How to Install Jupyter Notebook on Ubuntu 20.04

Jupyter Notebook is an open-source and web-based development tool that allows you to create and share live codes and equations. It is flexible, extensible, and supports many programming languages including, Python, Julia, Haskell, Ruby, and more. Generally, it is used for data and machine learning. It comes with the IPython kernel that allows you to write your programs in Python.

In this post, we will show you how to install Jupyter Notebook on Ubuntu 20.04.

Prerequisites

• An Ubuntu 20.04 VPS (we’ll be using our SSD 2 VPS plan)
• Access to the root user account (or access to an admin account with root privileges)

Log in to the Server & Update the Server OS Packages

First, log in to your Ubuntu 20.04 server via SSH as the root user:

ssh root@IP_Address -p Port_number

Once logged in, update your system packages with the following command:

apt-get update -y

Install Required Dependencies

Jupyter Notebook is based on Python. So you will need to install Python and other libraries to your system. You can install all of them with the following command:

apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-dev -y

Next, verify the installed version of Python with the following command:

python3 --version

Output:

Python 3.8.5

Next, upgrade the PIP to the latest version using the following command:

pip3 install --upgrade pip

Next, verify the PIP version with the following command:

pip3 --version

Output:

pip 20.0.2 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip (python 3.8)

Next, install the Virtual Environment package with the following command:

pip3 install virtualenv

Install Jupyter Notebook

First, create a separate user for Jupyter Notebook. You can create it with the following command:

adduser jupyter

Next, log in with Jupyter user with the following command:

su - jupyter

Next, create a Jupyter directory and create a virtual environment for Jupyter notebook.

mkdir ~/Jupyter
cd ~/Jupyter
virtualenv notebook

Next, activate the virtual environment with the following command:

source notebook/bin/activate

Next, install the Jupyter with the following command:

(notebook) jupyter@jupyter:~/Jupyter$ pip install jupyter

Once installed, run the Jupyter notebook with the following command:

(notebook) jupyter@jupyter:~/Jupyter$ jupyter notebook

You should get the following output:

[I 06:12:57.527 NotebookApp] Writing notebook server cookie secret to /home/jupyter/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/notebook_cookie_secret
[I 06:12:57.786 NotebookApp] Serving notebooks from local directory: /home/jupyter/Jupyter
[I 06:12:57.786 NotebookApp] Jupyter Notebook 6.3.0 is running at:
[I 06:12:57.787 NotebookApp] http://localhost:8888/?token=9a7e565bbe40a36e7afbcd9cda890823288c61312e9f1eed
[I 06:12:57.787 NotebookApp]  or http://127.0.0.1:8888/?token=9a7e565bbe40a36e7afbcd9cda890823288c61312e9f1eed
[I 06:12:57.787 NotebookApp] Use Control-C to stop this server and shut down all kernels (twice to skip confirmation).
[W 06:12:57.791 NotebookApp] No web browser found: could not locate runnable browser.
[C 06:12:57.791 NotebookApp] 

    To access the notebook, open this file in a browser:
        file:///home/jupyter/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/nbserver-11919-open.html
    Or copy and paste one of these URLs:
        http://localhost:8888/?token=9a7e565bbe40a36e7afbcd9cda890823288c61312e9f1eed
     or http://127.0.0.1:8888/?token=9a7e565bbe40a36e7afbcd9cda890823288c61312e9f1eed

Press CTRL+C to stop the Jupyter Notebook.

Next, you will need to generate a configuration file for Jupyter Notebook. You can generate it with the following command:

(notebook) jupyter@jupyter:~/Jupyter$ jupyter notebook --generate-config

You should get the following output:

Writing default config to: /home/jupyter/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py

Next, set the password for Jupyter with the following command:

(notebook) jupyter@jupyter:~/Jupyter$ jupyter notebook password

You should see the following output:

Enter password: 
Verify password: 
[NotebookPasswordApp] Wrote hashed password to /home/jupyter/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.json

Next, deactivate from the Python virtual environment with the following command:

(notebook) jupyter@jupyter:~/Jupyter$ deactivate

Next, logout from the Jupyter user with the following command:

exit

Create a Systemd Service File for Jupyter

Next, you will need to create a systemd service file to manage the Jupyter Notebook. You can create it with the following command:

nano /etc/systemd/system/jupyter.service

Add the following lines:

[Unit]
Description=Jupyter Notebook

[Service]
Type=simple
PIDFile=/run/jupyter.pid
ExecStart=/home/jupyter/Jupyter/notebook/bin/jupyter-notebook --config=/home/jupyter/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py
User=jupyter
Group=jupyter
WorkingDirectory=/home/jupyter/Jupyter/notebook
Restart=always
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file then reload the systemd daemon with the following command:

systemctl daemon-reload

Next, start the Jupyter service and enable it to start at system reboot with the following command:

systemctl start jupyter
systemctl enable jupyter

You can also verify the status of the Jupyter with the following command:

systemctl status jupyter

Output:

● jupyter.service - Jupyter Notebook
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/jupyter.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2021-04-06 06:32:47 UTC; 2min 33s ago
   Main PID: 14630 (jupyter-noteboo)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 2353)
     Memory: 40.6M
     CGroup: /system.slice/jupyter.service
             └─14630 /home/jupyter/Jupyter/notebook/bin/python /home/jupyter/Jupyter/notebook/bin/jupyter-notebook --config=/home/jupyter/.jup>

Apr 06 06:32:47 jupyter systemd[1]: Started Jupyter Notebook.
Apr 06 06:32:48 jupyter jupyter-notebook[14630]: [I 06:32:48.023 NotebookApp] Serving notebooks from local directory: /home/jupyter/Jupyter/no>
Apr 06 06:32:48 jupyter jupyter-notebook[14630]: [I 06:32:48.024 NotebookApp] Jupyter Notebook 6.3.0 is running at:
Apr 06 06:32:48 jupyter jupyter-notebook[14630]: [I 06:32:48.024 NotebookApp] http://localhost:8888/
Apr 06 06:32:48 jupyter jupyter-notebook[14630]: [I 06:32:48.024 NotebookApp] Use Control-C to stop this server and shut down all kernels (twi>
Apr 06 06:32:48 jupyter jupyter-notebook[14630]: [W 06:32:48.030 NotebookApp] No web browser found: could not locate runnable browser.

Configure Nginx as a Reverse Proxy for Jupyter Notebook

Next, you will need to configure the Nginx as a reverse proxy for Jupyter Notebook.

First, install the Nginx with the following command:

apt-get install nginx -y

Once installed, create an Nginx virtual host configuration file with the following command:

nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/jupyter.conf

Add the following lines:

upstream jupyter {
server 127.0.0.1:8888;
}

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

access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log;

location / {
     proxy_pass http://localhost:8888;
     proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
     proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
     proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
     proxy_http_version 1.1;
     proxy_redirect off;
     proxy_buffering off;
     proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
     proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
     proxy_read_timeout 86400;
     }
}

Save and close the file then verify the Nginx with the following command:

nginx -t

Output:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Next, restart the Nginx to apply the changes:

systemctl restart nginx

Next, add the Jupyter user to www-data group with the following command:

usermode -g www-data jupyter

Next, edit the Jupyter Notebook config file and allow remote access.

nano /home/jupyter/Jupyter/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py

Change the following line:

c.NotebookApp.allow_remote_access = True

Save and close the file then restart the Jupyter service to apply the changes:

systemctl restart jupyter

Access Jupyter Notebook

Now, open your web browser and access the Jupyter Notebook using the URL http://jupyter.example.com. You will be asked to provide a password as shown below:

Provide your password and click on the Login button. You should see the Jupyter Notebook dashboard in the following screen:

Congratulations! you have successfully installed Jupyter Notebook on Ubuntu 20.04 VPS.

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