How to Install Portainer on Ubuntu 25.10

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Portainer is a lightweight, open-source management tool for Docker that simplifies container, image, and volume management through an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI).
It provides a centralized platform to manage Docker environments and is ideal for both small setups and large-scale Docker deployments.

Prerequisites

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Before installing Portainer, ensure the following:

• Ubuntu 25.10 server is running.
• A user account with sudo privileges.
• Access to the internet to download Docker and Portainer.

Step 1: Update the System

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It's important to ensure your system is up-to-date. Run the following command to update and upgrade your packages:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install Docker

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Portainer requires Docker to be installed. If you don’t have Docker installed, follow these steps:

sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

Add Docker's GPG key and repository:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] \
https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME) stable" \
| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Install Docker:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Start and enable Docker:

sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl start docker

Check Docker status:

sudo systemctl status docker

Step 3: Install Portainer

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Once Docker is installed and running, you can install Portainer to manage your Docker containers.

Create a Docker volume for Portainer:

sudo docker volume create portainer_data

Download and run the Portainer container (latest LTS version):

sudo docker run -d \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  -p 9443:9443 \
  --name portainer \
  --restart=always \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v portainer_data:/data \
  portainer/portainer-ce:latest

Output:

root@vps:~# sudo docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 9443:9443 --name=portainer --restart=always \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:latest
Unable to find image 'portainer/portainer-ce:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from portainer/portainer-ce
2fdd3e02e7e5: Pull complete
3745b0e5e59c: Pull complete
d40df14c1d7a: Pull complete
8215717c7c10: Pull complete
542669febe7c: Pull complete
6c27c7f45b54: Pull complete
8acaeb74c182: Pull complete
c6e890230c95: Pull complete
bb1e24a5d5a1: Pull complete
4350eaf0c914: Pull complete
4f4fb700ef54: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:ff9ac3a6e57fb94a489bd3cc02bb0da3887cb2aa6ddbde3e429b1da2bd5826d5
Status: Downloaded newer image for portainer/portainer-ce:latest
5991bf668da074668030a61d360d223178a0315c94221c1726e7d95e17f6c389

Step 4: Access Portainer Web UI

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Open a web browser and navigate to:

https://<your-server-ip>:9443

Replace <your-server-ip> with the actual IP address of your server.

Set up the admin account by following the on-screen prompts.

Once logged in, you will be able to manage your Docker environment using Portainer.

Notes

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• The latest tag for Portainer CE now points to the LTS (Long Term Support) release.
• STS (Short Term Support) releases are available via specific tags (e.g., :sts).
• To use a specific version, replace latest with the version tag, for example:

portainer/portainer-ce:2.33.2

This concludes the guide on how to install Portainer on Ubuntu 25.10.