NATS

Deploy NATS (Neural Autonomic Transport System), an open source messaging system for distributed applications, microservices, and Internet of Things workloads.

This app installs a single NATS server with TLS, WebSocket, MQTT, and monitoring support.

1. Deploy NATS

Estimated deployment time: 2–5 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: 1308539

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.
Email address (for the Let's Encrypt SSL certificate)	`soa_email_address`	The email address used for generating SSL certificates.
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.
Linode API token	`token_password`	Applies to a custom domain. The 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`	Applies to a custom domain. The subdomain you want to use, like `blog` for `blog.example.com`. Use it only if you specify a Domain.
Domain	`domain`	Applies to a custom domain. The domain name you want to use, like `example.com`. Use it only if you specify a Linode API token.
NATS Server Name	`name`	The name assigned to the NATS server. Defaults to Test.
Version	`version`	The NATS version to install. Defaults to 2.10.1.
NATS Server Port	`nats_port`	The client connection port. Defaults to 4222.
NATS Websocket Port	`websocket_port`	The WebSocket connection port. Defaults to 8888.
NATS MQTT Port	`mqtt_port`	The MQTT connection port. Defaults to 1883.
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

Notes:

By default, this deployment creates two users, an example user and a system user. The passwords for these users are generated and stored in the .credentials file in the home directory. Log in to your instance as root through the Lish console or SSH, then run cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials to view its contents. For details, see NATS Authorization.

You can automatically configure a custom domain (optional) during deployment. To do that:

Configure your domain to use Linode's name servers via your registrar. See Configure your domain's authoritative name servers for details.

Once you complete that, specify the Linode API token, subdomain, and domain for the app in Cloud Manager or via API/CLI/Terraform.

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-dedicated-4",
    "image": "linode/ubuntu24.04",
    "label": "my-nats-one-click-app",
    "root_pass": "@C0mpl3x#P@ssw0rd",
    "stackscript_id": 1308539,
    "stackscript_data": {
      "user_name": "jsmith",
      "soa_email_address": "jsmith@example.com"
    }
  }'

linode-cli linodes create \
  --region us-east \
  --type g6-dedicated-4 \
  --label my-nats-one-click-app \
  --image linode/ubuntu24.04 \
  --root_pass @C0mpl3x#P@ssw0rd \
  --stackscript_id 1308539 \
  --stackscript_data '{"user_name":"jsmith", "soa_email_address":"jsmith@example.com"}'

resource "linode_instance" "my-linode" {
  region         = "us-east"
  type           = "g6-dedicated-4"
  label          = "my-nats-one-click-app"
  image          = "linode/ubuntu24.04"
  root_pass      = "@C0mpl3x#P@ssw0rd"
  stackscript_id = 1308539
  stackscript_data = {
    "user_name"         = "jsmith"
    "soa_email_address" = "jsmith@example.com"
  }
}

2. Access the NATS Monitoring UI

nats-server provides a lightweight HTTP server on a dedicated monitoring port to monitor the NATS messaging system. The monitoring server includes several endpoints, providing statistics and other information.

To access the NATS monitoring endpoint:

Open a web browser and navigate to your custom domain or the instance's rDNS domain, such as 192-0-2-1.ip.linodeusercontent.com.
Use the generated application credentials to connect clients to the configured NATS, WebSocket, or MQTT port.

See the Monitoring NATS guide for details on the different endpoints, statistics, and other details you can access.

Additional resources

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

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