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Overview

The OpenShift Enterprise web console is a user interface accessible from a web browser. Developers can use the web console to visualize, browse, and manage the contents of projects.

JavaScript must be enabled to use the web console. For the best experience, use a web browser that supports WebSockets.

The web console is started as part of the master. All static assets required to run the web console are served from the openshift binary. Administrators can also customize the web console using extensions, which let you run scripts and load custom stylesheets when the web console loads. You can change the look and feel of nearly any aspect of the user interface in this way.

When you access the web console from a browser, it first loads all required static assets. It then makes requests to the OpenShift Enterprise APIs using the values defined from the openshift start option --public-master, or from the related master configuration file parameter masterPublicURL. The web console uses WebSockets to maintain a persistent connection with the API server and receive updated information as soon as it is available.

Web Console Request Architecture
Figure 1. Web Console Request Architecture

The configured host names and IP addresses for the web console are whitelisted to access the API server safely even when the browser would consider the requests to be cross-origin. To access the API server from a web application using a different host name, you must whitelist that host name by specifying the --cors-allowed-origins option on openshift start or from the related master configuration file parameter corsAllowedOrigins.

Browser Requirements

Review the tested integrations for OpenShift Enterprise. The following browser versions and operating systems can be used to access the web console.

Table 1. Browser Requirements
Browser (Latest Stable) Operating System

Firefox

Fedora 23, Windows 8

Internet Explorer

Windows 8

Chrome

Fedora 23, Windows 8, and MacOSX

Safari

MacOSX, iPad 2, iPhone 4

Project Overviews

After logging in, the web console provides developers with an overview for the currently selected project:

Web Console Project Overview
Figure 2. Web Console Project Overview
1 The project selector allows you to switch between projects you have access to.
2 Filter the contents of a project page by using the labels of a resource.
3 Create new applications using a source repository or using a template.
4 The Overview tab (currently selected) visualizes the contents of your project with a high-level view of each component.
5 The Browse tab explores the different objects types within your project: Builds, Deployments, Image Streams, Pods, and Services.
6 The Settings tab provides general information about your project, as well as the quota and resource limits that are set on your project.
7 When you click on one of your objects in the Overview page, the Details pane displays detailed information about that object. In this example, the cakephp-mysql-example deployment is selected, and the Details pane is displaying details on the related replication controller.

Cockpit is automatically installed and enabled in OpenShift Enterprise 3.1 and later to help you monitor your development environment. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host: Getting Started with Cockpit provides more information on using Cockpit.

JVM Console

This feature is currently in Technology Preview and not intended for production use.

For pods based on Java images, the web console also exposes access to a hawt.io-based JVM console for viewing and managing any relevant integration components. A Connect link is displayed in the pod’s details on the Browse → Pods page, provided the container has a port named jolokia.

Pod with a Link to the JVM Console
Figure 3. Pod with a Link to the JVM Console

After connecting to the JVM console, different pages are displayed depending on which components are relevant to the connected pod.

JVM Console
Figure 4. JVM Console

The following pages are available:

Page Description

JMX

View and manage JMX domains and mbeans.

Threads

View and monitor the state of threads.

ActiveMQ

View and manage Apache ActiveMQ brokers.

Camel

View and and manage Apache Camel routes and dependencies.