MAAS is relatively easy to install and configure. Let's give it a try.
Note that support for PostgreSQL version 12 is deprecated for MAAS version 3.4, and will be discontinued in MAAS 3.5. We recommend upgrading to PostgreSQL version 14 before installing MAAS 3.4.
To install MAAS 3.4 from a snap:
Check the MAAS installation requirements to make sure that your hardware will support MAAS.
Enter the following command:
sudo snap install --channel=latest/edge maas
At this point, the snap will download and install from the 3.4 channel.
When installing MAAS on Ubuntu, there can be conflicts between the existing NTP client, systemd-timesyncd, and the NTP client/server provided by MAAS, chrony. This can lead to time synchronization issues, especially if MAAS is configured with different upstream NTP servers than the ones used by systemd-timesyncd. To avoid conflicts, users can manually disable and stop systemd-timesyncd using the following command:
sudo systemctl disable --now systemd-timesyncd
Also note that support for PostgreSQL 12 has been deprecated in MAAS 3.3 and will be discontinued in MAAS 3.5.
How to check the status of MAAS services
To check the status of running services, enter:
sudo maas status
Typical output looks like this:
bind9 RUNNING pid 7999, uptime 0:09:17
dhcpd STOPPED Not started
dhcpd6 STOPPED Not started
ntp RUNNING pid 8598, uptime 0:05:42
postgresql RUNNING pid 8001, uptime 0:09:17
proxy STOPPED Not started
rackd RUNNING pid 8000, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-0 RUNNING pid 8003, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-1 RUNNING pid 8008, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-2 RUNNING pid 8005, uptime 0:09:17
regiond:regiond-3 RUNNING pid 8015, uptime 0:09:17
tgt RUNNING pid 8040, uptime 0:09:15
Your mileage may vary.
To switch a machine from from rack to region:
sudo maas init region
How to list additional MAAS initialisation options
The init command can takes optional arguments. To list them, as well as read a brief description of each, you can enter:
sudo maas init --help