What is Ubuntu Advantage doing on my (fully supported) 18.04 box, what is it checking for twice a day, and can I get rid of it?

Doing a little light reading in my server's /var/log/ directory today and found some logs I'm not familiar with - ubuntu-advantage.log.

The log has repeating contents like this

2021-08-01 03:25:21,947 - ua_update_messaging.py:(347) [DEBUG]: Updating UA messages for APT and MOTD.
2021-08-01 03:25:21,947 - util.py:(419) [DEBUG]: Reading file: /etc/os-release
2021-08-01 03:25:21,994 - util.py:(419) [DEBUG]: Reading file: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 03:25:21,994 - config.py:(442) [DEBUG]: File does not exist: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 03:25:22,008 - util.py:(419) [DEBUG]: Reading file: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 03:25:22,009 - config.py:(442) [DEBUG]: File does not exist: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 15:34:22,023 - ua_update_messaging.py:(347) [DEBUG]: Updating UA messages for APT and MOTD.
2021-08-01 15:34:22,036 - util.py:(419) [DEBUG]: Reading file: /etc/os-release
2021-08-01 15:34:22,080 - util.py:(419) [DEBUG]: Reading file: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 15:34:22,080 - config.py:(442) [DEBUG]: File does not exist: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 15:34:22,096 - util.py:(419) [DEBUG]: Reading file: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json
2021-08-01 15:34:22,096 - config.py:(442) [DEBUG]: File does not exist: /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/private/machine-token.json

It looks like every 12 hours it wakes up, looks for something on my system, does not find it, and goes away.

I don't remember installing anything called ubuntu advantage on purpose and from what I can tell, it's used for systems that are past their EOL, which this 18.04 system is decidedly not.

The first log dates from this May.

Also, I can't find a service called ubuntu advantage or an entry in cron.

What is this thing trying to to do, how is it running, and how do I get rid of it?


After running upgrade from 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS I was very surprised with Ubuntu Advantage Tools installation and ESM existence.

I do not need its enterprise-oriented functionality.

So we can simply remove Ubuntu Advantage Tools by

sudo apt-get purge --autoremove ubuntu-advantage-tools

then reboot and enjoy.