Install Metabase with Nginx and SSL on Ubuntu 26.04

Metabase is an open-source business intelligence (BI) platform that lets you create dashboards, charts, and reports through an intuitive web interface. You can even ask questions about the data through a web-based interactive GUI.

In this tutorial, I will tell you how you can install Metabase on Ubuntu 26.04 with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt SSL. We will use MySQL as the application database for Metabase. You can even use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. We will use Nginx as our web server. Although, we will configure SSL too in this setup but to add more security, you can change SSH port and you can even configure Fail2ban.

So without talking much, let’s begin

Prerequisites

• A server with Ubuntu 26.04 installed
• A user with sudo privileges

Step 1 – Update the System

The first step is to update the system so that we will be able to install all the latest packages

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2 – Install and Setup Java

Next let’s install JDK. At the time of writing this tutorial, OpenJDK 25 is the current LTS release, so we’ll install it using the following command.

sudo apt install openjdk-25-jdk -y

Let’s verify the installation by checking java version

java -version

You should get an output as

OpenJDK version "25" 2025-09-16
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 25+35-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25+35-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1, mixed mode, sharing)

Step 3 – Download and Install Metabase

Next, let’s download and install Metabase from the official website using wget. But before that let’s first create a folder

sudo mkdir /opt/metabase
cd /opt/metabase
wget https://downloads.metabase.com/latest/metabase.jar

Step 4 – Create Metabase Service File

Now we will create a Metabase file so that we can manage it with systemd

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/metabase.service

Copy and paste the following

[Unit]
Description=Metabase server
After=network.target

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/opt/metabase
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar /opt/metabase/metabase.jar
User=metabase
Type=simple
Restart=always
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=metabase

Environment=MB_DB_TYPE=mysql
Environment=MB_DB_HOST=localhost
Environment=MB_DB_PORT=3306
Environment=MB_DB_DBNAME=metabase
Environment=MB_DB_USER=metabaseuser
Environment=MB_DB_PASS=secure_password

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note:- Make sure to change 'secure_password' to a strong password.

Save by pressing ctrl+x,y and then Enter.

Step 5 – Create Metabase User

To manage Metabase services, let’s create a dedicated user for Metabase

sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false metabase
sudo chown -R metabase: /opt/metabase

Step 6 – Install and Configure MySQL

Next, let’s install and configure MySQL, which will be used as the application database for Metabase.

sudo apt install mysql-server -y

Now let’s setup the database

sudo mysql

CREATE DATABASE metabase;
CREATE USER 'metabaseuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'secure_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON metabase.* TO 'metabaseuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Note:- Make sure to change 'secure_password' to a strong password.

Step 7 – Start and Enable metabase Service

Now let’s start and enable the Metabase and daemon services

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start metabase
sudo systemctl enable metabase

To check if Metabase is running as intended you can check its status

sudo systemctl status metabase
sudo journalctl -u metabase -f

Step 8 – Updating Firewall

Now let’s configure the firewall to allow http and https connections

sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw reload

Step 9 – Install and Configure Nginx

Next let’s install and configure Nginx web server

sudo apt install nginx -y
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/metabase.example.com

paste the following

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name metabase.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
		proxy_http_version 1.1;
		proxy_read_timeout 600s;
    }
}

Now link the Nginx configuration file to sites-enabled

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/metabase.example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Let’s test Nginx and restart it

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 10 – Configuring Let’s Encrypt SSL

Now let’s secure our setup by configuring Let’s Encrypt SSL. For SSL we will use certbot which will also manage and renew our SSL certificate

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
sudo certbot --nginx -d metabase.example.com

Note: Make sure to change "metabase.example.com" to your real domain name.

Access Metabase

Now, since Metabase runs on port 3000, you can open any browser and enter “https://metabase.example.com” and follow the setup. Make sure to use the details as per above steps.

Conclusion

With this, you have successfully installed Metabase on Ubuntu 26.04 with SSL. You can now start using it via web-based interface.