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Getting Started with Zeus OS

This guide gets a customer from “I have a URL” to first useful work in the web dashboard.

What you need

Requirement Notes
Kubernetes cluster with KubeVirt installed Zeus is day-2 ops — it does not bootstrap the cluster
Reachable Zeus OS URL Often https://<host>:30050 (NodePort) or https://<host>:5050
Login credentials Provided by your platform admin (local / LDAP / SAML / OIDC)
Browser Modern Chromium, Firefox, or Safari. HTTPS required for in-browser VNC

Optional: kubectl access is not required for normal UI work.

1. Open the dashboard

  1. Open the URL your admin shared (example: https://cluster.example:30050).
  2. If the browser warns about a self-signed certificate, confirm with your admin, then proceed (or install the org CA).
  3. You should land on login, or directly on Home (/) if auth is disabled in a lab.

Common mistake: Port 5092 is GuestKit / Machina territory on some Zyvor stacks — not Zeus OS. Prefer the URL that ends in the Zeus NodePort (often 30050) or the documented ingress host.

2. Sign in

Auth depends on how the deployment is configured:

Mode What you do
Local users Username + password from your admin
LDAP / Active Directory Corporate directory credentials
SAML / OIDC “Sign in with …” → identity provider
Lab only ZEUS_OS_NO_AUTH — no login (never use in production)

API automation uses bearer tokens / API keys from Settings → API access or Identity Center — not the guest OS password.

Windows RDP prompts for the guest credentials, not your Zeus login.

3. Orient yourself (60 seconds)

  1. Home (/) — chapter pulse, Get the highlights, and teaser into Attention, VMs, Health.
  2. Attention (/attention) — ranked actions, Issue Stream, and day-2 activity when Home shows warnings.
  3. Sidebar / Finder — centers such as VMs, Storage, Monitoring, Settings.
  4. Command palette — open with the keyboard shortcut shown in the shell (typically ⌘K / Ctrl+K) and type a page name.
  5. Browse vs workbench — inventory lists are safe to explore; power actions live on the VM workbench so production VMs are harder to disrupt by accident.
  6. Getting started checklist — first-time visitors see a banner on Home; click Getting started checklist (or Help → Getting Started) for a short, role-aware task list (admins get cluster/team setup, everyone else gets "find/create a VM", "open a console", "check cost"). Progress is saved to your account, so it follows you across devices and browsers — not just this one tab.

See Using the Dashboard for navigation details.

4. Your first five workflows

A. Browse and power a VM

  1. Go to VMs → /vms.
  2. Filter by namespace or name.
  3. Open a VM → /vms/<namespace>/<name> (workbench).
  4. Use Start / Stop / Restart / Pause as needed.
  5. Confirm status updates in the inventory.

Guide: Virtual Machines

B. Open a live console

  1. From a Running VM workbench, open Console → VNC (graphical) or Serial (text).
  2. VNC needs HTTPS. If the session is black, click Focus in the console toolbar.
  3. For RDP/SSH: use Remote access to expose a NodePort, then connect with your OS client (downloadable .rdp or ssh command). VNC remains the in-browser default.

Guide: Consoles & remote access

C. Create a VM

  1. Open VM setup → /vm-setup (or /vms/new).
  2. Choose instance type / preference / template (or AI-assisted manifest if enabled).
  3. For Windows: if Settings → Network shows Kryton Connected, prefer the Kryton catalog path (template IDs like windows-11-enterprise). Otherwise use Autounattend / ISO.
  4. Review disks, network, and namespace.
  5. Deploy — the VM appears under /vms (Kryton creates deep-link via providerRef).

Guides: Create a machine · Windows via Kryton

D. Snapshot and restore

  1. Snapshot Manager → /snapshot-manager — take an on-demand or scheduled snapshot.
  2. To recover: Restore Wizard → /restore-wizard and follow the guided restore.

Guide: Snapshots

E. Cost check and rightsizing

  1. Cost Intelligence → /cost-intelligence — spend by VM / namespace.
  2. Rightsizing → /rightsizing — idle / oversized recommendations.

Guide: Cost Intelligence

5. Optional: TUI and CLI

Same cluster, different surfaces:

# Terminal UI (k9s-style)
zeus-os
zeus-os production    # namespace filter

# Headless CLI (examples depend on install path)
zeus-os-cli --help

API: /api/v1 on the same host as the dashboard. OpenAPI lives under Developer Center / API Docs (/api-docs).

Next steps

Role Read next
VM operator Page guides — Core
Platform admin Admin basics
Security / network PacketWolf
Full capability map Feature Guide

If something fails at login or console, see Troubleshooting.