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Ziti Admin Console

The Ziti Administration Console (ZAC) is a web UI provided by the OpenZiti project which will allow you to configure and explore a Ziti Network.

Prerequisites​

It's expected that you're using bash for these commands. If you're using Windows we strongly recommend that you install and use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Other operating systems it's recommended you use bash unless you are able to translate to your shell accordingly.

You will need node and npm executables from Node.js v16+.

note

When running Ziti Administration Console, you should also prefer using https over http. In order to do this you will need to either create, or copy the certificates needed. Each section below tries to show you how to accomplish this on your own.

Cloning From GitHub​

These steps are applicable to both the local, no docker as well as the hosted yourself deployments. Do note, these steps expect you have the necessary environment variables established in your shell. If you used the default parameters, you can establish these variables using the file at ${HOME}/.ziti/quickstart/$(hostname)/$(hostname).env. To deploy ZAC after following one of those guides, you can perform the following steps.

  1. Clone the ziti-console repo from github:

    git clone https://github.com/openziti/ziti-console.git "${ZITI_HOME}/ziti-console"

  2. Install Node modules:

    cd "${ZITI_HOME}/ziti-console"
    npm install

  3. Use the ziti-controller certificates for the Ziti Console:

    Link a server certificate into the ziti-console directory. Your web browser won't recognize it, but it's sufficient for this exercise to have server TLS for your ZAC session.

    ln -s "${ZITI_PKI}/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_HOSTNAME}-intermediate/certs/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_HOSTNAME}-server.chain.pem" "${ZITI_HOME}/ziti-console/server.chain.pem"
    ln -s "${ZITI_PKI}/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_HOSTNAME}-intermediate/keys/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_HOSTNAME}-server.key" "${ZITI_HOME}/ziti-console/server.key"

  4. [Optional] Emit the Ziti Console systemd file and update systemd to start the Ziti Console. If you have not sourced the Ziti helper script, you need to in order to get the necessary function.

    createZacSystemdFile
    sudo cp "${ZITI_HOME}/ziti-console.service" /etc/systemd/system
    sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    sudo systemctl enable --now ziti-console

    If you do not have systemd installed or if you just wish to start ZAC you can simply issue:

    node "${ZITI_HOME}/ziti-console/server.js"
    Initializing TLS
    TLS initialized on port: 8443
    Ziti Server running on port 1408

  5. [Optional] If using systemd - verify the Ziti Console is running by running the systemctl command sudo systemctl status ziti-console --lines=0 --no-pager

    $ sudo systemctl status ziti-console --lines=0 --no-pager
     ● ziti-console.service - Ziti-Console
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ziti-console.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-05-19 22:04:44 UTC; 13h ago
     Main PID: 13458 (node)
     Tasks: 11 (limit: 1160)
     Memory: 33.4M
     CGroup: /system.slice/ziti-console.service
     └─13458 /usr/bin/node /home/ubuntu/.ziti/quickstart/ip-172-31-22-212/ziti-console/server.js

    $ sudo ss -lntp | grep node
    LISTEN 0      511                *:8443             *:*    users:(("node",pid=26013,fd=19))           
    LISTEN 0      511                *:1408             *:*    users:(("node",pid=26013,fd=18))

Docker​

Getting ZAC setup if you have followed the docker network quickstart should be straightforward. If you have used the default values from this quickstart you can issue the following command. Notice that this command uses the default path: ${HOME}/docker-volume/myFirstZitiNetwork. If you customized the path, replace the paths specified in the volume mount sections below accordingly (the '-v' lines). Also note this command will expose the http and https ports to your local computer. This is optional, read more about using docker for more details if necessary.

docker run \
       --name zac \
       -p 1408:1408 \
       -p 8443:8443 \
       -v "${HOME}/docker-volume/myFirstZitiNetwork/ziti-edge-controller-intermediate/keys/ziti-edge-controller-server.key":/usr/src/app/server.key \
       -v "${HOME}/docker-volume/myFirstZitiNetwork/ziti-edge-controller-intermediate/certs/ziti-edge-controller-server.chain.pem":/usr/src/app/server.chain.pem \
       openziti/zac
note

Do note that if you are exposing ports as shown above, you will need to ensure that ziti-edge-controller is addressable by your machine in order to use docker in this way. This guide does not go into how to do this in depth. One easy, and common mechanism to do this would be to edit the 'hosts' file of your operating system. A quick internet search should show you how to accomplish this.

Docker Compose​

If you have followed the docker compose quickstart getting the ZAC running within the compose file is a bit cumbersome because the docker-compose file will generate a full PKI on your behalf. While this makes it very easy to get a basic network setup, it makes reusing that PKI in the ZAC difficult at this time. It's not difficult to reuse the PKI but you'll need to do the following:

  1. Start the network using docker-compose as normal.

  2. After running, copy the ziti-edge-controller server certificate chain and key from the controller using these commands:

    docker cp docker_ziti-controller_1:/var/openziti/pki/ziti-edge-controller-intermediate/keys/ziti-edge-controller-server.key .
    docker cp docker_ziti-controller_1:/var/openziti/pki/ziti-edge-controller-intermediate/certs/ziti-edge-controller-server.chain.pem .

  3. Once these files are copied out, shut down the running docker-compose docker-compose down. Do NOT remove the volume with -v.

  4. Now add the ZAC configuration lines to the compose file of your choice:

      ziti-console:
        image: openziti/zac
        ports:
          - "1408:1408"
          - "8443:8443"
        environment:
          - ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_HOSTNAME=ziti-edge-router
        volumes:
          - ziti-fs:/openziti
          - type: bind
            source: ./ziti-edge-controller-server.key
            target: /usr/src/app/server.key
          - type: bind
            source: ./ziti-edge-controller-server.chain.pem
            target: /usr/src/app/server.chain.pem

        networks:
          - zitiblue
          - zitired

  5. After adding the ZAC configuration as shown, docker-compose will now start and expose the ZAC ports on 1408/8443.

note

Do note that if you are exposing ports as shown above, you will need to ensure that ziti-edge-controller is addressable by your machine in order to use docker in this way. This guide does not go into how to do this in depth. One easy, and common mechanism to do this would be to edit the 'hosts' file of your operating system. A quick internet search should show you how to accomplish this.

Kubernetes​

There's a Helm chart for deploying the Ziti console in Kubernetes.

Login and use ZAC​

  1. At this point you should be able to navigate to both: https://${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_HOSTNAME}:8443and see the ZAC login screen. (The TLS warnings your browser will show you are normal - it's because these steps use a self-signed certificate generated in the install process)

    note

    If you are using docker-compose to start your network, when you access ZAC for the first time you will need to specify the url of the controller. Since everything is running in docker compose this url is relative to the internal docker compose network that is declared in the compose file. You would enter https://ziti-edge-controller:1280 as the controller's URL

  2. Set the controller as shown (use the correct URL):

    1. Example using the "everything local" quickstart: everything local

    2. Example using the "docker-compose" quickstart: docker-compose

    3. Example using AWS "host it anywhere": host it anywhere

  3. Optionally, change admin's password