How to get an Ubuntu Pro token and attach to a subscription#

Get an Ubuntu Pro token#

Retrieve your Ubuntu Pro token from the Ubuntu Pro portal. Log in with your “Single Sign On” credentials, the same credentials you use for https://login.ubuntu.com.

After you have logged in you can go to the Ubuntu Pro Dashboard associated with your user account. It will show you all subscriptions currently available to you and for each associated token.

Note that even without buying anything you can always obtain a free personal token that way, which provides you with access to several of the Ubuntu Pro services.

Attach to a subscription#

Once you have obtained your token, run the following command to attach your machine to a subscription:

$ sudo pro attach YOUR_TOKEN

You should see output like this, which indicates that you have successfully associated this machine with your account:

Enabling default service esm-infra
Updating package lists
ESM Infra enabled
This machine is now attached to 'Ubuntu Pro'

SERVICE       ENTITLED  STATUS    DESCRIPTION
esm-apps      yes       enabled   Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications
esm-infra     yes       enabled   Expanded Security Maintenance for Infrastructure
livepatch     yes       enabled   Canonical Livepatch service

NOTICES
Operation in progress: pro attach

Enable services with: pro enable <service>

Once the Ubuntu Pro Client is attached to your Ubuntu Pro account, you can use it to activate various services, including: access to ESM packages, Livepatch, FIPS, and CIS. Some features are specific to certain LTS releases.

Control of auto-enabled services#

Your subscription controls which services are available to you and which ones you can manage via the Ubuntu Pro Dashboard.

Recommended services are auto-enabled by default when attaching a machine. You can choose which of the available services will be automatically enabled or disabled when you attach by toggling them “on” or “off” in the Ubuntu Pro Dashboard.

Example from the Pro Dashboard with all recommended services toggled "on"

Available services can always be enabled or disabled on the command line with pro enable and pro disable after attaching.

If your subscription does not permit you to change the default enabled services via the Dashboard, or if you want to keep the defaults but do not want to auto-enable any services while attaching a particular machine, you can pass the --no-auto-enable flag to attach in the following way:

$ sudo pro attach YOUR_TOKEN --no-auto-enable