Manage CentOS 8|RHEL 8 With Cockpit Web Console

This guide will show you how to manage CentOS 8|RHEL 8 Linux from Cockpit web console. Cockpit is a free and open-source web-based administration console for Linux systems — CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch e.t.c. The cockpit is pre-installed with CentOS 8|RHEL 8 Base operating system — both server and workstation. It allows you to monitor and adjust system configurations with ease.

Cockpit Features of Cockpit

Cockpit allows you to perform the following system operations:

• Service Management — Start, stop, restart, reload, disable, enable, mask e.t.c
• User Account Management — Add users, delete, Lock, assign Administrator role, set password, force password change, Add Public SSH keys e.t.c.
• Firewall Management
• Cockpit Container management
• SELinux Policy management
• Journal v2
• iSCSI Initiator configurations
• SOS-reporting
• NFS Client setup
• Configure OpenConnect VPN Server
• Privileged Actions — Shutdown, Restart system
• Join Machine to Domain
• Hardware Device Management
• System Updates for dnf, yum, apt hosts
• Manage the Kubernetes Node

Install Cockpit on CentOS 8|RHEL 8 Linux

The Cockpit web interface is installed on CentOS 8|RHEL 8 by default, but it is not activated. Before you can use it, ensure it is installed and service started.

sudo dnf -y install cockpit

Once Cockpit has been installed on CentOS 8, start and enable the service.

sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

If you have activated firewalld service, allow Cockpit port to be accessed from machines within the network.

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

sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Access Cockpit Web Console on CentOS 8|RHEL 8 Linux

The Cockpit web console can be accessed on the URL [https://(serverip or hostname):9090/].

The login screen should be displayed as shown above. Login with a local admin user added during installation or root user account. The system overview page should show up next.

Use the left panel to choose a configuration option to do on your CentOS 8|RHEL 8 server. The example below will enable automatic updates on CentOS 8 system.

This is done on Software Updates > Automatic Updates

The “ON” button should turn blue, indicating the system will be updated automatically.

Using Cockpit Terminal on CentOS 8|RHEL 8

There’s an embedded terminal in Cockpit which gives you flexibility to jump between a terminal and the web interface at any time.

Explore more Cockpit features such as multiple servers management from a single Cockpit session.

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