Requirements

Supported platforms, hardware, ports and network requirements, and what the installer refuses to run on.

The installer checks every one of these before it changes anything. If a check fails it stops and says so, and the server is left exactly as it was.

Supported platforms


Operating system	Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS or 26.04 LTS. Nothing else.
Architecture	`x86_64` or `aarch64`.
Init system	systemd.
Access	root, via `sudo`.

Any other distribution, release or architecture is refused outright:

unsupported OS: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
     Supported: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.
     Nothing has been changed on this server.

Use a fresh server. The panel will share an existing nginx or Apache rather than fight it (see Ports), but it is designed for a box it sets up from the start.

Hardware


Disk	At least 3 GB free on `/var`. The install refuses below that. Plan for considerably more — your applications, databases and backups all live there.
Memory	3 GB of RAM plus swap, because the panel's web interface is compiled on the server during install. Below that, the build is killed part-way.
Swap	The installer creates a 1 GB swapfile if the server has none, and leaves an adequate existing one alone.

A 2 GB server with no swap gets a swapfile and then builds fine. A 1 GB server is not enough.

Ports

The panel needs 80 and 443.

If something is already listening on either port, the installer looks at what:

What holds the port	What happens
The panel's own web server	Treated as a re-run. Fine.
`nginx`, `apache2`, `httpd`, `litespeed`, `lshttpd`	Fine — the panel adds one vhost beside whatever is already there. It never rewrites global config, and a config test gates every reload.
Anything else	Fatal. Stop that service and run the installer again.

The installer also adds ufw rules for SSH, 80 and 443 — and deliberately does not enable ufw if it is off. Enabling a firewall as a side effect of an install is how people lose SSH access to their own server.

Network and DNS

You need one of:

Your own domain, with an A record already pointing at the server. Pass it as --domain=panel.example.com.
Nothing at all — the installer falls back to a nip.io address derived from the server's public IP, so 203.0.113.10 becomes panel.203-0-113-10.nip.io. No DNS to configure.

Outbound HTTPS is needed during install (package repositories, the panel's source, Let's Encrypt). A server behind NAT or on a private address still installs, but a nip.io name built from a private IP only resolves usefully from inside that network — the installer warns when it spots one.

What the installer puts on the server

Beyond the panel itself, it installs the stack you choose, plus Redis, SQLite, supervisor, Composer, Node (via fnm) and the build toolchain. Nothing is installed that the panel does not use.

Known platform limits

MongoDB is not available on Ubuntu 26.04

MongoDB does not publish server packages for Ubuntu 26.04 (resolute) yet — only the database tools. The panel greys out the MongoDB card on 26.04 and says why, rather than offering an install that cannot work. Every other engine is unaffected. If you need MongoDB today, install the panel on 24.04.

OpenLiteSpeed has no per-site PHP isolation. On the ols stack every site shares one PHP build, with no per-site pools. The 8G firewall and the bot blocker both work. The installer says this once, at stack selection. See Installation.