NoJava-IPMI-KVM

Introduction

NoJava-IPMI-KVM is a tool for running Java-based IPMI-KVM consoles without a local Java installation. It runs a Docker container in the background, starts a suitable Java Webstart version (from OpenJDK) and connects to the container with noVNC. By using Docker, Java Webstart is sandboxed automatically and you don't need to install old Java versions on your Desktop machines.

This project is based on ideas from solarkennedy/ipmi-kvm-docker.

Installation

The latest version can be obtained from PyPI and runs with Python 2.7 or 3.3+ (Python 3 is recommended):

python3 -m pip install nojava-ipmi-kvm

Install Docker on your local machine if not done already.

Usage

Configuration file

First, create a file ~/.nojava-ipmi-kvmrc and create a configuration section for each kvm host you want to connect to, for example:

[myhostkvm]
full_hostname = myhostkvm.org
login_user = ADMIN
login_endpoint = rpc/WEBSES/create.asp
download_endpoint = Java/jviewer.jnlp
allow_insecure_ssl = False
user_login_attribute_name = WEBVAR_USERNAME
password_login_attribute_name = WEBVAR_PASSWORD
java_version = 7u51
session_cookie_key = SessionCookie

• full_hostname: Fully qualified name of your KVM host
• login_user: User to login to the web admin view (default: ADMIN)
• login_endpoint: Relative POST url of the login form. Is needed to create a login session.
• download_endpoint: Relative download url of the Java KVM viewer.
• allow_insecure_ssl: Allow SSL certificates that cannot be validated when logging in and downloading the KVM viewer.
• user_login_attribute_name: Name of the user login field in the login form (use the web inspector of your favorite browser to find out the field names).
• password_login_attribute_name: Name of the password field in the login form.
• java_version: Java version that is needed to run Java KVM viewer. Currently, 7u51 and 7u181 are available (default: 7u181).
• session_cookie_key: Workaround for web applications that do not set session cookies directly (for example with Javascript). If a login attempt does not set a session cookie, the HTTP reply body is scanned for a potential session cookie value. If a value is found, it will be stored under the name session_cookie_key. In most cases you can simply obmit this configuration key.

In addition, you can create a general section to configure more general settings, e.g.:

[general]
run_docker_with_sudo = False
x_resolution = 1600x1200

• run_docker_with_sudo: Set to True if the docker command must be called with sudo (needed on Linux if your user account is not a member of the docker group, defaults to False)
• x_resolution: Resolution of the X server and size of the VNC window (default: 1024x768)

Using the command line tool

After configuring, you can call nojava-ipmi-kvm from the command line:

nojava-ipmi-kvm myhostkvm

You can start nojava-ipmi-kvm multiple times to connect to different machines in parallel. The background Docker container will be shutdown automatically after to you closed the VNC window or sent <Ctrl-C> on the command line.

Options:

usage: nojava-ipmi-kvm [-h] [-f CONFIG_FILEPATH] [--print-default-config] [-V]
                       [hostname]

nojava-ipmi-kvm is a utility to access Java based ipmi kvm consoles without a local java installation.

positional arguments:
  hostname              short hostname of the server machine; must be
                        identical with a hostname in `.nojava-ipmi-kvmrc` (for
                        example `mykvmserver`)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -f CONFIG_FILEPATH, --config-file CONFIG_FILEPATH
                        login user (default: ~/.nojava-ipmi-kvmrc)
  --print-default-config
                        print the default config to stdout and exit
  -V, --version         print the version number and exit

Command line completion

This repository offers a completion script for bash and zsh (only hostnames currently, no options).

Bash

Download the Bash completion file and source it in your .bashrc, for example by running:

curl -o .nojava-ipmi-kvm-completion.bash -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sciapp/nojava-ipmi-kvm/master/completion/bash/nojava-ipmi-kvm-completion.bash
echo '[ -r "${HOME}/.nojava-ipmi-kvm-completion.bash" ] && source "${HOME}/.nojava-ipmi-kvm-completion.bash"' >> ~/.bashrc

Zsh

You can install the completion script with zplug or manually.

Using zplug

Add zplug "sciapp/nojava-ipmi-kvm" to your .zshrc, open a new shell and run

zplug install

Manual

Clone this repository and source nojava_ipmi_kvm_completion.plugin.zsh in your .zshrc.