clab widget

Containerlab & netlab lab status on your desktop: which labs are running, which nodes are down, how much memory they use, and one click back into the containerlab app, netlab-ui, VS Code or a node shell. For the labs on this machine, on as many lab servers as you like (ssh, WSL, clab-api-server, netlab-ui), and on Kubernetes through clabernetes. It complements containerlab-app and netlab-ui rather than replacing them.

Community project. Not affiliated with srl-labs/Nokia (containerlab) or ipSpace (netlab).

Screenshots

Topology map	102-node fabric
Right-click a lab	Search: down
Remote hosts	Settings
Info: tools on this machine

The screenshots are rendered from the demo labs: make screenshots.

Features

• Every lab: containerlab and netlab side by side. A netlab lab running on containerlab shows up once, as a "netlab · via clab" card. Show both, both as tabs, or only one.
• Node health: running / partial / stopped, per-node state and management IP, memory per lab and node (while the popup is open), uptime.
• Topology map, drawn from the JSON that clab-ui draws from: topology-data.json links, graph-icon roles, clab-ui's .annotations.json (icon, colour, position), and legacy graph-posX/posY labels. It uses clab-ui's own role icons. Pan, zoom, pinch and fit. Hover a node to highlight its links. Links are coloured like clab-ui while the popup is open: green up, dashed red down (read from each node's interfaces, no root needed); host / macvlan / mgmt-net ends show as small endpoints. Hover a link for its ends, state and live throughput (busy links are drawn thicker); right-click it to copy the endpoints or capture either end in Wireshark (docker exec … tcpdump | wireshark, offered when the node has tcpdump). Labs of 150+ nodes are drawn as tiles, so a 700-node fabric stays smooth.
• Fix a node: a node that went down gets a Start button, and every node has Restart / Stop in its menu. These run containerlab's own start|stop|restart --node, which keeps the node's links (a plain docker stop would drop them). Also: its logs, console (telnet) for VM-based kinds, open its web UI, and copy IP, MAC, image, kind or container ID.
• One click back: ssh (per-kind user) or netlab connect, docker shell (sr_cli…), logs, open in the containerlab app / netlab-ui / VS Code, like the containerlab VS Code extension does it.
• Stop, carefully: confirm, re-check that the lab is unchanged, then run it through its owner (netlab down / containerlab destroy) in a terminal. Also destroy and delete the generated files (--cleanup), force-clean a broken lab, redeploy a partial or stopped lab, and save the running configs (containerlab save, netlab collect).
• Not deployed: point it at your lab folders and it lists the topologies there that aren't running (*.clab.yml, netlab topology.yml), with Deploy, like the containerlab app.
• Only my labs: hide labs other users deployed on a shared lab server.
• Remote hosts: ssh and WSL run the widget's own status script on the lab machine, so you get everything a local widget there would show. Also clab-api-server and netlab-ui servers. See docs/remote-hosts.md.
• Kubernetes (clabernetes): containerlab topologies on k8s / k3s / kind through clabernetes. Node readiness, links and map, kubectl exec / logs, delete. Open jumps to the Topology in Kubus.
• Notifications (debounced over two polls): a node goes down or disappears, a tool or host becomes unreachable, and an opt-in reminder for labs left running (it never tears anything down).
• Pin labs to the panel item, the pill and the tray tooltip: ● fabric 6/7 · ● ospf 3/3.
• Glass look from Glassy System Monitor: frosted, solid, atmosphere, glass, liquid. A containerlab or netlab app icon, or auto.

Where it lives

KDE Plasma 6	Desktop glass card, panel icon + popup, or the system tray
Hyprland / Quickshell	A pill in a corner with the popup, or a desktop card below your windows
Windows / macOS	Tray app with installer / dmg. Labs come from remote hosts (WSL2, ssh, API)
GNOME & other Linux desktops	The same tray app (make install-desktop); a normal window when there is no tray

Install steps for each: docs/installation.md.

Using it

• Header: search (names, kinds, IPs, state; down = every node that isn't running), refresh, remote hosts, settings.
• Click a lab to show its nodes. Hover a row for quick actions. Right-click (or ⋮) for everything: map, open, pin, copy, stop.
• Nodes: hover for ssh / shell / logs, click the IP to copy it.
• Map: drag to pan, wheel or pinch to zoom, hover a node to highlight its links, click it for its menu. The ↗ button (or Settings → Labs → "Map in a window") opens it in its own resizable window.

Quickshell IPC

With the Quickshell version running (qs -p . or nix run .#view-hyprland):

qs ipc -p /path/to/clab-widget call panel toggle          # open | close | refresh | settings | quit
qs ipc -p /path/to/clab-widget call panel setShow tabs    # both | tabs | containerlab | netlab

Hyprland: bind = SUPER, L, exec, qs ipc -p /path/to/clab-widget call panel toggle

Development

direnv allow            # or: nix develop (ships containerlab + netlab)
make help               # every target
nix run .#view          # Plasma widget preview
nix run .#view-hyprland # Quickshell pill + popup
nix run .#desktop       # tray app (the Windows/macOS/GNOME frontend)
make run                # widget preview with demo labs, no Docker needed
eval "$(make -s demo)"  # demo labs for the other frontends
make test               # backend + schema (python) and shared QML logic (node)
make screenshots        # re-render docs/readme/*.png

The UI renders the backend's snapshot as-is. Its format is a JSON Schema: docs/snapshot.schema.json. Contributing and releases: CONTRIBUTING.md. What's next: TODO.md.

Credits & license

GPL-3.0, see LICENSE. Bundled third-party artwork keeps its own license: Lucide icons (ISC, package/contents/icons/ui/LICENSE-lucide.txt), the clab-ui node icons (generated from SvgGenerator.ts) and the containerlab logo from srl-labs/containerlab-app (MIT), and the netlab-ui logo from Muddyblack/netlab-ui (Apache-2.0). The data files in package/contents/upstream/ come from clab-ui and the containerlab VS Code extension (Apache-2.0). Each set ships its license next to it (LICENSE-*.txt), so they're in the .plasmoid too.