Text User Interface (TUI)

The Text User Interface of Exosphere provides a visual, interactive way of accessing the information gathered by Exosphere across your hosts.

It is a modal interface comprised of several screens you can toggle between, and allows you to perform actions such as:

  • Viewing the status of all hosts in a Dashboard

  • Viewing the inventory status and drilling down into host details

  • Performing actions such as refreshing updates, pinging hosts, etc.

  • Viewing runtime logs in a nice colored panel.

While the TUI does not provide all the features of the CLI, it is often more convenient for overviews and at-a-glance status checks. It does provide most of the same host operation features through screen actions as well as the command palette, and it can also easily be used in conjunction with the Command Line Interface (CLI) for more advanced operations.

Launching the UI

You can launch the UI by running:

$ exosphere ui

Or, from interactive mode:

exosphere> ui

Tip

Launching the UI from interactive mode will allow you to return to the CLI when exiting the UI, making it possible to switch back and forth between the two interfaces seamlessly.

Note

The ui start command used in previous versions of Exosphere is still accepted as an alias for ui, for backward compatibility.

Interface Navigation

The UI is divided into several screens, each accessible via a keybind. At the very top of the screen, you will see the title bar with the current screen name.

The UI is separated in three main screens:

  • Dashboard: A grid view of all hosts, showing their online status.

  • Inventory: A detailed view of all hosts and their updates.

  • Logs: A real-time view of the logs generated by Exosphere.

The bottom of the screen contains a status bar with keybinds for navigation and actions.

Example of Exosphere TUI with commands

Some of the keys displayed there will show up globally, while others are specific to the current screen you are on.

For instance here, you can press i to go to the Inventory screen. Keys are shown as they should be typed, so shift+p will trigger Ping All, and ctrl+d will trigger Discover All.

Universally, in every screen, you can press ctrl+p to access the command palette, which you can use to get keybind help, change the color theme, or run operations against all or specific hosts.

On Any Screen, you can press ctrl+q to Quit the UI.

Executing Operations

Most if not all of the operations you can perform on hosts in the UI are going to be dispatched through the same parallelized Thread Pool as the CLI, with minor implementation differences.

The UI will present a modal progress bar whenever this is occurring:

Example of Exosphere TUI Progress Bar

Note

While you can press ESC to cancel the operation, it will not abort already executing tasks in the Thread Pool, only prevent new tasks from being started past this point.

The Command Palette

Pressing ctrl+p from any screen will open the Command Palette, which allows you to select and fuzzy search through commands that can be invoked. This includes some built-in ones like Keys and Theme, but also Exosphere specific commands allowing you to perform operations on hosts in your inventory.

The palette can be invoked from any screen, and the available commands will be contextual to the screen you are on, if applicable.

Example of Exosphere TUI Command Palette

Host operations come in three flavors:

On All Hosts

Example of Exosphere TUI Command Palette with global host operations

These include operations like Ping all hosts, Discover all hosts, Refresh all hosts etc. Invoking these will perform the action immediately, displaying the progress screen, as described in the previous section. These can be invoked from any screen.

On Any Host

These commands allow you to select a specific host from your inventory and perform an operation on it, such as Ping..., Discover..., Refresh..., etc.

Example of Exosphere TUI Command Palette with host-specific operations

Invoking these will open a second prompt with a list of hosts available in your inventory, allowing you to either select one with the arrow keys and Enter, or to fuzzy search for it by typing its name, completely or partially.

Example of Exosphere TUI Command Palette with host selection

These commands can also be invoked from any screen.

On the currently selected host

When the palette is opened from the Inventory screen, each operation will also propose a variant that applies to the currently selected host in the inventory table.

Example of Exosphere TUI Command Palette with current host operations

Selecting it will let you run that operation immediately on whichever host is currently under the cursor in the inventory. These options will also sort above the global ones in the palette, making them quick to access.

These can only be invoked from the Inventory screen.

Tip

All palettes are fuzzy-searched, so you rarely need to scroll. In any of the pickers, just type part of the command or host, and the list will narrow down immediately.

The Dashboard

The default screen Exosphere launches into is the Dashboard. It presents a colored grid, each square representing a host in your inventory.

Example of Exosphere TUI Dashboard

Each square is color coded according to the status of the host. Green for Online, Red for Offline. Basic information about each host is also displayed.

This view is mostly useful as a poor man's monitoring dashboard, allowing you to quickly see which hosts are online or offline at a glance.

The following operations can be performed from the Dashboard:

  • Ping All: Press shift+p to ping all hosts and update their status.

  • Discover All: Press ctrl+d to discover all hosts and update their platform information.

Inventory Screen

Example of Exosphere TUI Inventory

The Inventory screen provides a detailed view of all the hosts in your inventory.

The following operations can be performed from the Inventory screen:

  • Refresh Updates: Press ctrl+r to refresh the updates for all hosts.

  • Sync & Refresh: Press ctrl+x to sync the repositories and refresh updates for all hosts.

  • Filter: Press ctrl+f to filter the hosts shown in the table.

  • Sort: Press ctrl+s to sort the table by a chosen column.

Note

Syncing repositories may take a long time depending on inventory size and host specifications.

It functions almost identically to the inventory status command in the CLI, but it allows you to navigate the rows with the Arrow Keys. The same status indicators apply, with * marking stale data and ! marking a pending reboot, as shown in the table legend.

You can select a host with Enter, which will open a panel with more details:

Example of Exosphere TUI Host Details

Any available updates will be displayed in a list. You can navigate this list with the arrow keys, much like the inventory itself, and select any of them with Enter.

Example of Exosphere TUI Update Details

Details about the currently selected update will be displayed in a new panel. This includes the package name, source, version change and whether or not it is a security update.

Filtering Hosts

It is also possible to filter hosts with ctrl+f, which will open a prompt with the available filters.

Example of Exosphere TUI Filter Prompt

Tip

Each entry also has an underlined quick-select key (u for "Updates Only", for instance) that will immediately apply that filter when pressed.

After selecting a filter, only hosts matching the criteria will be displayed. The active filter will be shown in the status bar at the bottom of the screen:

Exosphere TUI Inventory Status Bar with Security Updates filter active

You can clear the filter by pressing ctrl+f again and selecting the "Show All" option.

Sorting Hosts

You can sort the hosts with ctrl+s, which opens a prompt listing the sortable columns along with a Reverse order checkbox. Navigate the columns with the Arrow Keys, toggle reverse by pressing r (or focusing the checkbox with Tab and pressing Space), and press Enter to apply.

Example of Exosphere TUI Sort Prompt

Tip

Each entry also has an underlined quick-select key (h for Host, o for OS, s for Security, etc.) that will select the option when pressed. So to get a reverse sort by Security Updates, it is possible to simply press ctrl+s, s, r, enter.

After applying a sort, the active sort field and direction are shown in the status bar alongside any active filter. You can restore the original configuration order by pressing ctrl+s again and selecting the "Default (config order)" option (or pressing D).

Exosphere TUI Inventory Status Bar with sorted status and direction

Sorting and filtering are independent and can be combined freely.

Note

Sorting by Version groups hosts by flavor first, then orders versions within each flavor, since version numbers are not directly comparable across different flavors. Likewise, sorting by Flavor groups hosts by OS first, keeping OS families together.

Additionally, hosts with no meaningful data for the selected sort column always sort to the bottom of the list, regardless of the requested order. Within that bottom tier, Undiscovered hosts sort above Unsupported ones.

Logs Screen

Example of Exosphere TUI Logs

The Logs screen provides a real-time view of the logs generated by Exosphere. You can access it by pressing l from the Dashboard or Inventory screen.

The window can be scrolled left and right, and will color certain elements.

Tip

The logs are always written to file. You can access them at the path returned by the exosphere config paths command.