Postman is one of the most popular collaboration platform tools for testing APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) available to install on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Well, APIs are interfaces between programs that the applications use to communicate.
The main area of the application is testing REST APIs based on HTTP requests that can be specified and sent in Postman with associated parameters using the visual request builder.
The basic structure focuses on processing and validating requests and their responses. The responses can be viewed and evaluated directly, be it graphically or via Postman’s internal programming interface using JavaScript.
All request aspects can be displayed and transparently changed in Postman, including the type of request, authentication, the parameters passed, or the local cookies.
The easiest way to install it on Ubuntu 22.04 is by using the SNAP package. Just use the below command, and you are done:
sudo snap install postman
However, those who don’t want to use SNAP can follow the steps:
Steps to install Postman API Platform on Ubuntu Linux without snap
Here we will see the steps to install Postman on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Linux operating system. You can also use this guide for Linux Mint, CentOS, RHEL, Debian, and other Linux distros.
1. Open a command terminal
We will use the command terminal here to install Postman on Ubuntu 22.04 or other Linux distros you use. The shortcut to open the Terminal is Ctrl+Alt+T.
2. Download Postman App on Ubuntu
We can download the latest tarball file of the Postman API platform from its official website. However, to make the process easier and save time, I have given the command that you can use to get it directly using your command terminal.
wget https://dl.pstmn.io/download/latest/linux64
3. Extract Postman Linux64 compressed file
The downloaded file will be archived; to get the files inside it to run this API testing platform, we have first to extract the same. However, to ensure we won’t delete the extracted file accidentally in the future, we will extract it under /usr/bin.
sudo tar -xvf linux64 -C /usr/bin
4. Add this API testing tool to system PATH
We must go through its complete folder path to start the Postman tool every time. Thus, to remove this and use the terminal regardless of which directory we are in, let’s add its folder to the system path.
echo 'export PATH="$PATH:/usr/bin/Postman"' >> ~/.bashrc
Now, to run the API testing tool interface, simply type:
postman
5. Create Desktop & Launcher Shortcut
Many users don’t want to open Terminal every time to start Postman. Thus for them, here is the way to create a Desktop shortcut and Launcher entry.
sudo nano /usr/share/applications/Postman.desktop
Copy and paste the following lines:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Postman API Tool
GenericName=Postman
Comment=Testing API
Exec=/usr/bin/Postman/Postman
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/usr/bin/Postman/app/resources/app/assets/icon.png
StartupWMClass=Postman
StartupNotify=true
Save the file with Ctrl + O and Enter and close the editor with Ctrl + X.
Copy the created shortcut to the desktop as well:
cp /usr/share/applications/Postman.desktop ~/Desktop/
Allow launching
Right-click on the created shortcut of Postman on the Desktop and select the “Allow launching” option.
You can also start it from the Application launcher by searching the name of this API testing tool.
Uninstall Postman API Platform
In the future, to remove Postman, simply delete its file and other entries using the run the below commands:
sudo rm -r /usr/bin/Postman
sudo rm -r /usr/share/applications/Postman.desktop
sudo rm -r ~/Desktop/Postman.desktop
Thank you for reading this article.
