Cockpit on openSUSE

Five guides to a web interface for your openSUSE server: containers, services and logs in the browser, and never on the internet.

In short: Cockpit is a web interface for one server that uses the same systemd, journal and podman as your shell. Install it, add the podman plugin, manage rootless quadlets from the Services page, and reach it through WireGuard instead of a port forward. The commands are for openSUSE Leap 16 and Tumbleweed; the Cockpit parts work the same on other distributions.

The series in reading order

What each guide covers and what you can do after reading it
#	Guide	After reading it you can
1	Install Cockpit	Install Cockpit, enable its socket, decide who may reach port 9090, and get administrative access on the first login.
2	The podman plugin	Add the Podman containers page, see your rootless and rootful containers, and understand why some containers are missing.
3	Quadlets and systemd units	Start, stop and debug quadlet services from Cockpit, and know which tasks still belong in the terminal.
4	Reach Cockpit over WireGuard	Put the WireGuard interface in its own firewalld zone, allow Cockpit only there, and prove that the internet cannot reach it.
5	Common gotchas	Recognise the usual Cockpit problems on openSUSE by their symptom and fix them in a minute.

Before you start

Cockpit shows what is already there. If the server itself is new, the openSUSE server series sets up SSH, firewalld and rootless podman first. Moving containers over from docker-compose? The compose to quadlet converter writes the quadlets that Cockpit then shows.