How to install Landscape Server with quickstart mode

The quickstart mode of deploying Landscape consists of installing all the necessary software on a single machine. Quickstart mode has limited scalability, so it may not be ideal for large production deployments.

If you’re new to Landscape and want to learn how it works first, see the Getting started with Landscape tutorial, which creates a test environment.

Check minimum requirements

The following minimum requirements are needed to install Landscape Server 24.04 LTS:

  • Operating system: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)

  • Hardware: A dual-core 2 GHz processor, 8 GB of RAM, and 20 GB of disk space

  • Networking: An IP address and FQDN with TCP communication allowed for SSH (typically port 22), HTTP (port 80), and HTTPS (port 443)

  • If you plan to use Lets Encrypt to obtain an SSL certificate, DNS administration access for the hostname you’ll use to access Landscape

Install Landscape Server

Install prerequisites

To install prerequisites, run:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ca-certificates software-properties-common

The add-apt-repository command line utility is necessary to add the PPA which contains the Landscape Server software. The software-properties-common package must be added to access add-apt-repository.

Set environment variables

To set the necessary environment variables, run:

HOST_NAME=<HOST_NAME>
DOMAIN=<DOMAIN_NAME>
FQDN=$HOST_NAME.$DOMAIN

This code block includes the following values that must be changed:

<HOST_NAME>: The host name you’re using for the Landscape installation

<DOMAIN_NAME>: The domain name you’re using for the Landscape installation

It’s important to set HOST_NAME, DOMAIN and FQDN correctly prior to installing Landscape Server. These variables are used by other commands later.

Set the machine’s host name

To set the machine’s host name, run:

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname "$FQDN"

When Landscape Server is installed, it’ll read the machine’s host name and use it in the Apache configuration.

Attach your Ubuntu Pro token

If you have an Ubuntu Pro subscription, attach your Pro token to the server machine. For guidance, see How to attach your Ubuntu Pro subscription.

Install landscape-server-quickstart

To install landscape-server-quickstart:

  1. Add the PPA for Landscape Server, replacing <LANDSCAPE_PPA> with the appropriate repository:

    sudo add-apt-repository -y <LANDSCAPE_PPA>

    • <LANDSCAPE_PPA>: The PPA for the specific Landscape installation you’re using. The PPA for the most recent Landscape LTS is: ppa:landscape/self-hosted-24.04. The PPA for Landscape’s stable rolling release is: ppa:landscape/latest-stable. Use an LTS for production deployments.

  2. Update packages and dependencies in your local system:

    sudo apt-get update

  3. Install landscape-server-quickstart:

    sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y landscape-server-quickstart

    • This installation takes approximately five minutes.

Install an SSL certificate

Note

If you have the fullchain.pem and privkey.pem files for your SSL certificate, skip these steps and configure Apache manually. For more details, see how to configure the web server in the Landscape manual installation guide.

Install Certbot

Certbot is a command line utility which makes acquiring and renewing SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt an easy, free, and automated process. You can install Certbot with the snap or apt package manager.

To install Certbot with snap:

sudo snap install certbot --classic

Or apt:

sudo apt-get install certbot python3-certbot-apache -y

Get an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt

If your Landscape instance has a public IP, and your FQDN resolves to that public IP, run the following to get a valid SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt:

sudo certbot --non-interactive --apache --no-redirect --agree-tos --email <EMAIL@ADDRESS.COM> --domains $FQDN

Replace <EMAIL@ADDRESS.COM> with an email address where certificate renewal reminders can be sent.

Create a global administrator account

At this point, visiting https://HOST_NAME.DOMAIN prompts you to create Landscape’s first Global Administrator account. To add administrators:

  1. Click Settings

  2. Set a valid outgoing email address in the System email address field

  3. Click Save

By default, the email address will be pre-filled with noreply@HOST_NAME.DOMAIN. You may want to change this to noreply@DOMAIN, or another valid email address.

(Optional) Configure Postfix for email

You can configure Postfix to handle Landscape Server email notifications and alerts. For details, see How to configure Postfix for emails.

Next step: Register your clients

Your Landscape server is now ready to manage client instances. To register clients:

  1. See How to install Landscape Client for instructions on installation and registration.

  2. When registering clients, attach an Ubuntu Pro token to each client machine to enable Pro services. If you don’t have a token, you can get a free personal Ubuntu Pro subscription at ubuntu.com/pro.

For more details, see How to attach your Ubuntu Pro subscription and How to enable Landscape in the Ubuntu Pro Client.