NAME

       cockpit-ws - Cockpit web service

SYNOPSIS

       cockpit-ws [--help] [--port PORT] [--no-tls] [--local-ssh] [--address ADDRESS]

DESCRIPTION

       The cockpit-ws program is the web service component used for communication between the
       browser application and various configuration tools and services like cockpit-bridge(8).

       Users or administrators should never need to start this program as it automatically
       started by systemd(1) on bootup.

TRANSPORT SECURITY

       To specify the TLS certificate the web service should use, simply drop a file with the
       extension .cert in the /etc/cockpit/ws-certs.d directory. If there are multiple files in
       this directory, then the highest priority one is chosen after sorting.

       The .cert file should contain at least two OpenSSL style PEM blocks. First one or more
       BEGIN CERTIFICATE blocks for the server certificate and intermediate certificate
       authorities and a last one containing a BEGIN PRIVATE KEY or similar. The key may not be
       encrypted.

       If there is no TLS certificate, a self-signed certificate is automatically generated using
       openssl and stored in the 0-self-signed.cert file. To check which certificate cockpit-ws
       will use run the following command.

           $ sudo remotectl certificate

       If using certmonger to manage certificates, following command can be used to automatically
       prepare concatenated .cert file:

           CERT_FILE=/etc/pki/tls/certs/$(hostname).pem
           KEY_FILE=/etc/pki/tls/private/$(hostname).key

           getcert request -f ${CERT_FILE} -k ${KEY_FILE} -D $(hostname --fqdn) -C "sed -n w/etc/cockpit/ws-certs.d/50-from-certmonger.cert ${CERT_FILE} ${KEY_FILE}"

TIMEOUT

       When started via systemd(1) then cockpit-ws will exit after 90 seconds if nobody logs in,
       or after the last user is disconnected.

OPTIONS

       --help
           Show help options.

       --local-ssh
           Normally cockpit-ws uses cockpit-session and PAM to authenticate the user and start a
           user session. With this option enabled, it will instead authenticate via SSH at
           127.0.0.1 port 22.

       --port PORT
           Serve HTTP requests PORT instead of port 9090. Usually Cockpit is started on demand by
           systemd socket activation, and this option has no effect. Update the ListenStream
           directive cockpit.socket file in the usual systemd manner.

       --address ADDRESS
           Bind to address ADDRESS instead of binding to all available addresses. Usually Cockpit
           is started on demand by systemd socket activation, and this option has no effect. In
           that case, update the ListenStream directive in the cockpit.socket file in the usual
           systemd manner.

       --no-tls
           Don't use TLS.

ENVIRONMENT

       The cockpit-ws process will use the XDG_CONFIG_DIRS environment variable from the XDG
       basedir spec[1] to find its cockpit.conf(5) configuration file.

       In addition the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable from the XDG basedir spec[1] can be
       used to override the location to serve static files from. These are the files that are
       served to a non-logged in user.

BUGS

       Please send bug reports to either the distribution bug tracker or the upstream bug
       tracker[2].

AUTHOR

       Cockpit has been written by many contributors[3].

SEE ALSO

       cockpit.conf(5) , systemd(1)

NOTES

        1. XDG basedir spec
           https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

        2. upstream bug tracker
           https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit/issues/new

        3. contributors
           https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit/