Looking Glass

Modern, simple and fresh looking glass based on Bootstrap 5 and PHP 8 (also compatible with 7). A looking glass is a network utility which is made user-friendly for everyone to use. It allows you to execute network related commands within a remote network, usually that of an ISP.

Demo

See it in action here!

Features

• Bootstrap 5 UI.
• Real time command output using JavaScript.
• Supports ping/ping6, traceroute/traceroute6 and mtr/mtr6.
• Easy to customize and to configure.
• DNS checking to prevent unnecessary executions.
• Latency feature from visitor to LG.
• Dark/light/auto mode theme.

Requirements

• Any Linux distribution, this has been tested on RHEL 8 + 9.
• PHP 7.1 or higher, PHP 8 preferred.
• IPv6 connectivity if you want to use the v6 equivalents.
• Root access.

Installation

Manual

For this installation we will assume that we are working on AlmaLinux 8 or 9. Warning: This guide does not cover any security hardening or rate limiting. Note: These steps also work with AlmaLinux 9, but it will install PHP 8 instead of 7.

1. Install the required network tools: dnf install mtr traceroute -y.
2. Install the web server with PHP (by default it will install 7.2 on RHEL 8): dnf install httpd mod_ssl php php-posix -y.
3. Enable and start Apache/PHP-FPM: systemctl enable httpd; systemctl enable php-fpm and systemctl start httpd; systemctl start php-fpm.
4. Let's help MTR to work, execute the following command: ln -s /usr/sbin/mtr /usr/bin/mtr and also mtr helper called mtr-packet: ln -s /usr/sbin/mtr-packet /usr/bin/mtr-packet.
5. You must configure SELinux before this all works, or you can disable SELinux using setenforce 0 and possibly make it permanent: nano /etc/selinux/config change to SELINUX=disabled.
6. Upload the contents of the ZIP to /var/www/html/.
7. Rename config.dist.php to config.php and adjust the settings.
8. (Optional) You might want to enable SSL using LetsEncrypt, take a look at acme.sh.

Docker

For installation using Docker, follow these steps and run the commands on the target machine where the application should be installed:

1. First, ensure Docker and Docker Compose are already installed.
2. Clone this GitHub repository: git clone https://github.com/hybula/lookingglass.git.
3. Change your current working directory to the freshly cloned repository.
4. Currently, the Docker images are not hosted on an image repository, so you'll have to build them yourself with the following command: docker compose build.
5. For production use, change the environment variables inside the docker-compose.yml file to the desired values. For testing purposes, the default values are fine.
6. Create and start the containers: docker compose up -d.
7. Afterward, the Looking Glass should be reachable from your web browser at http://$your_server_ip/!

Upgrading

Upgrading from a previous version is easy, simply overwrite your current installation with the new files. Then update your config.php accordingly, the script will automatically check for missing variables.

Customization

If you open up config.dist.php you will see that there are some features that allows you to customize the looking glass, this includes a custom CSS override. You may also extend the looking glass with a custom block.

TODO

• Move to Composer;
• Software-based rate limiting;
• Implement a template engine, for advanced customization;
• Switch to WebSockets.

Contribute

We would love to receive code contributions in the form of a pull request. We prefer this over forking, so if you have any code improvements feel free to commit.

Credits

This project is inspired by the LookingGlass project of @telephone and uses his procExecute() function, although slightly modified.

Sponsored

This project is developed and sponsored by Hybula B.V.

License

Apache License, Version 2.0 and the Commons Clause Restriction