Install Rudder root server

on Amazon Linux 2023

If you are working on a test system, you can use the quick install script:

curl https://repository.rudder.io/tools/rudder-setup | bash -s setup-server 8.1

That will automatically execute the installation, and you can go directly to the Initial configuration section below.

Before installation

Before all, you need to set up a server according to the server specifications. You should also configure the network.

As Rudder data can grow really fast depending on your number of managed nodes and number of rules, it is advised to separate partitions to prevent /var getting full and break your system.

Installation

Each official package is signed with our GPG signature. To ensure the packages you will install are official builds and have not been altered, import our key into rpm using the following command:

rpm --import https://repository.rudder.io/rpm/rudder_rpm_key.pub

Our key fingerprint is:

pub  1024R/6F07D355 2012-11-09 Rudder Project (RPM release key) <security@rudder-project.org>
      Key fingerprint = 1141 A947 CDA0 4E83 82C1  B9C4 ADAB 3BD3 6F07 D355

Add a yum repository for Rudder:

echo '[Rudder_8.1]
name=Rudder 8.1
baseurl=http://repository.rudder.io/rpm/8.1/AL_2023/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repository.rudder.io/rpm/rudder_rpm_key.pub' > /etc/yum.repos.d/rudder.repo

If you have an active subscription, use the following to get access to long term support (you need to replace the username and the password by your Rudder account):

echo '[Rudder_8.1]
name=Rudder 8.1
username=LOGIN
password=PASSWORD
baseurl=http://download.rudder.io/rpm/8.1/AL_2023/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.rudder.io/rpm/rudder_rpm_key.pub' > /etc/yum.repos.d/rudder.repo

To be able to install plugins on your Rudder server, you will need to replace the gnupg2-minimal package by the gnupg2 package. To begin the installation, you should simply install the rudder-server meta-package, which will install the required components:

yum swap gnupg2-minimal gnupg2
yum install rudder-server

Initial configuration

User account

Now the installation is complete you need to create a first user account. The easiest way is to use the dedicated command to create a local admin user:

# Replace USERNAME by the user you want to create
rudder server create-user -u USERNAME

It will ask you a password twice and will create the user.

Read more about user account options in the dedicated section.

First connection

Once all these steps have been completed, use your web browser to go to the server URL. Use your first user credentials to connect.

Now you should go to Settings → General → Allowed Networks and check that the networks listed there properly include all your nodes network addresses. By default, this will contain your server’s attached networks.

The setup of the Rudder server is now over. If you plan to manage hundreds or thousands of nodes, please note that some performance tuning can be necessary on the system.

on Amazon Linux 2

To install a Rudder Server on Amazon Linux 2, you need a subscription and access to the private repositories.

Then make sure amazon-linux-extras is installed:

which amazon-linux-extras

If it is not installed, install it:

sudo yum install -y amazon-linux-extras

Finally, you need to install postgresql 11 and openjdk 11 (more recent versions should work too):

amazon-linux-extras install postgresql11 java-openjdk11-headless

Depending on your exact version of Amazon Linux 2 and corresponding repositories, java-openjdk11-headless may not be available. In that case, you may need to install java-11-amazon-corretto-headless (version of OpenJDK11 built and maintained by Amazon) or java-openjdk11 (non headless version of OpenJDK with some frontend related dependencies).

Finally, just follow the standard Rudder installation for RHEL/CentOS documentation.

As Amazon Linux 2 is based on RHEL 7, the Amazon Linux repository is still named RHEL_7 even if RHEL/CentOS 7 are not supported as Rudder servers anymore.

← on RHEL/CentOS on SLES →