Did you know you can customize the OpenShift web console? During this stream, Sam Padgett and Ali Mobrem join to help us inspect the OpenShift web console, looking at all the features and functions within, including web console extensions, where you can customize the web console by running a script and loading custom stylesheets when the console loads, and dynamic plugins, which allow you to enhance the default web console and customize it for your needs. 

So why would anyone want to use the web console and run dynamic plugins? What value does it offer? Maybe you want to change the colors of your OpenShift console from red to chartreuse? Or possibly disable certain features or preferences? Or even use it as a backend for a different deployment tool. We answer these questions and more during the stream, be sure to review the links below to jump directly to where we talk about them!

You can find the slides used during this livestream here.

As always, please see the list below for additional links to specific topics, questions, and supporting materials for the episode!

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Episode 47 recorded stream:

 

Use this link to jump directly to where we start talking about today’s topic. 

This week’s top of mind topics:

  • Our first topic this week was to highlight that the OpenShift team is growing! If you’re interested in joining us, there is a blog post with many of the “behind the scenes” job posting linked here, but be sure to review all of them on the jobs portal because there are pre-sales, consulting, IT, and many other organizations at Red Hat with OpenShift-centric openings available!
  • Expanding the previous statement, one of our viewers asked about the interview process, along with a request for some tips, with the Red Hat consulting group. Jonny does a great job explaining the process during the stream starting here.
  • We talked about single node OpenShift, or SNO, in a previous episode, but this time it’s important to highlight that even though I’ve shown it running in virtual machines, it’s only fully supported by Red Hat when running on bare metal, physical servers at this time.
  • Another topic we discussed back in the what’s new in OpenShift 4.9 episode is the change to the EUS policy going forward. When we initially talked about this change, I didn’t have an answer to the question of whether or not the accelerated updates feature would be available with the 4.6 -> 4.8 update. After getting clarification, unfortunately the new process won’t take effect until 4.8. This means that 4.6 EUS -> 4.8 EUS updates will be serial, meaning that you’ll need to update the whole cluster to 4.7 and then 4.8 sequentially.

Questions answered and topics discussed during the stream:

  • Ali and Sam start discussing the console customization with an overview of how it works and the requirements of the console from the perspective of OpenShift itself.
  • The console can be customized in many different ways, we demo several of those starting here, including configuring notification banners (docs) and how to add links to the context menu using console CRDs here. Earlier this year the developer evangelist team held a console customization competition, you can see the submissions here to get examples and ideas for how to customize your login screen and console experience.
  • Ali and Sam also give us a bunch of tips and tricks for using the console, including how to quickly create an object using YAML and how to use the CRD functionality of the console to create an object with the schema help - and an example - available. Did you know you can drag and drop YAML files into the editor in the OpenShift console?
  • Ali explains how to create your own Quick Starts here, which is really useful for providing specific help to your users.
  • Custom console YAML samples, which we show here, are an easy way to provide object templates for your users. When users use the GUI to create a new instance of an object, it will use the samples you provide to pre-populate the content. This makes it point-and-click easy for them to create objects the way you intend and with samples that are customized to the way your organization uses them.
  • OLM descriptors provide a way for Operator publishers to customize the GUI for deploying their content. This is particularly useful when the Operator deployment has some settings that can be configured for the CRDs and you want to give the users an easy way to input them.
  • Dynamic plugins enable anyone to create a console plugin to add functionality. This evolution of static plugins enables OpenShift features and partner Operators to customize the console to enable their functionality.
  • Sam breaks down, and does a demo of, dynamic plugins starting here. The code used for the demo and example dynamic plugins can be found in the repository here.
  • The console customization dynamic plugin, which is demoed here, is an example of adding functionality directly into the UI. In this instance, it adds a GUI-based method of managing the customization CRDs for all aspects of the console.