📟 Terminal User Interface (TUI)

The Servin Terminal User Interface provides a simple, menu-driven experience for container management directly in your terminal. Perfect for server environments, SSH sessions, and users who prefer command-line workflows.

🚀 Getting Started

Launching the TUI

# Start the terminal interface
servin-desktop

# Alternative command
servin desktop
  • Number Keys - Select menu options
  • Enter - Confirm selection
  • Type responses - When prompted for input

🖥️ Interface Overview

╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                         Servin Desktop                         ║
║                Container Runtime Management                    ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

┌─────────────────── Main Menu ────────────────────┐
│  1. Container Management                          │
│  2. Image Management                              │
│  3. CRI Server Control                            │
│  4. Volume Management                             │
│  5. Registry Operations                           │
│  6. System Information                            │
│  7. Exit                                          │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Select an option:

📦 Container Management

Container Operations Menu

┌─────────────── Container Management ──────────────┐
│  1. List Containers                               │
│  2. Run New Container                             │
│  3. Start Container                               │
│  4. Stop Container                                │
│  5. Remove Container                              │
│  6. View Container Logs                           │
│  7. Execute Command in Container                  │
│  8. Back to Main Menu                             │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Operations

  • List Containers: Display all containers with status
  • Run New Container: Create and start a new container
  • Start Container: Start a stopped container by ID/name
  • Stop Container: Stop a running container
  • Remove Container: Delete a container
  • View Logs: Show container output logs
  • Execute Command: Run commands inside containers

🖼️ Image Management

Image Operations Menu

┌──────────────── Image Management ─────────────────┐
│  1. List Images                                   │
│  2. Import Image                                  │
│  3. Remove Image                                  │
│  4. Tag Image                                     │
│  5. Inspect Image                                 │
│  6. Build Image                                   │
│  7. Back to Main Menu                             │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Operations

  • List Images: Show all available images
  • Import Image: Import images from tar files
  • Remove Image: Delete unused images
  • Tag Image: Add tags to existing images
  • Inspect Image: View detailed image information
  • Build Image: Build images from Dockerfile

🔗 CRI Server Control

CRI Server Menu

┌────────────────── CRI Server ─────────────────────┐
│  1. Start CRI Server                             │
│  2. Check CRI Server Status                      │
│  3. Test CRI Connection                           │
│  4. View CRI Endpoints                            │
│  5. Back to Main Menu                             │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Operations

  • Start CRI Server: Launch Kubernetes CRI server
  • Check Status: Verify CRI server status
  • Test Connection: Test CRI connectivity
  • View Endpoints: Show available CRI API endpoints

💾 Volume Management

Volume Operations Menu

┌─────────────── Volume Management ─────────────────┐
│  1. List Volumes                                  │
│  2. Create Volume                                 │
│  3. Remove Volume                                 │
│  4. Inspect Volume                                │
│  5. Remove All Volumes                            │
│  6. Back to Main Menu                             │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Operations

  • List Volumes: Display all created volumes
  • Create Volume: Create new storage volumes
  • Remove Volume: Delete specific volumes
  • Inspect Volume: View volume details
  • Remove All: Clean up all volumes

📡 Registry Operations

Registry Menu

┌────────────── Registry Operations ────────────────┐
│  1. Start Local Registry                          │
│  2. Stop Local Registry                           │
│  3. Push Image to Registry                        │
│  4. Pull Image from Registry                      │
│  5. List Registries                               │
│  6. Back to Main Menu                             │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Operations

  • Start Registry: Launch local registry server
  • Stop Registry: Shutdown registry server
  • Push Image: Upload images to registry
  • Pull Image: Download images from registry
  • List Registries: Show configured registries

📊 System Information

System Overview

╔════════════════ System Information ═══════════════╗
║ Servin Runtime Information:                        ║
║ Version: 1.0.0                                     ║
║ Platform: Linux/Windows/macOS                      ║
║ Time: 2025-09-16 15:04:05                         ║
║                                                    ║
║ Container Statistics:                              ║
║ Running: 5    Stopped: 3    Total: 8              ║
║                                                    ║
║ Image Statistics:                                  ║
║ Local Images: 12    Total Size: 2.4GB             ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

🔧 Usage Examples

Starting a Container

  1. Select 1 (Container Management)
  2. Select 2 (Run New Container)
  3. Enter image name: nginx
  4. Enter container name: web-server
  5. Enter command: (optional)

Viewing Logs

  1. Go to Container Management
  2. Select 6 (View Container Logs)
  3. Enter container ID or name
  4. Logs will be displayed

Managing Images

  1. Select 2 (Image Management)
  2. Select 1 (List Images) to see available images
  3. Use other options to manage images

⚙️ Technical Features

Simple Navigation

  • Menu-driven interface: Easy number-based selection
  • Back navigation: Return to previous menus
  • Input prompts: Clear instructions for user input
  • Error handling: Helpful error messages

Command Integration

  • Direct CLI integration: Uses servin CLI commands
  • Real-time output: Shows command results immediately
  • Platform support: Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS

User Experience

  • ASCII art headers: Professional appearance
  • Consistent formatting: Clean, readable menus
  • Interactive prompts: Clear input requests
  • Status feedback: Command execution results │ 💾 Memory: 128MB/512MB (25%) │ │ 💽 Disk I/O: 1.2MB read, 850KB write │ │ 🌐 Network I/O: 15MB in, 25MB out │ │ │ │ Environment Variables: │ │ 🔧 NODE_ENV=production │ │ 🔧 PORT=3000 │ │ 🔧 DATABASE_URL=mysql://db:3306/app │ │ │ │ Volumes: │ │ 💾 /var/www/html → /app/public (ro) │ │ 💾 app-logs → /var/log/nginx │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ [Logs] [Exec] [Files] [Stats] [Edit] [Actions] │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ```

Container Actions Menu

  • 🔄 Lifecycle
    • ▶️ Start - Start stopped container
    • ⏹️ Stop - Gracefully stop running container
    • 🔄 Restart - Restart container
    • ⏸️ Pause - Pause container execution
    • ▶️ Unpause - Resume paused container
    • 💀 Kill - Force stop container
  • 📊 Monitoring
    • 📄 View Logs - Real-time log streaming
    • 📈 Live Stats - CPU, memory, network usage
    • 🔍 Inspect - Detailed configuration view
    • 📋 Processes - Running processes inside container
  • 🔧 Management
    • 💻 Execute Shell - Interactive shell access
    • 📁 Browse Files - Container filesystem explorer
    • 🏷️ Rename - Change container name
    • 📝 Edit Config - Modify container settings
    • 🗑️ Remove - Delete container

🖼️ Image Management

Image List View

┌──────────────────── Images ─────────────────────┐
│ Search: [ubuntu______] 🔍 Sort: [Name_________] │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Repository        │ Tag     │ Size   │ Created  │
├───────────────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────────┤
│ nginx             │ latest  │ 142MB  │ 2 days   │
│ nginx             │ 1.21    │ 140MB  │ 1 week   │
│ ubuntu            │ latest  │ 72MB   │ 3 days   │
│ ubuntu            │ 20.04   │ 72MB   │ 1 week   │
│ node              │ 16      │ 908MB  │ 5 days   │
│ mysql             │ 8.0     │ 516MB  │ 1 week   │
│ alpine            │ latest  │ 5MB    │ 6 days   │
│ 📦 <none>         │ <none>  │ 1.2GB  │ 2 weeks  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ↑/↓: Navigate | Enter: Details | Space: Select │
│ p: Pull | b: Build | t: Tag | h: Push | d: Del │
│ r: Run | s: Save | l: Load | i: Inspect        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Image Details Panel

┌─────────────── Image Details: nginx:latest ──────────────┐
│                                                           │
│ Basic Information:                                        │
│ 🆔 ID: sha256:a1b2c3...                                   │
│ 🏷️  Repository: nginx                                    │
│ 🔖 Tag: latest                                           │
│ 📦 Size: 142MB (Virtual: 142MB)                          │
│ 📅 Created: 2 days ago                                   │
│ 👤 Author: NGINX Docker Maintainers                      │
│                                                           │
│ Configuration:                                            │
│ 🚪 Exposed Ports: 80/tcp                                │
│ 💻 Default CMD: ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]          │
│ 📁 Working Dir: /                                        │
│ 👤 User: root                                            │
│ 🔧 Env: PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin...          │
│                                                           │
│ Layer Information:                                        │
│ 📄 Layers: 6                                             │
│ 🔗 Parent: sha256:b1c2d3...                              │
│ 📊 Architecture: amd64                                    │
│ 🖥️  OS: linux                                            │
│                                                           │
│ Labels:                                                   │
│ 🏷️  maintainer=NGINX Docker Maintainers                 │
│ 🏷️  org.opencontainers.image.version=1.21.6            │
│                                                           │
│ Usage:                                                    │
│ 📦 Used by: 3 containers                                 │
│ 🔗 Children: 2 images                                    │
│                                                           │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ [History] [Layers] [Run] [Tag] [Push] [Export] [Delete] │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Image Actions

  • 📥 Registry Operations
    • 📤 Pull - Download image from registry
    • 📦 Push - Upload image to registry
    • 🔍 Search - Search registry for images
    • 🔑 Login - Authenticate with registry
  • 🔨 Build Operations
    • 🏗️ Build - Build image from Dockerfile
    • 🏷️ Tag - Add tags to image
    • 💾 Save - Export image to tar file
    • 📁 Load - Import image from tar file
  • 🚀 Container Operations
    • ▶️ Run - Create and start container
    • 🔧 Create - Create container without starting
    • 📋 Inspect - View detailed image information
    • 📜 History - View image layer history

💾 Volume Management

Volume List View

┌─────────────────── Volumes ──────────────────────┐
│ Search: [data_______] 🔍 Filter: [All_________] │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Name           │ Driver │ Size    │ Mount Point  │
├────────────────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────────┤
│ app-data       │ local  │ 2.1GB   │ /var/lib/... │
│ db-storage     │ local  │ 890MB   │ /var/lib/... │
│ logs-volume    │ local  │ 156MB   │ /var/lib/... │
│ config-files   │ local  │ 12MB    │ /var/lib/... │
│ 🔗 shared-nfs  │ nfs    │ 15GB    │ server:/data │
│ 📦 temp-cache  │ local  │ 500MB   │ /var/lib/... │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ↑/↓: Navigate | Enter: Details | Space: Select  │
│ c: Create | d: Delete | p: Prune | b: Backup    │
│ m: Mount | u: Unmount | i: Inspect              │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Volume Actions

  • 📦 Lifecycle
    • 🆕 Create - Create new volume
    • 🗑️ Delete - Remove volume
    • 🧹 Prune - Remove unused volumes
    • 📋 Inspect - View volume details
  • 🔗 Operations
    • 📁 Browse - Explore volume contents
    • 💾 Backup - Create volume backup
    • 📥 Restore - Restore from backup
    • 📊 Usage - Show space usage

🌐 Network Management

Network List View

┌─────────────────── Networks ─────────────────────┐
│ Search: [bridge____] 🔍 Filter: [All__________] │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Name        │ Driver │ Scope │ Connected │ Subnet │
├─────────────┼────────┼───────┼───────────┼────────┤
│ bridge      │ bridge │ local │ 3         │ 172... │
│ host        │ host   │ local │ 0         │ -      │
│ none        │ null   │ local │ 0         │ -      │
│ web-net     │ bridge │ local │ 2         │ 192... │
│ api-network │ bridge │ local │ 4         │ 10.... │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ↑/↓: Navigate | Enter: Details | Space: Select   │
│ c: Create | d: Delete | p: Prune | o: Connect    │
│ x: Disconnect | i: Inspect                       │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

📊 System Information

System Overview

┌─────────────────── System Status ────────────────────┐
│                                                       │
│ Runtime Information:                                  │
│ 🆔 Version: Servin 1.0.0                             │
│ 🏗️  Build: go1.24.0 linux/amd64                      │
│ 📅 Started: 2024-01-15 10:30:15 (uptime: 2h 45m)    │
│ 🔌 CRI Server: Active on port 10010                  │
│ 📡 API Server: Active on unix socket                 │
│                                                       │
│ Resource Summary:                                     │
│ 📦 Containers: 12 total (8 running, 3 stopped, 1 paused) │
│ 🖼️  Images: 25 total (15 in use, 10 unused)          │
│ 💾 Volumes: 8 total (6 mounted, 2 unmounted)         │
│ 🌐 Networks: 5 total (3 active, 2 inactive)          │
│                                                       │
│ Storage Usage:                                        │
│ 📁 Images: 4.2GB                                     │
│ 📦 Containers: 1.8GB                                 │
│ 💾 Volumes: 3.5GB                                    │
│ 🏗️  Build Cache: 890MB                               │
│ 📊 Total: 10.39GB                                    │
│                                                       │
│ Performance Metrics:                                  │
│ 📊 CPU Usage: 15% (4 cores available)               │
│ 💾 Memory Usage: 2.1GB/8GB (26%)                    │
│ 💽 Disk I/O: 125MB/s read, 89MB/s write             │
│ 🌐 Network I/O: 45MB/s in, 32MB/s out               │
│                                                       │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ [Events] [Logs] [Config] [Cleanup] [Export] [Quit]  │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Event Monitor

┌─────────────────── Live Events ───────────────────────┐
│ 🟢 2024-01-15 13:45:23  container  web-server started │
│ 🟡 2024-01-15 13:44:58  image      nginx:latest pulled │
│ 🔴 2024-01-15 13:44:12  container  old-app stopped    │
│ 🟢 2024-01-15 13:43:45  volume     data-vol created   │
│ 🟡 2024-01-15 13:43:20  network    api-net connected  │
│ 🟢 2024-01-15 13:42:55  container  db-server started  │
│ 🔴 2024-01-15 13:42:30  container  temp-job exited(0) │
│ 🟡 2024-01-15 13:42:05  image      ubuntu:latest built │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ↑/↓: Scroll | f: Filter | c: Clear | s: Save | q: Quit │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Tab - Next panel/field
  • Shift+Tab - Previous panel/field
  • Ctrl+C - Cancel current operation
  • Escape - Go back/cancel
  • q - Quit application
  • ? - Show context help
  • / - Search/filter current view

List Navigation

  • ↑/↓ - Move selection up/down
  • Page Up/Down - Scroll page up/down
  • Home/End - Go to first/last item
  • Enter - Select item or open details
  • Space - Toggle selection (multi-select)

Container Management

  • s - Start selected container
  • t - Stop selected container
  • r - Restart selected container
  • p - Pause selected container
  • k - Kill selected container
  • d - Delete selected container
  • l - View logs
  • e - Execute shell
  • i - Inspect details

Image Management

  • p - Pull image from registry
  • b - Build image from Dockerfile
  • t - Tag image
  • h - Push image to registry
  • r - Run container from image
  • d - Delete image
  • s - Save image to file
  • l - Load image from file

System Operations

  • F5 - Refresh current view
  • Ctrl+R - Reload all data
  • Ctrl+L - Clear screen
  • Ctrl+S - Save current view to file
  • Ctrl+E - Export system information

🎨 Customization

Theme Options

The TUI supports multiple color schemes:

  • Default - Standard terminal colors
  • Dark - Dark theme with high contrast
  • Light - Light theme for bright terminals
  • Monochrome - Black and white for compatibility
  • Custom - User-defined color scheme

Configuration

# Set default theme
servin config set tui.theme dark

# Enable mouse support
servin config set tui.mouse true

# Set refresh interval
servin config set tui.refresh 2s

# Configure log tail lines
servin config set tui.logs.tail 100

# Set default container shell
servin config set tui.shell /bin/bash

Layout Customization

  • Panel Arrangement - Customize panel layout
  • Column Visibility - Show/hide specific columns
  • Sort Options - Default sorting preferences
  • Filter Presets - Save commonly used filters
  • Hotkey Remapping - Customize keyboard shortcuts

🔧 Advanced Features

Bulk Operations

  • Multi-Selection - Use Space to select multiple items
  • Bulk Actions - Apply operations to selected items
  • Confirmation Dialogs - Safety prompts for destructive actions
  • Progress Indicators - Visual feedback for long operations

Search and Filtering

  • Real-time Search - Filter as you type
  • Advanced Filters - Status, labels, dates
  • Regular Expressions - Pattern-based filtering
  • Saved Searches - Store frequently used filters

Integration Features

  • Shell Integration - Launch external commands
  • File Manager - Browse container filesystems
  • Log Streaming - Real-time log following
  • Statistics Charts - ASCII-based performance graphs

📚 Next Steps

💡 TUI Pro Tips

  • Mouse Support: Enable mouse support with servin config set tui.mouse true
  • SSH Sessions: TUI works perfectly over SSH for remote management
  • Screen/Tmux: Run TUI in screen or tmux for persistent sessions
  • Context Help: Press ? in any view for context-specific help
  • Log Monitoring: Use the log viewer for real-time container debugging