cockpit-go

A library for accessing a remote Linux server over the Cockpit Websocket protocol.

Features

• Pure Go without CGO
• Supports multiplexed sessions on a single connection
• Streaming process output
• PAM conversations
• Signals/interruptions
• Superuser elevation
• CSRF integration
• Sample command-line program cockpitssh

Usage

Get the package: go get code.ivysaur.me/cockpit-go

c, err := cockpit.NewClient("https://server.example.com:9090")
if err != nil { ... }

err = c.Login(ctx, "admin", "secret")
if err != nil { ... }

sess, err := c.Session(ctx)
if err != nil { ... }
defer sess.Close()

res, err := sess.Run(ctx, "uptime")
fmt.Println(string(res.Stdout), res.ExitCode)

References

Upstream Cockpit source code used as reference:

• doc/protocol.md - framing, control commands, "stream" payload (spawn/pty/socket)
• doc/login.md - /login auth + X-Conversation
• src/ws/cockpitauth.c - session cookie format
• pkg/lib/cockpit/_internal/transport.ts - browser handshake, cockpit1 subprotocol, 30s health ping
• src/cockpit/channels/stream.py - exit-status/message/pid/window

License warning

LGPL-2.1 license. The author believes this is a derivative work of Cockpit itself as this was developed with reference to Cockpit sources.

Therefore, because of Go's static linking, this library can only be used in LGPL-compatible Go projects. ⚠️

Changelog

2026-09-05 v0.1.0

• First public release
• Support PAM conversations
• Add cockpitssh tool

2026-08-22

• Working PoC

2025-11-23

• Initial exploration