To install Ubuntu 20.04 Server it couldn’t be any easier. This article follows up the first step about deploying the Ubuntu Server on a VMware based homelab. The entire install runs through a text based wizard which once again uses the minimum resources. Ubuntu Server is a great choice to run and extend server based applications both in homelab and production environments too. This article focuses on Ubuntu 20.04 Server which also includes the LTS (Long Time Support) until April 2025 with security and Maintenance updates.
How to install Ubuntu 20.04 Server
Upon first boot the process to install Ubuntu 20.04 Server presents a wizard to select the desire language.
Importantly the keyboard layout plus additional variations. Of course the identify keyboard option to select special layouts.
In the next step the identified network adapter (ens160) tries to use a DHCP by default. In this case the DHCP requests are blocked as the network card will be setup manually. When multiple network cards are available, the wizard offers the options to create NIC bonding setup.
As expected in the next screen it is just a matter of providing the necessary details for the IP Address, Subnet, Gateway, DNS and domain suffix.
If the Server is behind a Web Proxy, the wizard offers the option to include this already, Very useful also to automatically download the latest updates during the setup.
Each setup comes with the “default” mirror. Of course, if there are other specific locations, these can be used as well. The list of mirrors is available on the Ubuntu website.
Next step is about the storage configuration. For a standard install, the default partitioning works great. Of course there are also advanced options to setup RAID configurations and even a custom layout for the boot, swap, root, home and other Linux file system locations.
By selecting the default option, next step is to review the proposed partitioning.
And a final confirmation before proceeding. Any existing disk layout will be removed. In this case the virtual disk provided is a new one so the operation is safe!
Next is to provide the details for the desired credentials.
As a recommended step the option to install the OpenSSH server as this will allow to easily manage the Ubuntu server remotely. For example with popular applications like PuTTY (Windows and Linux) or the ssh utility on linux and latest Windows releases.
One last step is to check all the additional server applications during the setup. These are only a few and possibly the most popular lately. Of course it is possible to install more at a later stage with the powerful command line and the built-in package managers like “apt”.
Once confirmed the step to install Ubuntu 20.04 Server takes only a few moments and a reboot is ready to start.
Ubuntu Server updates
As additional steps it is recommended to install the VMware tools and also check for the latest updates. All of this is doe through the command line. Upone first boot and login, the Ubuntu Server shows the most important info at a glance. Resources consumption as anticipated is very low.
Since the setup occurred in a VMware virtual machine, the installer already deployed the open-VM-tools. An easy way to eventually check the status is with:
- systemctl status open-vm-tools
which returns the details and the status of the open-VM-Tools service.
Next is to check for the latest updates. The quickest way is to issue:
- sudo apt update
which checks for the latest packages and updated the internal database as well.
Once executed the next step is to check and apply for available updates. Again with a single command:
- sudo apt list –upgradable
- sudo apt upgrade
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