Browser UI

Browser UI is a lightweight web application for the Selenosis ecosystem.
It provides a simple HTTP server that serves a static frontend and exposes a minimal backend API for browsing sessions and connecting to VNC.

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Overview

• Frontend: static assets built with Node and served under /ui/
• Backend: Go HTTP server providing a small API and VNC WebSocket proxy
• Event collector: subscribes to browser-service events and maintains an in-memory session store

Browser UI is intentionally stateless: Kubernetes remains the source of truth and browser-service is the API boundary.

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Responsibilities

• Serve the web UI (static frontend)
• Provide a simple JSON API for listing and inspecting sessions
• Proxy VNC traffic from the UI to the underlying browser pod
• Track sessions in memory by consuming browser events

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Dependency on browser-service

Browser UI depends on browser-service for:

• REST access to Browser resources
• Event stream (ADDED / MODIFIED / DELETED) used to populate the UI session store

The UI assumes that:

• browser-service is reachable at BROWSER_SERVICE_URL
• browser-controller and CRDs are already installed in the cluster (indirect dependency via browser-service)

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HTTP Endpoints

UI

• GET / → redirects to /ui/
• GET /ui/ → UI entrypoint (index.html)
• GET /ui/* → static assets

API

Base path:

/api/v1

Endpoints:

• GET /api/v1/browsers/
  List sessions known to the UI (in-memory view)

• GET /api/v1/browsers/{browserId}/
  Get a single session by Browser ID

• GET /api/v1/browsers/{browserId}/vnc
  WebSocket proxy to the browser VNC endpoint

• GET /api/v1/browsers/{browserId}/vnc/settings
  Returns VNC settings (currently returns the password)

Health

• GET /health → returns {"status":"ok"}

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VNC Connectivity

Browser UI exposes a WebSocket endpoint (/vnc) that proxies traffic to the browser pod VNC WebSocket:

• Backend target (resolved from session data):
  • ws://<browserPodIP>:4445/selenosis/v1/vnc/<sessionId>

The UI also exposes /vnc/settings for clients that need the VNC password.

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Configuration

Browser UI is configured using environment variables:

• LISTEN_ADDR — address to listen on (default :8080)
• BROWSER_SERVICE_URL — browser-service base URL (default http://browser-service:8080)
• BROWSER_NAMESPACE — namespace used for subscriptions (default default)
• VNC_PASSWORD — VNC password exposed via /vnc/settings (default secret)
• UI_STATIC_PATH — path to static UI assets (default /app/static)

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Build and image workflow

The project is built and packaged entirely via Docker. Local Go installation is not required for producing the final artifact.

Build variables

The build process is controlled via the following Makefile variables:

Variable Description

• BINARY_NAME Name of the produced binary (browser-ui).
• REGISTRY Docker registry prefix (default: localhost:5000).
• IMAGE_NAME Full image name (/browser-ui).
• VERSION Image version/tag (default: develop).
• PLATFORM Target platform (default: linux/amd64).
• CONTAINER_TOOL docker cmd

REGISTRY, VERSION is expected to be provided externally, which allows the same Makefile to be used locally and in CI.

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Deployment

Minimal configuration

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: browser-ui-service
  namespace: default
  labels:
    app: browser-ui
spec:
  type: NodePort
  selector:
    app: browser-ui
  ports:
  - name: http
    port: 8080       
    targetPort: 8080

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: browser-ui
  namespace: default
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: browser-ui
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: browser-ui
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: browser-ui
        image: alcounit/browser-ui:latest
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
        ports:
        - containerPort: 8080
          name: http
        env:
        - name: APP_LISTEN_ADDR
          value: "8080"
        - name: BROWSER_SERVICE_URL
          value: "http://browser-service:8080"
        - name: BROWSER_NAMESPACE
          value: "default"
        - name: UI_STATIC_PATH
          value: "/app/static" 
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: "64Mi"
            cpu: "100m"
          limits:
            memory: "256Mi"
            cpu: "500m"