6.14. Portal

The Portal is the central entry point to Nubus for Kubernetes. This section covers configuration aspects around the portal.

See also

Customization of portal theme

in Univention Nubus for Kubernetes - Nubus Customization and Modification Manual [3] for information about the customization of the Portal theme.

Portal Service

in Univention Nubus for Kubernetes - Architecture Manual [2] for information about the architecture of the Portal Service in Nubus for Kubernetes.

6.14.1. Left sidebar

Added in version 1.14.0.

The left sidebar provides an interface for the central navigation that shows accessible applications and services. Users access this sidebar through the waffle button in the Portal‘s top navigation bar. When expanded, the sidebar shows a list of navigation entries with icons and titles, each linking to its respective application. Fig. 6.1 shows the expanded left sidebar with a few navigation items.

Fig. 6.1 Expanded left sidebar showing navigation links with icons

6.14.1.1. Activate the left sidebar

By default, Nubus for Kubernetes has the left sidebar deactivated. You need to enable it through the nubusPortalServer.portalServer.featureToggles.left_sidebar feature toggle in your custom_values.yaml values file.

To activate the left sidebar, you need to use the following steps:

1. Add the lines in Listing 6.43 to your custom_values.yaml values file.

   Listing 6.43 Enable the feature toggle for the left sidebar

   nubusPortalServer:
     portalServer:
       featureToggles:
         left_sidebar: true
   

2. Apply the configuration by following the steps in Apply configuration.

6.14.1.2. Left sidebar content

The left sidebar retrieves its navigation entries from the Central Navigation API. By default, the sidebar has no portal entries selected. As long as the sidebar content is empty, the Portal doesn’t show it. You can customize the selection of portal entries through the Portal management module in the Management UI or by using the UDM HTTP REST API.

For detailed information about the API, authentication, and customization options, see Central Navigation API in Univention Nubus for Kubernetes - Nubus Customization and Modification Manual [3].

6.14.2. Automatic sign-out from the Portal

Added in version 1.15.0.

The Portal automatically signs out the user when identity provider Keycloak notifies the Portal that a user session ends. This ensures that all open portal tabs immediately reflect the updated session state and prevents the session from appearing active after the identity provider terminated the session. Nubus for Kubernetes has the automatic sign-out activated by default.

6.14.2.1. Deactivate automatic sign-out

By default, Nubus for Kubernetes has the automatic sign-out activated. To deactivate it, set the corresponding UCR variable with the following steps:

1. Add the lines shown in Listing 6.44 to your custom_values.yaml.

   Listing 6.44 Disable automatic logout

   global:
     configUcr:
       portal:
         reload-tabs-on-logout: "false"
   

2. To restart the UMC Gateway deployment, run the commands in Listing 6.45.

   Listing 6.45 Restart UMC Gateway deployment

   $ export NAMESPACE_FOR_NUBUS="Set to your Kubernetes namespace"
   $ export RELEASE_NAME="The Helm Chart release name"
   
   $ kubectl \
      --namespace "$NAMESPACE_FOR_NUBUS" \
      rollout restart \
      deployment "$RELEASE_NAME-umc-gateway"
   

6.14.2.2. Performance impact

The automatic sign-out establishes a persistent Server-Sent Events (SSE) connection for each active browser session. Each connection remains open for the duration of the session and transmits minimal data—an initial handshake and a single sign-out notification.

The server maintains one idle TCP connection per active session. Modern asynchronous web servers handle numerous long-lived connections efficiently. On the client side, a SharedWorker manages a single SSE connection shared across all open portal tabs, minimizing redundant connections.

In environments with many concurrent sessions, the primary resource consideration is the number of open connections. However, the overall performance impact remains negligible under typical workloads.