

Cockpit, a web-based server management interface - dzderic
http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/first-look-at-cockpit-a-web-based-server-management-interface/

======
antoncohen
Mind blown. I thought this was some ordinary Python or Ruby app. It reminded
me of Ajenti ([http://ajenti.org/](http://ajenti.org/)), which is nice admin
panel.

But Cockpit is insane (not in a bad way).

    
    
        [starting cockpit] will cause systemd to listen on port 21064
        and start cockpit-ws when someone connects to it.
        Cockpit-ws will in turn activate cockpitd via D-Bus when
        someone logs in successfully.
    

Cockpit is written in C, by Red Hat. The web frontend has dbus.js that does
D-Bus over WebSockets to communicate to the backend. I expect this project
will evolve into something much bigger.

[https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit](https://github.com/cockpit-
project/cockpit)

~~~
616c
And I have to be honest: even as someone who likes systemd, the maintenance
and security implications of this concern me.

I was looking at the code and was surprised to find only Javascript and C, but
your quick summary on the implementation makes me want to watch from the
sidelines, cautiously.

That said, very interesting project AFAICT.

------
nodesocket
Founder of [https://commando.io](https://commando.io) here. Cockpit looks
nice, but we take a little different approach. We are a web-based interface to
manage servers via SSH. You write "recipes" which are simply scripts in shell,
bash, perl, python, ruby, go, or node.js and choose a server or group of
servers to execute recipes on. The complete output (stdout and stderr) is then
stored and logged providing a nice audit trail of who executed what, when,
where, and why. We are currently in free open beta.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
That sounds more interesting.

I'm not looking for a a monolithic solution, but something in which I can
integrate all of our current scripts, third party tools, semi-manual processes
and what have you.

In the real world, server management is a mix of tons of little tools and
procedures, usually run over SSH.

However, handing SSH access to our systems to a third party SaaS tools scares
the crap out of me.

~~~
danielbln
> However, handing SSH access to our systems to a third party SaaS tools
> scares the crap out of me.

You're not alone. It's one of the reasons I'm a bit sad that open-source
development of commando.io ceased in favour of their SaaS version.

------
fennecfoxen
Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

 _(Sorry. I understand if you mod me down for this. :P)_

~~~
robbiet480
Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?

------
msantos
Be aware that

 _> Cockpit is under heavy development and it's advised you only run it in a
virtual machine for now._

Another interesting Red Hat backed project in the same field of server
management and deployment is The Foreman
[http://theforeman.org/manuals/1.4/index.html](http://theforeman.org/manuals/1.4/index.html)

------
spo81rty
I work for a company called Stackify and we have some similar features for
remote management and access. Along with server monitoring and much more. If
anyone is looking for this type of functionality in a commercial product check
us out. [http://Stackify.com](http://Stackify.com)

------
glasz
i just fell in love. looks so neat.

