Backstage

Deploy Backstage, an open source platform for building developer portals. It provides a centralized hub for managing services, tools, and documentation, helping teams improve efficiency, collaboration, and scalability across projects.

What you need

This app is configured with GitHub authentication and allows you to pull catalog entities from GitHub directly. Before deploying the app, create an OAuth application and authorize it to use your domain name.

See Setting up authentication for instructions on how to configure authentication to Github.

Optionally, you can configure the GitHub integration, though it's not required for deployment.

Once complete, save the following values for use during deployment:

Client ID
Client Secret
Personal Access Token (optional)

1. Deploy Backstage

Estimated deployment time: 3–5 minutes

Follow the deployment instructions from the Get started section to configure the app, deploy it, and verify software installation.

For information on the app-specific configurations, see the Configuration options section.

Base distribution and plan

Supported distribution: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Recommended plans: All plan types and sizes can be used.

Configuration options

Configure the required options to deploy your instance. For additional customization, add advanced options.

The table maps the Cloud Manager UI fields to their corresponding API/CLI keys (stackscript_data) required for automated deployments.

StackScript ID: 1646305

UI field	API/CLI key	Description
Required options
Limited sudo user	`user_name`	Your preferred username for the limited sudo user entered without any capital letters, spaces, or special characters. When adding a limited sudo user, the user is created with a strong generated password for your new Linode instance, and the account is assigned to the `sudo` group, which provides elevated permissions when running commands with the `sudo` prefix. Note: For easier and more secure access with the sudo user, add an account SSH key for the Cloud Manager user during deployment and select that user as an `authorized_user`. Their SSH pubkey will be assigned to both the root and limited user.
Linode API token	`token_password`	A valid Linode API token if you want to use Linode's DNS Manager to manage DNS records for your custom domain. Follow Manage personal access tokens to get your token on your account with `Read/Write` access to `Domains`. If you provide the token along with the subdomain and domain, the installation attempts to create DNS records via the Linode API. If you don't provide the token, you need to manually configure your DNS records through your DNS provider and point them to the IP address of the new instance.
Subdomain	`subdomain`	The subdomain to be created for Backstage. Enter the same value you provided when creating the OAuth application.
Domain	`domain`	The domain name for your Backstage instance. Enter the same value you provided when creating the OAuth application.
Email address (for the Let's Encrypt SSL certificate)	`soa_email_address`	The email address used for generating SSL certificates and configuring the server and DNS records.
Backstage application name	`backstage_appname`	The name for the Backstage application. The application lives under this name in the Backstage home directory.
GitHub OAuth Client ID	`github_oauth_client_id`	The OAuth Client ID created in GitHub during the prerequisite steps.
GitHub OAuth Client Secret	`github_oauth_client_secret`	The OAuth Client Secret created in GitHub during the prerequisite steps.
GitHub Username	`github_username`	Your GitHub username, used to authorize the GitHub backend authentication.
Backstage Organization Name	`backstage_orgname`	The organization name used in the Backstage configuration.
Advanced options
Disable root access over SSH	`disable_root`	Applies to a limited sudo user. To block the root user from logging in over SSH, select Yes. Defaults to No. Note: When you disable the root user from logging in over SSH and don't provide a valid Account SSH Key assigned to the `authorized_user`, you can still switch to the root user. To do that, log in as root via the Lish console and run `cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials` to view the generated password for the limited sudo user.
Optional data exporter Add-ons	`add_ons`	An option to include add-ons for your deployment. Possible values are: none (default) newrelic node_exporter mysqld_exporter
IP addresses	`allowed_ips`	IP addresses allowed to access the frontend. If no IP addresses are provided, the frontend is accessible to the public. We recommend entering your IP address.
GitHub Personal Access Token	`github_pat`	The personal access token used to integrate Backstage with GitHub, allowing you to load catalog entities from GitHub.

Note: After the app deployment completes, the password for your limited sudo user is generated and stored in the .credentials file in the home directory, along with application-specific passwords. Log in to your instance as root through the Lish console or SSH, then run cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials to view its contents.

Use API, CLI, or Terraform

In addition to deploying the app to a new Linode instance via Cloud Manager, you can also use the Linode API, CLI, or Terraform. When running the operation, you need to provide the StackScript ID, supported Linux distribution, and app-specific fields along with the standard Linode deployment configurations.

Note: Generate a personal access token to authenticate your API, CLI, or Terraform requests.

curl --location 'https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/instances' \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --header 'Accept: application/json' \
    --header 'Authorization: Bearer abc123def456hij789klm' \
    --data-raw '{
        "region": "us-east",
        "type": "g6-standard-2",
        "image": "linode/ubuntu24.04",
        "label": "my-backstage-one-click-app",
        "root_pass": "@C0mpl3x#P@ssw0rd",
        "stackscript_id": 1646305,
        "stackscript_data": {
            "user_name": "jsmith",
            "token_password": "abc123def456hij789klm",
            "subdomain": "blog",
            "domain": "example.com",
            "soa_email_address": "jsmith@example.com",
            "backstage_appname": "my-backstage-app",
            "github_oauth_client_id": "abc123def456",
            "github_oauth_client_secret": "abc123def456hij789klm",
            "github_username": "jsmith",
            "backstage_orgname": "example-org"
        }
    }'

linode-cli linodes create \
    --region us-east \
    --type g6-standard-2 \
    --label my-backstage-one-click-app \
    --image linode/ubuntu24.04 \
    --root_pass @C0mpl3x#P@ssw0rd \
    --stackscript_id 1646305 \
    --stackscript_data '{"user_name":"jsmith", "token_password":"abc123def456hij789klm", "subdomain":"blog", "domain":"example.com", "soa_email_address":"jsmith@example.com", "backstage_appname":"my-backstage-app", "github_oauth_client_id":"abc123def456", "github_oauth_client_secret":"abc123def456hij789klm", "github_username":"jsmith", "backstage_orgname":"example-org"}'

resource "linode_instance" "my-linode" {
    region         = "us-east"
    type           = "g6-standard-2"
    label          = "my-backstage-one-click-app"
    image          = "linode/ubuntu24.04"
    root_pass      = "@C0mpl3x#P@ssw0rd"
    stackscript_id = 1646305
    stackscript_data = {
        "user_name"                  = "jsmith"
        "token_password"             = "abc123def456hij789klm"
        "subdomain"                  = "blog"
        "domain"                     = "example.com"
        "soa_email_address"          = "jsmith@example.com"
        "backstage_appname"          = "my-backstage-app"
        "github_oauth_client_id"     = "abc123def456"
        "github_oauth_client_secret" = "abc123def456hij789klm"
        "github_username"            = "jsmith"
        "backstage_orgname"          = "example-org"
    }
}

2. Access the Backstage web UI

Open a web browser and navigate to your Backstage instance using the domain name you provided during deployment.
Log in to your GitHub account to complete authentication.
Go to the Settings tab to confirm your authentication.

You're now ready to start working with Backstage.

Additional resources

For more information about the installed packages, see their official documentation.

Backstage Documentation

📘
Note that we can't vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted resources.