How to Install Cockpit on CentOS 8

Miroslav Micic

4 years ago

In this article, we will help you to install Cockpit Web Console in CentOS 8 server to manage and monitor your local system, as well as Linux servers situated in your network environment.
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.
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.

Features

Managing services
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

Installing Cockpit Web Console in CentOS 8

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.

# dnf install cockpit

Now, 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

Start and Verify Cockpit Web Console in CentOS 8

Finally, let’s make sure the firewall will not block the Cockpit. By default, you shouldn’t have any problems reaching Cockpit, but just in case we will open up the required ports using the following commands:

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

The installation of the Cockpit is now complete, you can access the dashboard by navigating to the following URL:
https://ip.add.re.ss:9090
When navigating to the Cockpit URL, you may be prompted with a security warning about the SSL certificate of the site as it is self-signed. You can ignore the warning and proceed to the login area. Log into the Cockpit using the superuser credentials.

Upon login, you will be greeted by the system info and resource monitor page:

Cockpit Accounts Page

Cockpit KernelDump page

Cockpit Networking page

Cockpit SELinux Page

Cockpit Terminal

Cockpit Service page

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, read how to configure system settings in the web console. If you have comments and questions, please post them below in the comment section.