Taldash - A Simple Script for Accessing the Talos Dashboard

Table of Contents

Introduction

This post introduces taldash, a simple shell script to make accessing the Talos Linux dashboard easier. If you’re running multiple Talos nodes, especially in an environment like Proxmox where IP addresses might not be immediately obvious, this script will help you quickly select and connect to a node’s dashboard using fzf for an interactive menu.

The goal is to provide a more user-friendly way to use talosctl dashboard without needing to remember or look up IP addresses or hostnames.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have the following tools installed and configured:

  • talosctl: The command-line tool for interacting with Talos.
  • fzf: A command-line fuzzy finder.
  • jq: A lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor.

The Problem

When using Talos Linux in a Proxmox VM with GPU Passthrough, the built-in console dashboard may not be available. The recommended way to access the dashboard is via the talosctl dashboard command, which requires the hostname or IP address of the node.

In a dynamic environment with auto-generated hostnames, it can be cumbersome to constantly look up the IP address of the node you want to connect to. This is where taldash comes in.

The Solution

taldash is a simple script that fetches all your Talos cluster members, presents them in an fzf-powered interactive list, and then uses the selected node’s IP address to launch the talosctl dashboard.

The One-Liner

For a quick and easy solution, you can use this one-liner directly in your terminal:

This command gets all Talos members, formats the output to show hostname and IP address, pipes it to fzf for selection, and then uses awk to extract the IP for the talosctl dashboard command.

talosctl dashboard -n "$(talosctl get members -o json | jq -r '"\(.spec.hostname) \(.spec.addresses[0])"' | fzf | awk '{print $2}')"

The Script

For a more permanent solution, you can save the following script as taldash in a directory that is in your PATH (e.g., ~/.local/bin/).

This script is a more robust version of the one-liner. It includes error handling and is easier to read and maintain.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

main() {
  # Get the list of Talos members with their hostnames and IP addresses.
  # The output is formatted as "hostname ip_address".
  # stderr is redirected to /dev/null to suppress connection error messages from talosctl.
  local node_list
  node_list=$(talosctl get members -o json 2>/dev/null | jq -r '"\(.spec.hostname) \(.spec.addresses[0])"')

  # Check if we successfully retrieved the list of nodes.
  if [[ -z "$node_list" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Failed to get Talos members or no members found." >&2
    return 1
  fi

  # Use fzf to present the list of nodes for selection.
  local selected_line
  selected_line=$(echo "$node_list" | fzf)

  # If a node was selected, extract the IP address and open the dashboard.
  if [[ -n "$selected_line" ]]; then
    local ip_address
    ip_address=$(echo "$selected_line" | awk '{print $2}')
    echo "Opening dashboard for $ip_address..."
    talosctl dashboard -n "$ip_address"
  else
    echo "No node selected."
  fi
}

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Conclusion

This small script, taldash, has significantly improved my workflow by removing the need to remember or look up IP addresses for my Talos nodes. I hope it proves as useful to you as it has to me.