Installing Ignition on a Linux Desktop

Since Ignition 8 it is really simple to install Ignition in a headlessLinux linux serverdesktop environment. A java runtime is no longer neededneeded, as Ignition ships with its own built in correctly licensed java executable. There is just one gotcha, and that is downloading the linux install file to your headless server. The inductive automation website wont let you directly download the file from the link provided from the website, as it is expecting the referrer to be the inductive automation website itself.

1. Downloading Ignition To Your ServerDesktop

Once you have your Ubuntu install running and ready and you have logged in via SSH, copy the following into your terminal window, don’t hit enter because we’ll be pasting the download location right after it:

curl -L -O -H 'Referer: https://inductiveautomation.com/downloads/ignition' 

Go to the inductiveInductive downloads page https://inductiveautomation.com/downloads/ in your browser (on Linux, this is most likely Firefox).

Downloading from a different computer

ClickIf downloading from another computer, click on other operating systemssystems, find the Linux Installer 6464-bit bitdownload, and right-click the link and select open in a new tab.

It should download andthe rightinstaller without prompting to fill out a form. If it does prompt to fill out a form, at the very bottom in small gray text, there's a sentence that is clickable that states you can skip the download form. Just click it and it should download.

Copy this installer to a flash drive to use on multiple Linux PCs. When you plug it into a Linux PC, copy the location.installer to the Downloads folder in the file explorer.

Downloading directly to the Linux desktop

NowIf pastedownloading directly on the Linux desktop, click on the download button, and most likely it will prompt you to fill out a form. If it does prompt to fill out a form, at the very bottom in small gray text, there's a sentence that locationis afterclickable that states you can skip the curldownload commandform. fromJust above,click it and pressit enter toshould download it to your server.Downloads You should end up with a line similar to this:

curl -L -O -H 'Referer: https://inductiveautomation.com/downloads/ignition' https://files.inductiveautomation.com/release/ia/8.1.17/20220512-1059/ignition-8.1.17-linux-64-installer.run

Once it has finished downloading we just need to make it executable and then we can run and install.folder.

2. Make the Ignition Installer Executable

Open a terminal window either through the application launcher, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T

Change the directory to the current user's download folder with the following command:

cd ~/Downloads

If you dorun an ls -alh command in the downloadedDownloads directoryfolder, you’ll see your downloaded executable, but you’ll also notice that the only attributes that are set are Read and Write. (Sometimes if copying the file from a flash drive, the executable permissions are already set, but running the following commands will guarantee that they are set.)

To fix thisthis, we use the chmod command. Type the following, but replace with the versionfile that you have downloaded.

When typing in linuxLinux terminals you can use the <tab> key to autocomplete, so to type the below command just type chmod +x Ign and then press tab to autocomplete. Your command should look something like this:

chmod +x ignition-8.1.17-linux-64-installer.run 

4. Create an Ignition User

Add a user for Ignition to run as with the following command:

sudo adduser ignition

Document and use a secure password, but all of the other user information can be left blank.

3. InstallingInstalling/Upgrading

We have to run the Ignition installer as root,next, so we will use the sudofollowing command.command (again, if you start typing ./igni and press <tab>, it will probably auto-complete the rest of the line for you).

sudo ./ignition-8.1.17-linux-64-installer.run

Initially after running the installer, you willmay get some warnings/errors, but these are only related to the lackrunning ofthe installer from a desktop/windowedcommand/terminal interfacewindow.

so

The installation most likely will just use all defaults and if you're upgrading, it fallsshould backdetect that a previous version is installed if you selected the same folder as the previous installation (we like to akeep commandour lineinstallation installer.folders as defaults).

Accept the defaults with the exception of the user which will use the "ignition" user we added above and your ignition will be installed in less than a minute.