[Research] Web admin with terminal access

https://cockpit-project.org/

Very active repo with recent developments: https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit

Readily available on Debian (including the RaspiOS): sudo apt install cockpit

Will be available on the port 9090 over HTTPS with a self-sign certificate. Authenticated with the linux username and password eg: admin passswordA

To access over the LAN allow though the firewall: sudo ufw allow 9090

For remote Tor access: config.scripts/internet.hiddenservice.sh cockpit 443 9090

Somewhat limited in the Tor browser due to the JavaScript blocking, but the terminal login works.

On a non-RPi Linux based system it can even be used to manage virtual machines (just like virt-manager): https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit-machines

And has a graphical ZFS interface: https://github.com/optimans/cockpit-zfs-manager (which seem to be EoL being picked up by the 45Drives corp https://www.45drives.com/ https://github.com/45Drives/cockpit-zfs-manager)

[openoms]

Found running cockpit very useful for testing. It flags up the failed systemd services in the GUI and helps to keep an eye on the disk(s) too.

[openoms]

Thanks for your input @cstenglein ! Agree that having a terminal in the browser is mainly just a convenience factor. I was thinking of the troubles with getting a terminal open on Windows and also on mobile, but as you say text and dialog menus are not suitable for small screens.

It actually does come with some security tradeoff also because it relies on the SSL encryption rather than ssh itself (let alone the possible browser extensions in play).

So agree, Cockpit might come useful as an option to manage the server underlying RaspiBlitz (like my case managing VMs in it), but for the RaspiBlitz WebGUI the aim should be to be able to expose the log / cli outputs.