Installing Cockpit on MicroOS

In this step by step tutorial we will install Cockpit on MicroOS and enable Podman Container Management as well as some other extenstions for Cockpit to make management easier.

1. Install openSUSE MicroOS: Install openSUSE MicroOS on your system following the installation instructions provided on the website based on your system.
2. Update MicroOS: After installation, update the system to ensure you have the latest packages and security updates. MicroOS uses transactional updates for this purpose:

sudo transactional-update

• Restart server to apply any updates if needed.

3. Install Cockpit: Cockpit should be available in the default repositories of openSUSE MicroOS. You can install it using transactional updates:

sudo transactional-update pkg install cockpit

4. Enable and Start Cockpit Service: After installation, enable and start the Cockpit service:

sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

• Restart server to apply changes to the system.

5. Access Cockpit: Open a web browser and navigate to https://your-server-ip:9090. You should see the Cockpit login screen. Log in with your system credentials.

• Note: You will likely not be able to login with root (Which is a good thing) so you should have a user made for for logging in. Following this guide: Guide you should have a administrative user with limited access.

1. Install Extra Packages:

• Podman: Podman is available in the default repositories of openSUSE MicroOS. You can install it using transactional updates:

sudo transactional-update pkg install podman

• SELinux: If you want to enable SELinux support, you need to install the SELinux utilities:

sudo transactional-update pkg install selinux-policy-targeted selinux-policy-devel

• Software Updates (Transactional-update): Transactional-update is a feature of openSUSE MicroOS, so it's already installed. If you want to manage the updates via the Cockpit UI then you can install a handy extension call tukit:

sudo transactional-update pkg install cockpit-tukit

7. Restart Server: After installing Cockpit and extensions you will need to restart the server to apply those changes as OpenSUSE MicroOS is a transactional update server (also known as Atomic).

Cockpit Extensions

Cockpit has a lot more extensions for managing various elements of your server. Install as needed from this website: https://cockpit-project.org/applications.html

Being able to manage your server via a simple GUI is always welcome and lets you see at a glance some important information.

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