# Portainer
**Portainer Community Edition** is a lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes and ACI environments. It is designed to be as simple to deploy as it is to use. The application allows you to manage all your orchestrator resources (containers, images, volumes, networks and more) through a ‘smart’ GUI and/or an extensive API.
Portainer consists of a single container that can run on any cluster. It can be deployed as a Linux container or a Windows native container.
---
#### IntroductionPortainer consists of two elements, the *Portainer Server*, and the *Portainer Agent*. Both elements run as lightweight Docker containers on a Docker engine. This document will help you install the Portainer Server container on your Linux environment. To add a new Linux environment to an existing Portainer Server installation, please refer to the **Portainer Agent Installation** section of this guide.
To get started, you will need:
- The latest version of Docker installed and working
- sudo access on the machine that will host your Portainer Server instance
- By default, Portainer Server will expose the UI over port `9443` and expose a TCP tunnel server over port `8000`.
- The latter is optional and is only required if you plan to use the Edge compute features with Edge agents.
#### DeploymentFirst, create the volume that Portainer Server will use to store its database:
```shell
docker volume create portainer_data
```
Then, download and install the Portainer Server container:
```shell
docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 9443:9443 --name portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:latest
```
By default, Portainer generates and uses a self-signed SSL certificate to secure port `9443`. Alternatively you can provide your own SSL certificate during installation or via the Portainer UI after installation.
If you require HTTP port `9000` open for legacy reasons, the following to your `docker run` command: **add -p 9000:9000**
Portainer Server has now been installed. You can check to see whether the Portainer Server container has started by running:
```shell
docker ps
```
If all is well, you should see container is Up
```yaml
root:~# docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
de5b28eb2fa9 portainer/portainer-ce:latest "/portainer" 2 weeks ago Up 9 days 0.0.0.0:8000->8000/tcp, :::8000->8000/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9443->9443/tcp, :::9443->9443/tcp portainer
```
#### Logging InNow that the installation is complete, you can log into your Portainer Server instance by opening a web browser and going to:
```shell
https://localhost:9443
```
Replace `localhost` with the relevant IP address or FQDN if needed, and adjust the port if you changed it earlier.
You will be presented with the initial setup page for Portainer Server.
#### Initial SetupYour first user will be an administrator. The username defaults to `admin` but you can change it if you prefer. The password must be at least 12 characters long and meet the listed password requirements.Once the admin user has been created, the **Environment Wizard** will automatically launch. The installation process automatically detects your local environment and sets it up for you.
If you want to add additional environments to manage with this Portainer instance, click Add Environments. Otherwise, click Get Started to start using Portainer!
#### Portainer Agent Installation
Portainer uses the *Portainer Agent* container to communicate with the *Portainer Server* instance and provide access to the node's resources.
On each computer that is running Docker containers that you want to manage, you will need to install the Portainer agent by executing the following:
```shell
docker run -d -p 9001:9001 --name portainer_agent --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /var/lib/docker/volumes:/var/lib/docker/volumes portainer/agent:latest
```
Once the agent has been installed you are ready to add the environment to your Portainer Server installation.