Astra Linux on a cloud server

We don’t offer a ready-made Astra Linux image, so you install the system from your own image. The distribution and the licence come from the vendor and its partners — for details, see the Astra Linux website. For a server, use Special Edition: Common Edition is no longer updated or licensed for organisations. The commands below are for Astra Linux Special Edition 1.8.

Installation

1. Tell our support team through the contact form which image you need, and we will agree how to add it to the list of available images.
2. While the old system is still running, note down its address, netmask and gateway with ip -4 addr and ip route. You will need to set up networking by hand in the new system.
3. In your control panel, open the server, go to the “Operating system” tab, choose “Install from image” → “Select image”, pick your image and choose “Attach and boot”. The installation runs through the console — use the “Console” button at the top of the server page.
4. When you choose the software to install, tick the SSH remote access tools — otherwise you won’t be able to log in over SSH.
5. Once the installation has finished, choose “Detach image” → “Detach and boot from disk”.

For more on the buttons in the control panel, see Rebooting, reinstalling and taking snapshots of your server.

Straight after installation

Networking. In Astra Linux 1.8, networking is managed by NetworkManager. Look up the connection name and set the address:

nmcli con show
sudo nmcli con mod "connection name" ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses 203.0.113.10/24 ipv4.gateway 203.0.113.1 ipv4.dns "DNS server addresses"
sudo nmcli con down "connection name"; sudo nmcli con up "connection name"

Replace the examples with the address, netmask, gateway and DNS servers you noted down before the installation.

VMware tools. So that the “Shut down” and “Reboot” buttons in your control panel work properly, rather than just cutting the power or forcing a restart, install open-vm-tools:

sudo apt install open-vm-tools

SSH. If you didn’t install the SSH server during setup, run sudo apt install ssh, then sudo systemctl enable --now ssh. By default, the root user can only log in over SSH with a key, so work under your own account and use sudo. For how to set up key-based login, see How to connect to a server over SSH.

Updating

The vendor doesn’t allow Astra Linux to be updated with apt upgrade or apt dist-upgrade — use its own tool instead:

sudo apt update
sudo astra-update -A -r -T

Before updating, disable any third-party repositories and take a snapshot of the server. The update log is in /var/log/astra_update_*.log. The vendor publishes what each update contains in its bulletins on wiki.astralinux.ru.

Repositories and software

Version 1.8 has two repositories: the main one and the extended one. They are defined in /etc/apt/sources.list and in the files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. The main repository looks like this:

deb https://dl.astralinux.ru/astra/stable/1.8_x86-64/main-repository/ 1.8_x86-64 main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

Software is installed as in Debian: sudo apt install name, and you search with apt search keyword. The vendor advises against adding Debian repositories: its support doesn’t cover a system set up that way. Programs from the extended repository are not certified, and there is no guarantee they will work with the protection features switched on.

Version and security level

Protection features are switched on and off with utilities that take the same commands: enable, disable and status. astra-mic-control controls mandatory integrity control, astra-digsig-control controls the closed software environment, and astra-ufw-control controls the ufw firewall. Most changes take effect after a reboot.

The full documentation is at wiki.astralinux.ru.