Krkn Dashboard

The Krkn Dashboard is a web UI for running and observing Krkn chaos scenarios. You can run it locally (Node.js on your machine), containerized (Podman/Docker), or via krknctl.

Prerequisites (all methods)

• Kubernetes cluster — You need a cluster and a kubeconfig so that the dashboard can target it for chaos runs. If you don’t have one, see Kubernetes, minikube, K3s, or OpenShift.
• Podman or Docker — The dashboard starts chaos runs by launching krkn-hub containers; the host must have Podman (or Docker) installed and available.

Local installation

Run the dashboard on your machine with Node.js.

1. Install Node.js — Install from nodejs.org

2. Clone the repository.

   git clone https://github.com/krkn-chaos/krkn-dashboard.git
   cd krkn-dashboard
   

3. Install dependencies.

   npm install
   

4. Optional: set initial admin credentials — You may preset your initial username and password through exporting the following environement variables in your terminal:

   export DASHBOARD_ADMIN_USERNAME=<admin>
   export DASHBOARD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=your-secure-password
   

   WARNING

   Initial admin environment variables apply only when the user table is empty. If you omit these variables, the server generates a random username and password automatically.

5. Start the application.

   npm run dev
   

Container installation

Run the dashboard in a container on your host. The container uses Podman on the host to start krkn-hub chaos containers.

1. Clone the repository.

   git clone https://github.com/krkn-chaos/krkn-dashboard.git
   cd krkn-dashboard
   

   NOTE: You can optionally point the script at your local kubeconfig by exporting KUBECONFIG_PATH before you run it:

   export KUBECONFIG_PATH=<path/to/kubeconfig>
   

   If you do not set KUBECONFIG_PATH, the script uses <path/to/dashboard>/src/assets/kubeconfig by default. If using the default, you can copy your kubeconfig to that location.

   In all cases, you can skip this configuration and upload a different kubeconfig from the dashboard UI.

2. Optional: set initial admin credentials — You may preset your initial username and password through exporting the following environement variables in your terminal:

   export DASHBOARD_ADMIN_USERNAME=<admin>
   export DASHBOARD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=your-secure-password
   

   WARNING

   Initial admin environment variables apply only when the user table is empty. If you omit these variables, the server generates a random username and password automatically.

3. Start the container. From the krkn-dashboard repository root, run:

   bash containers/podman-run.sh
   

Run with krknctl

You can start the Krkn Dashboard using krknctl instead of cloning the repository or building a container image.

1. Install krknctl — Follow the steps in install krknctl.

2. Launch the dashboard — The --kubeconfig flag is required. Pass the path to the kubeconfig for the cluster you want to target:

   krknctl dashboard --kubeconfig <path/to/kubeconfig>
   

   Replace <path/to/kubeconfig> with the path to your kubeconfig file. Optional flags can be viewed with krknctl dashboard --help or krknctl dashboard -h.

Open the dashboard

When the dashboard is running, open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. You are redirected to sign in if you are not already authenticated. Use the dashboard to trigger Krkn scenarios.

First-time setup: initial admin account

When the dashboard is first run with no database setup, it creates an initial platform admin account in default-group. The username and password for this account can either be automatically generated, or they can be set by exporting DASHBOARD_ADMIN_USERNAME and DASHBOARD_ADMIN_PASSWORD (see the optional steps under local or container installation above).

Use this initial admin account to add users and group memberships in the Administration tab. For platform roles, groups, group roles, and cluster permissions, see Users, groups, and access control.

Documentation

• Krkn Dashboard overview and features — what is krkn dashboard and how it fits with krkn-hub.
• Users, groups, and access control — platform roles, groups, and cluster policies.
• Using the UI — navigating the dashboard.