How to Install Cockpit on Ubuntu 20.04

Introduction

Cockpit is a popular open-source tool for Linux server management through a web interface. It offers features such as storage administration, system monitoring, and service management.

Prerequisites

Before beginning this guide:

• Deploy an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS cloud server at Vultr.
• Update the server.
• Create a non-root user with sudo privileges.
• Log in to your server as the non-root user.

1. Install Cockpit

Install Cockpit from the official Ubuntu 20.04 repositories.

$ sudo apt install cockpit -y

2. Start the Cockpit service

Start the Cockpit service using the systemctl utility.

$ sudo systemctl start cockpit

Verify the status of the Cockpit service.

$ sudo systemctl status cockpit

3. Configure the Firewall

Configure UFW to allow the Cockpit Web Interface (tcp port 9090).

$ sudo ufw allow 9090/tcp

See the UFW Quickstart Guide for more information.

4. Access the Cockpit Web Console

Open the web console in a browser. Replace example.com with your server's IP address.

http://example.com:9090

Log in to Cockpit with the credentials of a system user.

Conclusion

In this guide, you've installed Cockpit. You can manage your server through the Cockpit web console and perform various system administration operations.

More Information

To learn more about Cockpit, go to the official documentation page.