How to attach your Ubuntu Pro subscription

Note

You must be running Landscape Server 23.03 or above and Landscape Client 23.02 or above to use the Ubuntu Pro Client to attach your Pro subscription to Landscape.

Attaching the Ubuntu Pro subscription to Ubuntu brings you the enterprise lifecycle, including Linux kernel livepatching, access to FIPS-validated packages, and compliance with security profiles such as CIS. This is not required for Ubuntu Pro instances through public clouds such as AWS, Azure or GCP, since these are automatically attached from launch.

The following instructions explain how to attach your Ubuntu Pro subscription to your Ubuntu systems.

Note that Ubuntu Pro isn’t just for enterprise customers. Anyone can get a personal Ubuntu Pro subscription for free on up to 5 machines, or 50 if you are an official Ubuntu Community member.

Manual attachment per-client

Step 1: Install the Ubuntu Pro Client

This step is necessary for Ubuntu Pro users or holders of personal subscriptions. If you are an Ubuntu Pro user through a public cloud offering, your subscription is already attached and you can skip these instructions.

First, make sure that you have the latest version of the Ubuntu Pro Client running. The package used to access the Pro Client (pro) is ubuntu-advantage-tools:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install ubuntu-advantage-tools

If you already have ubuntu-advantage-tools installed, this install command will upgrade the package to the latest version.

Step 2: Attach your subscription

To attach your machine to a subscription, run the following command in your terminal:

sudo pro attach

You should see output like this, giving you a link and a code:

ubuntu@test:~$ sudo pro attach
Initiating attach operation...

Please sign in to your Ubuntu Pro account at this link:
https://ubuntu.com/pro/attach
And provide the following code: H31JIV

Open the link without closing your terminal window.

In the field that asks you to enter your code, copy and paste the code shown in the terminal. Then, choose which subscription you want to attach to. By default, the Free Personal Token will be selected.

If you have a paid subscription and want to attach to a different token, you may want to log in first so that your additional tokens will appear.

Once you have pasted your code and chosen the subscription you want to attach your machine to, click Submit.

The attach process will then continue in the terminal window, and you should eventually be presented with the following message:

Attaching the machine...
Enabling default service esm-apps
Updating Ubuntu Pro: ESM Apps package lists
Ubuntu Pro: ESM Apps enabled
Enabling default service esm-infra
Updating Ubuntu Pro: ESM Infra package lists
Ubuntu Pro: ESM Infra enabled
Enabling default service livepatch
Installing snapd snap
Installing canonical-livepatch snap
Canonical Livepatch enabled
This machine is now attached to 'Ubuntu Pro - free personal subscription'

When the machine has successfully been attached, you will also see a summary of which services are enabled and information about your subscription.

Available services can be enabled or disabled on the command line with pro enable <service name> and pro disable <service name> after you have attached.

Automated attachment across multiple clients

Note

You must be running Landscape Server 25.10 or above and Landscape Client 25.10 or above to use automated attachment on clients for licensing.

This feature is available on self-hosted and select accounts on SaaS. It is not generally available to all SaaS accounts and is unavailable for offline client deployments as well as snap and Core devices.

Step 1: Enable Ubuntu Pro management on Landscape Client

On each instance you want to manage, do the following:

  1. Edit the client configuration file /etc/landscape/client.conf, add this line:

    include_manager_plugins = ProManagement

    If your client.conf already includes an include_manager_plugins line, then add ProManagement to it. For example:

    include_manager_plugins = ScriptExecution,ProManagement

  2. Restart Landscape Client:

    sudo systemctl restart landscape-client

Step 2: Register clients with Landscape Server

You first need to register your client machines with Landscape Server. At this stage, your clients will be considered “unlicensed”. Landscape will be aware of the client, but Ubuntu Pro must be added for Landscape to fully license and manage the client.

Step 3: Attach Ubuntu Pro to registered clients

To attach Ubuntu Pro in the web portal:

  1. Go to Instances

  2. Select your instance(s) that you want to attach an Ubuntu Pro subscription to

  3. Click Attach Token

  4. Provide your token and complete the remaining prompts

This will send a separate activity to each client to attach Ubuntu Pro. After the activity succeeds, that client will become licensed.