Console

The Console page opens an interactive shell inside the selected jail. Use it for package management, service administration, configuration changes, and troubleshooting without opening a separate SSH connection to the jail.

Root access

The console runs su -l root inside the jail. Commands have root privileges within that jail, so check the selected jail before making changes.

Requirements

The console is available when all of the following are true:

• The jail is in the Active state.
• You are signed in with an administrator account.
• The current node owns the jail’s replication lease, when replication protection applies.
• No restore operation is in progress for the jail.
• The browser can establish the authenticated WebSocket connection used by the console.

If the jail is stopped, the page asks you to start it. If its runtime state cannot be read, the page reports that the console is unavailable.

Open a session

Select a running jail, then open Console. The page connects automatically and fits the terminal to the available space. Resizing the page also updates the shell’s terminal dimensions.

The toolbar reports and controls the current browser connection:

Control	Effect
Disconnect	Closes this browser’s connection. The page remembers the manual disconnect for this jail until you select Reconnect.
Reconnect	Opens a new connection after a manual disconnect or connection failure.
Clear	Clears only the terminal content displayed in this browser. It does not undo commands or clear shell history inside the jail.
Settings	Opens the local font and colour controls.

Shared shell

Administrators connected to the same jail share one live root shell while at least one browser remains connected. They see the same output and can all send input. Coordinate before typing when another administrator is attached.

When the last browser disconnects, the server closes the shell session. A later connection starts a fresh login shell. Recently displayed output can be replayed to an administrator joining an existing shared session, but the console is not a persistent session manager.

Adjust the terminal

Open Settings to change the console appearance:

Setting	Effect
Font Size	Sets the terminal font from 8 to 24 pixels. The default is 14 pixels.
Background	Changes the terminal background colour in this browser.
Foreground	Changes the terminal text colour in this browser.

You can also increase or decrease the font size with Ctrl + + or Ctrl + -. On macOS, use Command instead of Ctrl.

These settings are stored in the browser separately for each jail on each node. They do not change the jail or another administrator’s console.

Understand connection changes

Stopping the jail ends its console connection. Starting it again reconnects the page automatically unless you previously selected Disconnect. Leaving or reloading the page while a connection is open can produce a browser confirmation prompt.

The console can show these connection messages:

• The jail console session ended. The connection opened successfully and then closed.
• Unable to connect to the jail console. The initial connection could not be established.
• Jail console unavailable. The server could not start the shell process inside the jail.

To recover, confirm that the jail is active, check that this node owns any required replication lease, and select Reconnect. If the jail will not start, review its lifecycle output on the Summary page. A jail that is being restored must finish that operation before its console becomes available.

Note

The browser console is an administrative shell inside an already running jail. It is not an out-of-band recovery console and cannot access a jail that has failed to start.