Install on an existing Ubuntu host¶

Before you start¶

Use a dedicated Ubuntu 26.04 host/VM, or the supported legacy Ubuntu 24.04 path. You need sudo, Internet access and private administrative access. Take a full backup or VM snapshot first. Do not use this route on a shared application server or a computer already running Kubernetes; use the existing-cluster route instead.

The installer checks architecture, available space (at least 40 GiB), existing Magic Stick/K3s state and required ports, including 443 and 9443. Passing preflight is not a guarantee that your chosen AI model fits.

Install¶

Download and inspect the script instead of piping a remote download into a root shell:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/QualityMinds/AIppliance-Magic-Stick/main/install-from-linux.sh \
  -o /tmp/install-from-linux.sh
less /tmp/install-from-linux.sh
sudo bash /tmp/install-from-linux.sh --preflight-only
sudo bash /tmp/install-from-linux.sh

The wrapper shows the source and target directory, checks out the requested source, creates the new-install marker once, and invokes host convergence. By default the host and Flux continue following main, the release channel, just like USB, cloud-init and existing-cluster installations. --ref develop explicitly selects development builds. A supplied release tag or full commit SHA stays pinned; use --help for the supported options. See release channels. The host's Ubuntu release and existing kernel flavor are not silently replaced.

Verify and continue¶

sudo systemctl status k3s --no-pager
sudo k3s kubectl get nodes
sudo magicstick setup show

Complete first administrator setup, then verify the appliance. If a download or package step fails, inspect host logs before retrying.

Existing Magic Stick installations¶

This wrapper is a new-installation tool, not an update or reset command. Never recreate /var/lib/magicstick/setup/new-install on an established appliance. Use updates and rollback instead. An Ubuntu 24.04 installation stays on 24.04 until a separately planned OS migration.

For platform maintainers, the canonical manual sequence is implemented in install-from-linux.sh and the host playbook; do not maintain a second hand-copied bootstrap procedure with different safety checks.