CentOS 7 & Cockpit

[stacksofplates]

So last time I looked Cockpit wasn't available for CentOS unless you used CentOS Atomic. I was goofing around tonight and saw it's now available so I figured I'd write it here. All you need is

sudo yum install cockpit

(assuming you're using the public zone)

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

sudo systemctl start cockpit

That's it.

You can also manage multiple servers, but it seems you need to use a Fedora host to add other servers. I was having issues adding others from a CentOS server.

One issue I did notice was this in the logs on the CentOS systems: unknown internal metric block.device.write

It's apparently a typo and should be block.device.written This is the fix

yum install storaged-lvm2

Then

gunzip /usr/share/cockpit/storage/bundle.min.js.gz

Search /usr/share/cockpit/storage/bundle.min.js for block.device.write and replace it with block.device.written and then

gzip /usr/share/cockpit/storage/bundle.min.js

[Ambarishrh]

Need to check this today, can this be a complete replacement of other web control panels like webmin? I dont expect this to replace cPanel, but basic management that can be done on webmin if available in cockpit would be great.

[stacksofplates]

@Ambarishrh said:

Need to check this today, can this be a complete replacement of other web control panels like webmin? I dont expect this to replace cPanel, but basic management that can be done on webmin if available in cockpit would be great.

It's more for getting info from your servers. You can do small things like start and stop services, make volume groups, add a bridge/bond, restart the host, things like that. I think they're more aiming at a central place for server information over a web controller.

[scottalanmiller]

@Ambarishrh said:

Need to check this today, can this be a complete replacement of other web control panels like webmin?

More basic than webmin, but more enterprise as well. I would never run webmin in production, but Cockpit I definitely would.

[dafyre]

@scottalanmiller What separates the two? er... What makes Webmin not enterprise friendly vs Cockpit? (it has been a LONG time since I've used webmin and I haven't used Cockpit yet).

[stacksofplates]

@dafyre said:

@scottalanmiller What separates the two? er... What makes Webmin not enterprise friendly vs Cockpit? (it has been a LONG time since I've used webmin and I haven't used Cockpit yet).

I think a big part of it is there is more of an attack surface with Webmin. You can't really change much with Cockpit but Webmin was made to make system changes. There is also the fact that Cockpit is actually developed by Red Hat.

[scottalanmiller]

@dafyre said:

@scottalanmiller What separates the two? er... What makes Webmin not enterprise friendly vs Cockpit? (it has been a LONG time since I've used webmin and I haven't used Cockpit yet).

Webmin is a "third party unsupported add on crutch." It's whole purpose is to make UNIX graphical without using the officially supported toolsets. While that in and off itself isn't "bad", it's bad conceptually. It's purpose is to be a crutch for people who won't learn how to run the system and ends up being just like FreeNAS or whatever - just limitations and risk layered on top of the OS.

Cockpit is different. It is part of the OS itself, not an add on. It's fully managed and supported by the team that makes the OS (Red Hat, in this case.) In this way it is like the Microsoft GUI interface - still not ideal as a management tool, but stable and supported.

That Webmin is a huge, dangerous catch all for management and Cockpit is a limited graphical view of capacity planning with a few very simplistic management tools also makes them very different. Cockpit is not meant to replace being a good admin, it's meant to give some graphical views where they make sense. Webmin is meant to let people run an OS that they don't understand.