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NATS Core Broker

NATS Server 2.15.0 on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, set up as a private Core NATS broker for publish/subscribe and request/reply messaging. Clients connect over TLS with a user name and password, and each user may publish and subscribe only on the subjects you allow. This page covers what is on the image, its defaults and how billing works.

Launch on AWS Marketplace Getting started

What is on the image

  • NATS Server 2.15.0 (/usr/local/bin/nats-server) and the nats CLI 0.5.0 (/usr/local/bin/nats), the official Linux binaries.
  • A systemd service, nats-server, that runs as the unprivileged nats user.
  • First-boot setup that creates this instance's TLS certificates, three example users with random passwords, and the server configuration. Nothing secret is baked into the image.
  • A helper client, /opt/sushi/bin/nats-as.sh, that runs the nats CLI as one of the example users without putting the password on the command line.
  • A walkthrough script, /opt/sushi/docs/demo.sh.

JetStream, clustering, leaf nodes, WebSocket and MQTT listeners are not enabled. This is Core NATS: delivery is at most once, and a message published while no subscriber is connected is not stored.

Defaults

Setting Default
Client endpoint tls://127.0.0.1:4222 (TLS, loopback only)
Monitoring http://127.0.0.1:8222 (loopback only)
Authentication User name and password, no anonymous access
Users publisher, subscriber and denied, see Users and permissions
JetStream Off

t3.medium with an encrypted gp3 root volume of at least 16 GiB and at least 2 GiB of memory. No inbound security group rules are needed: you connect with AWS Systems Manager Session Manager, and reach the broker through Session Manager port forwarding or a private proxy.

Billing

You pay an hourly software fee while the instance runs, as shown in the offer terms on the listing. AWS bills EC2, EBS and data transfer separately.

Where to go next

  • Getting started: subscribe, launch, connect and send your first message.
  • Configuration: users, subject permissions, network access and certificates.
  • Operations: security model, monitoring, logs, backups and updates.
  • Troubleshooting: common errors and how to fix them.

Upstream project

NATS Server and the nats CLI are open source under the Apache-2.0 license. See the NATS documentation for concepts, client libraries and configuration. Software Sushi packages the image; Synadia and the NATS project do not endorse or support it.