These are instructions for installing and starting the Smallstep Agent on a Linux server running systemd. If you want to install the agent binary manually instead, see Install the Smallstep agent on a Linux server (manual install).

System Requirements

• Supported operating systems:
  • Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, etc)
  • Ubuntu (Current Stable and LTS releases)
  • Debian (Current Releases)
  • Fedora (Current Releases)
• We support amd64 and arm64 architectures
• The following packages are used:
  • polkitd, to give the agent service manager privileges
  • p11-kit and tpm-tss2, for TPM 2.0 integration
• The following directories are used by default:
  • runtime state in /run/step-agent
  • configuration in /etc/step-agent
  • certificates in/var/lib/step-agent and in your configured locations
• The agent will connect to the following Smallstep hosts:
  • Your CA: <your-team>.ca.smallstep.com and subdomains
  • Agent API: control.infra.smallstep.com
  • Smallstep API: gateway.smallstep.com
  • TPM Attestation CA: att.smallstep.com

Install the Smallstep agent

Fedora

1. In the Terminal, add our package repository to your system:

   cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/smallstep.repo
   [smallstep]
   name=Smallstep
   baseurl=https://packages.smallstep.com/stable/fedora/
   enabled=1
   repo_gpgcheck=0
   gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://packages.smallstep.com/keys/smallstep-0x889B19391F774443.gpg
   EOF
   

2. Install the Smallstep agent:

   sudo dnf makecache && sudo dnf install -y step-agent-plugin
   

3. Check that it was installed correctly:

   step-agent-plugin version
   

   Output:

   🚀 step-agent-plugin/0.38.0 (linux/amd64)
      Release Date: 2024-10-10T14:55:48Z
   

CentOS

1. In the Terminal, add our package repository to your system:

   cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/smallstep.repo
   [smallstep]
   name=Smallstep
   baseurl=[<https://packages.smallstep.com/stable/el/>](<https://packages.smallstep.com/stable/el/>)
   enabled=1
   repo_gpgcheck=0
   gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=[<https://packages.smallstep.com/keys/smallstep-0x889B19391F774443.gpg>](<https://packages.smallstep.com/keys/smallstep-0x889B19391F774443.gpg>)
   EOF
   

2. Install the Smallstep agent:

   sudo dnf makecache && sudo dnf install -y step-agent-plugin
   

3. Check that it was installed correctly:

   step-agent-plugin version
   

   Output:

   🚀 step-agent-plugin/0.38.0 (linux/amd64)
      Release Date: 2024-10-10T14:55:48Z
   

Debian

1. In the Terminal, install dependencies:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends curl gpg ca-certificates