# Overview

import { Aside } from '@astrojs/starlight/components';
import { Image } from 'astro:assets';

import homePageLight from '@/assets/screenshots/light/home-page.webp';
import homePageDark from '@/assets/screenshots/dark/home-page.webp';
import consolePageLight from '@/assets/screenshots/light/logging-console.webp';
import consolePageDark from '@/assets/screenshots/dark/logging-console.webp';
import healthStatusLight from '@/assets/screenshots/light/health-status.webp';
import healthStatusDark from '@/assets/screenshots/dark/health-status.webp';

The Kubetail web dashboard is a browser-based GUI that gives you a birds-eye view of your Kubernetes workloads and lets you follow multiple log streams in real-time.

You can run the dashboard in two ways:

- **On your desktop** — use the `kubetail` CLI to start a local dashboard server that authenticates against your cluster using your kubeconfig file. No cluster-side installation required. (See [Run on Desktop > Installation](/guides/desktop/installation))
- **In your cluster** — deploy the dashboard as a Kubernetes workload using Helm or YAML manifests, then access it via `kubectl port-forward`, `kubectl proxy`, or an ingress resource. (See [Run in Cluster > Installation](/guides/cluster/installation))

---

## Workloads

When you open the dashboard the first thing you'll see is a list of all your Kubernetes workloads:

<Image src={homePageLight} alt="Kubetail dashboard home page showing a list of Kubernetes workloads" class="dark:sl-hidden" />
<Image src={homePageDark} alt="Kubetail dashboard home page showing a list of Kubernetes workloads" class="light:sl-hidden" />

From here you can:

- Click **View** next to any workload to open its log console in a new tab
- Select multiple workloads using their checkboxes, then click **Open in Console** to view their logs merged into a single timeline

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## Logs

Once you select the logs you want to view and click through to the console you'll see a real-time tail of the logs:

<Image src={consolePageLight} alt="Kubetail dashboard logging console showing web server log streams" class="dark:sl-hidden" />
<Image src={consolePageDark} alt="Kubetail dashboard logging console showing web server log streams" class="light:sl-hidden" />

The dashboard supports two log delivery pipelines:

| Pipeline                                                            | Requires cluster install? | Features                                                           |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| [Kubernetes API (Basic)](/guides/dashboard/basic-features)     | No                        | Real-time log tailing, basic filtering                             |
| [Kubetail API (Advanced)](/guides/dashboard/advanced-features) | Yes                       | All basic features + log file sizes, last event timestamps, search |

By default the dashboard uses the Kubernetes API pipeline. Installing the Kubetail API in your cluster enables the advanced pipeline automatically.


<Aside type="tip">
For a deeper look at how each pipeline works, see the [Architecture](/concepts/architecture#log-delivery-pipelines) page.
</Aside>

---

## Health status

Click on the status dot in the lower-right corner to see the health of the dashboard's backend server, your cluster's Kubernetes API, and the optional Kubetail Cluster API:

<Image src={healthStatusLight} alt="Health status dialog showing server, Kubernetes API, and Kubetail API status" class="dark:sl-hidden" />
<Image src={healthStatusDark} alt="Health status dialog showing server, Kubernetes API, and Kubetail API status" class="light:sl-hidden" />