Visual Web Terminal - A Turbocharged Command Line for Kubernetes and OpenShift

Do you ever get tired of typing kubectl and oc commands? Tired of cutting and pasting pieces of output to create new kubectl and oc commands? If you answered yes, take a look at the Visual Web Terminal, included as part of the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console.

Take a look at the following sections to learn more:

• What is Visual Web Terminal?
• Getting started with the Visual Web Terminal
• The basic components
• Advanced features
• Dark mode
• What is next?

What is Visual Web Terminal?

Derived from the Kui open source project, the Visual Web Terminal is a web-based terminal session combining command-line function with new interactive features.

The Visual Web Terminal, located in the product console, is an interface that combines the convenience of a graphical user interface with the speed of a command-line interface. When running a command that returns Kubernetes resources, the data is returned in an interactive table format that can display more detail about the resource when you select it.

In addition to clicking the interactive data, additional options are provided to complete the following tasks:

• View logs
• View and edit YAML
• Search using the integrated search API provided in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes

In addition to commands that are specific to the Visual Web Terminal, and selected bash commands, the following commands are also supported:

• kubectl commands (Or use k for even less typing!)
• oc commands
• search commands

Getting started with the Visual Web Terminal

Access the Visual Web Terminal page by using the Visual Web Terminal icon in the header of the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console. The icon resembles a tiny terminal window with a > command prompt.

Click this icon and you are presented with a menu that allows you to launch the page in a new browser tab (best practice), or in the current browser tab.

Image 1: Launch animation

Now that you have the Visual Web Terminal started, wait a few seconds for it to oc login to your hub cluster.

You don't need to worry about downloading and setting up the various command line tools such as kubectl or oc, as they are already included with Visual Web Terminal. Additionally, don't worry about KUBECONFIG. Visual Web Terminal will use your existing credentials you used to login to the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes web console. You'll receive a Visual Web Terminal is ready message when the login and setup is complete.

The basic components

Next, let's take a look at the various component areas of the web based terminal session.

Image 2: Basics diagram

Tabs (1)

Initially you will have one tab, Tab 1, which equates to a single terminal window session. If you wish to have an additional tab, click the plus sign. Each tab is a unique terminal window session.

Output Area - Turbocharged! (2)

Your output will be displayed here. Move your mouse pointer over the output to reveal clickable links. When you click one of these links, an additional command will be run automatically in the context of the Kubernetes resource you clicked--this is turbocharging. Simply point and click to to run command. No typing, no cutting and pasting!

Commands against an individual Kubernetes resource will typically target the output to a split details pane to the right of the main output area. This details pane contains a more graphical view of the resource, including different tabs focusing on different aspects of the resource.

Command Input Area (3)

Type your commands here. Use the up arrow and down arrow to review history and rerun a command. Typing history will bring up a list in the output area that you can click on to rerun the command.

Too much clutter from all those old commands you ran? Would you like to clean up the output area? Simply type clear and the clutter is gone.

kubectl context (4)

The Kubernetes current context (kubectl config current-context). To modify, you can click on this field, view the current choices in the output area, and select the choice you want.

kubectl namespace & oc project (5)

Your default kubectl namespace and oc project. To modify you can click on this field, view the current choices in the output area, and select the choice you want.

Settings, help & getting started (6)

Bring up the Settings, Help and Getting Started documentation right in the console! Simply type getting started to read more about the project, learn about searching within the terminal, and configure the display.

Advanced features

Search across your managed clusters

No need to oc login to your various managed clusters to get basic information. The search option available in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes is accessible from Visual Web Terminal. Start by typing search and you are prompted with additional filters that can be applied to the search.

TIP: You can navigate and select the desired filter prompts with the mouse, or directly from the keyboard using the up and down arrow keys to move through the choices. Use the space bar to select a filter value from the filter prompt. These tasks are the same as on the Search page in the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console. Search provides the following:

• A simple query to find all worker nodes on the hub cluster and all managed clusters - search kind:node role:worker
• A list of saved searches - savedsearches

Image 3: Search diagram

Debugging a Pod

You can also debug a pod in the Visual Web Terminal. To find and debug the pod, follow the procedure:

1. Run oc get pods.
2. Click on the pod that you want to debug.
3. Use the right pane in the output area to perform various tasks listed by tabs.
4. See the summary, a quick, high-level view of the pod:

• Events - look at events on the pod.
• Logs - See what's in the logs. For pods with multiple containers, use the overflow menu icon (three dots stacked vertically, on the right side of the logs view) to select the specific container.
• Terminal - quickly SSH into the pod to perform additional debugging tasks.
• YAML - quickly see what's in the resource YAML and make changes, if required.

Dark mode

Prefer dark mode? If so you can change the theme in one of two ways:

1. Type theme, then select Carbon Gray90 theme
2. Select the Settings icon in the lower right, then select theme, then select Carbon Gray90.

What is next?

If you need additional information about Visual Web Terminal, please check the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes documentation.

To learn more about the entire product, see Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes product page.

We hope you have found a new productivity tool for doing future kubectl, oc, and search commands. We are interested in your feedback and experiences. If you have questions or comments, please contact us at acm-contact@redhat.com.