Deploy Backstage Developer Portal through the Linode Marketplace

Backstage is an open-source platform for building developer portals designed to simplify and unify software development processes. It provides a centralized hub for managing services, tools, and documentation. Backstage enables teams to improve efficiency, collaboration, and scalability across projects.

Prerequisites

The Backstage application for Cloud Manager is configured with a Github authentication and allows you to integrate pulling catalog entities from Github directly. Before you can deploy the One-Click application, you need to create an OAuth application and authorize it to use your domain name.

To learn how to configure authentication to Github, see Setting up authentication.

For reference, you can use the following image as a guideline to configure the OAuth application.

You only need to perform instructions from the linked sections. No need to perform following steps from linked pages. Once done, save the following data to use in the following steps:

• Client ID,
• Client Secret,
• Personal Access Token (not required).

Deploying a Marketplace App

The Linode Marketplace lets you easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using Cloud Manager. See Get Started with Marketplace Apps for complete steps.

1. Log in to Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

2. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

3. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

4. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has been provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

To verify that the app has been fully installed, see Get Started with Marketplace Apps > Verify Installation. Once installed, follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access the application and start using it.

Configuration Options

• Supported distributions: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Recommended minimum plan: All plan types and sizes can be used.

Backstage Options

• Your Linode API token (required): Linode API token to create DNS records for Backstage.
• The subdomain for the DNS record (required): Subdomain to be created for Backstage. Enter the same value you provided when creating the OAuth application in the previous section.
• The domain for the DNS record (required): The domain name for your Backstage instance. Enter the same value you provided when creating the OAuth application in the previous section.
• Email address (required): Email address to use for generating the SSL certificates and configuring the server and DNS records.
• Allowed IPs: IP addresses allowed to access the frontend. If no IP addresses are provided, the frontend will be accessible to the public. It’s highly recommended to enter your IP address.
• Backstage application name (required): The name for the Backstage application. The application will live under this name in backstage home directory.
• Github Oauth Client ID (required): OAuth Client ID created in Github, from the previous section.
• Github Oauth Client Secret (required): OAuth Client Secret created in Github, from the previous section.
• Github Username (required): Your Github username for you to authorize the Github backend authentication.
• Backstage Organization Name (required): The organization name that will be used in the backstage configuration.
• Github Personal Access Token: The personal access token to integrate Backstage with Github. This will you to load catalog entities from Github.

Limited Sudo User

You need to fill out the following fields to automatically create a limited sudo user, with a strong generated password for your new Compute Instance. This account will be assigned to the sudo group, which provides elevated permissions when running commands with the sudo prefix.

• Limited sudo user: Enter your preferred username for the limited user. No Capital Letters, Spaces, or Special Characters.

  Locating The Generated Sudo Password

  A password is generated for the limited user and stored in a .credentials file in their home directory, along with application specific passwords. This can be viewed by running: cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials

  For best results, add an account SSH key for the Cloud Manager user that is deploying the instance, and select that user as an authorized_user in the API or by selecting that option in Cloud Manager. Their SSH pubkey will be assigned to both root and the limited user.

• Disable root access over SSH: To block the root user from logging in over SSH, select Yes. You can still switch to the root user once logged in, and you can also log in as root through Lish.

  Accessing The Instance Without SSH

  If you disable root access for your deployment and do not provide a valid Account SSH Key assigned to the authorized_user, you will need to login as the root user via the Lish console and run cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials to view the generated password for the limited user.

Custom Domain (Optional)

If you wish to automatically configure a custom domain, you first need to configure your domain to use Linode’s name servers. This is typically accomplished directly through your registrar. See Use Linode’s Name Servers with Your Domain. Once that is finished, you can fill out the following fields for the Marketplace App:

• Linode API Token: If you wish to use the Linode’s DNS Manager to manage DNS records for your custom domain, create a Linode API Personal Access Token on your account with Read/Write access to Domains. If this is provided along with the subdomain and domain fields (outlined below), the installation attempts to create DNS records via the Linode API. See Get an API Access Token. If you do not provide this field, you need to manually configure your DNS records through your DNS provider and point them to the IP address of the new instance.
• Subdomain: The subdomain you wish to use, such as www for www.example.com.
• Domain: The domain name you wish to use, such as example.com.

Getting Started After Deployment

To get started with Backstage:

1. Open a web browser and navigate to your Backstage instance by using the domain name provided during the setup.

2. Log into your Github account for the authentication.

   

3. Go to the Settings tab, to see your authentication.

   

You are now ready to start working with Backstage.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Backstage
• Backstage documentation