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Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

cockpit-project.org

81–90 of 199 posts

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#81
post #23

For others curious, https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit shows that it's written in several languages, with C at the #1 place, with JS and Python following. "src/cockpit" (main backend logic?) is Python.

Piggybacking off your comment I wonder how many other people really care about the tech stack used to create any product they are running on a server. What dependencies does it have? Do I need to be conscious of vulnerabilities in some logging library or Curl? And I also find it really interesting to see whether a product is programmed using one clear stack or a mixture.

I care if it's an obscure tech stack and there isn't a lot of contributor, because it will indicate that it's more likely that it lose interest in development. Or if I want to contribute and so I want a tech stack I know or I'm interested into.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#83
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem viewing pictures shared by those who don't understand basic color blending and just want to swipe. But I may have a problem with people who can't do a bash for/while loop or understand pipe chaining commands be responsible for administrating my company servers. I don't see how the comparison between adminstrating servers and sharing pictures on social media is a useful comparison.

I don’t understand why you think the fact that someone may choose to point and click to do something, a task which depending on the UI can be completely mindless and yet significantly safer eliminating any chance of making a mistake (by throwing in a typo for instance), does not know what a bash for/while loop is? I suspect most people here used the HN web interface to post their comments, even though constructing an…

OP mentioned ProxMox UI as being much better. I think you're focusing on the wrong point.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#84
post #36

The cool thing about this project is that as it uses systemd's socket activation, it requires no server processes at all. There is no waste of resources when Cockpit is not being used. Accessing a page is literally the same as invoking a command-line tool (and quitting it). No more, no less. What a beautiful design.

systemd-cgi :^)

Everything old is new again.

The next big thing will be a web server where you don't need to use the command line to deploy your project, just sync your workspace folder and it will automatically execute the file matching the URL.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#85
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem viewing pictures shared by those who don't understand basic color blending and just want to swipe. But I may have a problem with people who can't do a bash for/while loop or understand pipe chaining commands be responsible for administrating my company servers. I don't see how the comparison between adminstrating servers and sharing pictures on social media is a useful comparison.

I don’t understand why you think the fact that someone may choose to point and click to do something, a task which depending on the UI can be completely mindless and yet significantly safer eliminating any chance of making a mistake (by throwing in a typo for instance), does not know what a bash for/while loop is? I suspect most people here used the HN web interface to post their comments, even though constructing an…

> I don’t understand why you think the fact that someone may choose to point and click to do something, a task which depending on the UI can be completely mindless and yet significantly safer eliminating any chance of making a mistake (by throwing in a typo for instance), does not know what a bash for/while loop is?

I don't think like that at all. Of course someone can know bash for/while loop and still choose to use a point-and-click tool to administrate their servers. Nothing wrong with that.

Not sure where in my message did I say that if someone chooses to point and click, then they don't know what a bash for/while loop is.

What I said in my comment was that if someone doesn't know what a bash for/while loop is, then I may be uncomfortable adminstrating my servers.

My point was to show that comparing adminstrating servers and sharing pictures on social media is not a useful comparison.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#86
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem viewing pictures shared by those who don't understand basic color blending and just want to swipe. But I may have a problem with people who can't do a bash for/while loop or understand pipe chaining commands be responsible for administrating my company servers. I don't see how the comparison between adminstrating servers and sharing pictures on social media is a useful comparison.

What if they CAN do a bash for/while loop, but they prefer not to because bash is the ugliest effing language they've ever seen

That is totally fine. I was talking about people who CANNOT do a bash for/while loop. You are talking about people who CAN do a bash for/while loop but choose not to. We are talking about different types of people. I am comfortable with the latter type of people administrating my servers. I am not comfortable about the former.

Anyway, what has that got to do with my point though that sharing pictures on social media is not a meaningful comparison to make with something like administrating servers?

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why you think the fact that someone may choose to point and click to do something, a task which depending on the UI can be completely mindless and yet significantly safer eliminating any chance of making a mistake (by throwing in a typo for instance), does not know what a bash for/while loop is? I suspect most people here used the HN web interface to post their comments, even though constructing an…

I think there's an elitism within the Linux world to being a totally CLI user

There does seem to be a bit of it yes, but I thought it had become less common.

Reminds me of a colleague I met once who was happily boasting he's a 'real' HTML developer because he writes everything in Microsoft notepad. I took a look at his work and cried inside - broken tags, bad formatting and of course he didn't escape all his characters correctly.

Being able to type some characters on a keyboard does not make anyone superior to a user that uses a point+click interface.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#88
post #79

Why use this when Webmin has done the job for decades? https://webmin.com/

God I hate these comments.

"X exists so why would anyone ever build Y". Why not? Competition is good, think about it for a minute and I'm sure you'll figure out how.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#89
post #65

I'm an actual RHCE. This thread has to be some big Red Hatter click farm or something. The artificial positivity is striking. Is Red Hat threatening to pull funding for this project or something? Just weird. Cockpit is okay but it's basically Red Hat's equivalent to the Windows Server Manager tool, and I have no doubt it was directly inspired by Server Manager. It's development and improvement over the years has been…

> It's for people who want to point and click, can't do a bash for/while loop, don't understand pipe chaining commands, and don't like using vim "Instagram filters are for people who don't know how to work with Photoshop layers, don't understand basic color blending operations, and who just want to swipe." I mean, yes.

Your comparison implies that the web UI is faster than SSH once you know these tools ?

You could have godlike Photoshop skills and it will take orders of magnitude more effort to get results. With SSH and shell scripts you'll likely be faster than the web UI once you're skilled enough. And it's easy to automate.

Re: Cockpit: Web-based graphical interface for servers

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason cockpit exists is systemd and dbus. Without them it would be much harder to develop.

That's true to some extent, but I think the real reason for the coupling is because that's just IBM's use-case and worldview. Cockpit is essentialy a wrapper over systemd commands, and one commentor has demonstrated how it could have been envisioned as a modular platform allowing end-users to wrap anything from direct kernel interfaces to entirely custom commands. They've made something useful and beautiful, but I wi…

Any predecessor to cockpit like webmin or cpanel have always been a huge mess, because there is no uniformity in Linux.

Dbus is a message bus for all of Linux, this is a requirement if you want to develop stable tools. A uniform message bus so you don't have to keep changing your code for every single distro and release.

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