How to enable Cockpit Server Manager in CentOS 8

Install Cockpit Server Manager

Install the Cockpit application,

yum install cockpit

Enable the service to start onboot,

systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket

Allow the service to run through the firewall,

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=cockpit

firewall-cmd --reload

If you see any warning like,

[root@drop ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=cockpit
Warning: ALREADY_ENABLED: cockpit
success

You can ignore the warning and proceed ahead.

Next open the following URL in your browser, it will error due to the invalid SSL certificate, you can use LetsEncrypt to setup a valid SSL certficate as needed.

https://YOUR-VPS-IP-ADDRESS:9090

Replace "YOUR-VPS-IP-ADDRESS" with your VPSes IP address

Here you can enter your root username/password (SSH Login Details) and it will take you into the Cockpit server manager!

Please note,

  1. The web-page might rener a blank screen in Chrome due to the self-signed/invalid SSL certificate used by default in Cockpit.

  2. Use Firefox in such a scenerio where you do not have a SSL Certificate/Domain to bind the service to.

The Cockpit service User Interface,

Within the Cockpit server manager, you can manage nearly all parts of your server from Software Updates, monitoring CPU/RAM Usage and accessing your Terminal as well.