Cockpit GUI Errors on Ubuntu Updates

As a Linux server user, I am generally at home in the terminal, however occasionally I like a GUI to give me more "at a glance" status of how the system is doing, especially when I am away from home. A generally easy to use and mostly well supported GUI for this is the Cockpit project.

Everything worked right out of the box as expected, except for the updater process. Apparently this is a known issue with Ubuntu server, to the point that they have this posted on their FAQ documentation.

Solution:

Create a placeholder file and network interface.

1. Create /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf with the contents:

[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=none

2. If you run on Ubuntu with arm64 (e.g.: on a Raspberry Pi), install extra Linux kernel modules for networking:

sudo apt install linux-modules-extra-raspi

3. Set up a “dummy” network interface:

nmcli con add type dummy con-name fake ifname fake0 ip4 1.2.3.4/24 gw4 1.2.3.1

4. Reboot

Then, like magic, everything will work again. Enjoy!