User Interface

While the setup and general maintenance of the Cluster is done using kubectl, we are interested in serving some use cases directly using a web UI, as was possible with Sloppy (in order or importance)

• restart an app (or single Pod)
• change environment variables for an app.
• access recent logs
• check resources for apps
• access a shell for quick debug

Rancher

• Good & Free option for on-prem self-managed
• Handles k8s upgrades
• doesn't work with latest k8s
• still uses docker which is now deprecated
• uses a script to bootstrap itself on the workers
• Has a Cluster Explorer (similar to k8s dashboard)
• Doesn't create storageclasses automatically
• Installs itself using script as well

Kubeapps

• Nice auto-form for installing from Helm
• Only knows about helm installed-apps, nothing else
• Displays some installed-app related info
• Very limited info and no management beyond deploy/upgrade of resources
• Most an helm catalog GUI

Lens

• Desktop app (based on Electron)
• works transparently with kubeconfig files
• Displays all kubectl or k8s dashboard info
• Provides easy access to all kubectl actions such as:
  • debug to run ephemeral containers on Pod or node
  • logs access for all containers in Pods
  • Restarting or scaling apps
  • Viewing and changing everything (secret, pods, roles, etc)
• Can display metrics, should the Cluster be using Prometheus

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We are thus starting with Lens, meaning no additional setup on Cluster.