of machines connected to Cockpit:

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - List of Machines
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – List of Machines

Overview of the remote system:

Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 - Detailed Overview of Remote Machine
Install Cockpit on CentOS 7 – Detailed Overview of Remote Machine

That’s All.

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