Web Console - Infrastructure Components | Architecture | OpenShift Container Platform Branch Build

Overview
CLI Downloads
Browser Requirements
Project Overviews
JVM Console
StatefulSets

Overview

The OpenShift Container Platform 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 Container Platform 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.

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.

CLI Downloads

You can access CLI downloads from the Help icon in the web console:

Cluster administrators can customize these links further.

Browser Requirements

Review the tested integrations for OpenShift Container Platform.

Project Overviews

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

Figure 2. Web Console Project Overview

1	The project selector allows you to switch between projects you have access to.
2	To quickly find services from within project view, type in your search criteria
3	Create new applications using a source repository or service from the service catalog.
4	Notifications related to your project.
5	The Overview tab (currently selected) visualizes the contents of your project with a high-level view of each component.
6	Applications tab: Browse and perform actions on your deployments, pods, services, and routes.
7	Builds tab: Browse and perform actions on your builds and image streams.
8	Resources tab: View your current quota consumption and other resources.
9	Storage tab: View persistent volume claims and request storage for your applications.
10	Monitoring tab: View logs for builds, pods, and deployments, as well as event notifications for all objects in your project.
11	Catalog tab: Quickly get to the catalog from within a project.

Cockpit is automatically installed and enabled in OpenShift Container Platform 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

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.

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.

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.
OSGi	View and manage the JBoss Fuse OSGi environment.

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.

OSGi

View and manage the JBoss Fuse OSGi environment.

StatefulSets

A StatefulSet controller provides a unique identity to its pods and determines the order of deployments and scaling. StatefulSet is useful for unique network identifiers, persistent storage, graceful deployment and scaling, and graceful deletion and termination.

Figure 5. StatefulSet in OpenShift Container Platform