Get Ubuntu Pro on Azure

What is Ubuntu Pro?

Ubuntu Pro is an additional stream of security updates and packages that meet compliance requirements such as FIPS or HIPAA, on top of an Ubuntu LTS. Ubuntu LTS ships with five years of standard security maintenance. Ubuntu Pro extends this to 10 years through Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM), and the Legacy add-on extends ESM by a further five years, for up to 15 years total. ESM covers the main and universe repositories, including 40,000+ packages in universe. To learn more about Ubuntu Pro you can read this FAQ or see Ubuntu Security on Azure.

How to get Ubuntu Pro on Azure?

New instances

For new instances or instances that are easy to redeploy (e.g. launched programmatically in a CI/CD pipeline), the best option is to redeploy onto a new Azure Ubuntu Pro instance. These Ubuntu Pro instances on Azure attach to their entitlements automatically and will receive all the Pro features by default without further steps. Pro offers on Azure are listed at: Ubuntu Pro Offers.

Running instances

For running instances, you can perform an in-place upgrade from Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Pro without requiring any downtime. Using the Azure CLI, enable Ubuntu Pro on an instance by running:

az vm update -g myResourceGroup -n myVmName --license-type UBUNTU_PRO

SSH into the instance and run:

sudo apt install ubuntu-pro-client
sudo pro auto-attach

Note

The change of the “licenseType” property may take some time to propagate through the system. If the auto-attach process fails, please wait for a few minutes and try again. If the auto-attach process continues to fail, please open a support ticket with Microsoft.

To verify that Ubuntu Pro is enabled on your instance run:

pro status --all --wait