Linux or Mac OS CLI¶

Operating system specific steps¶

Here is an outline for installing the Openstack command line tools on the common Linux/Unix based systems. This includes OSX as it runs a BSD based system.

# Make sure the package cache is up to date and ensure you have
# Python3 installed
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3-venv python3-dev

# create a virtual environment using the Python3 virtual environment module
python3 -m venv venv

# activate the virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate

# install the Openstack commandline tools into the virtual environment
pip install -U pip \
wheel \
python-openstackclient \
python-ceilometerclient \
python-heatclient \
python-neutronclient \
python-swiftclient \
python-octaviaclient \
python-magnumclient \
aodhclient

# Make sure the package cache is up to date and ensure you have
# Python3 installed
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3-venv

# create a virtual environment using the Python3 virtual environment module
python3 -m venv venv

# activate the virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate

# install the Openstack commandline tools into the virtual environment
pip install -U pip \
python-openstackclient \
python-ceilometerclient \
python-heatclient \
python-neutronclient \
python-swiftclient \
python-octaviaclient \
python-magnumclient \
aodhclient

# Make sure the package cache is up to date and ensure you have
# Python3 installed
sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install -y python3

# create a virtual environment using the Python3 virtual environment module
python3 -m venv venv

# activate the virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate

# install the Openstack commandline tools into the virtual environment
pip install -U pip \
python-openstackclient \
python-ceilometerclient \
python-heatclient \
python-neutronclient \
python-swiftclient \
python-octaviaclient \
python-magnumclient \
aodhclient

# from a terminal session install pip and virtualenv
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv

# Create a new virtual environment and activate it
virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate

# Install the Python openstack client libraries into your virtual environment
          pip install -U pip \
python-openstackclient \
python-ceilometerclient \
python-heatclient \
python-neutronclient \
python-swiftclient \
python-octaviaclient \
python-magnumclient \
aodhclient

Upgrading the CLI¶

To keep the command line tools up to date, you will need to perform upgrades on them after changes have come out. The following code snippet will upgrade all of the tools listed above; make sure that you have activated your virtual environment before running the command below:

pip install --upgrade pip \
python-openstackclient \
python-ceilometerclient \
python-heatclient \
python-neutronclient \
python-swiftclient \
python-octaviaclient \
python-magnumclient \
aodhclient

Source an openstack RC file¶

When no configuration arguments are passed, the OpenStack client tools will try to obtain their configuration from environment variables. To help you define these variables, the cloud dashboard allows you to download an OpenStack RC file from which you can easily source the required configuration.

To download an OpenStack RC file from the dashboard:

• Log in to your project on the dashboard and select your preferred region.

• From the left hand menu select “API Access” and click on “Download OpenStack RC File”. Save the “OpenStack RC for Linux/macOS” file on to the host where the client tools are going to be used from.

• Source the configuration from the OpenStack RC file:

  source projectname-openrc.sh
  

• When prompted for a password, enter the password of the user who downloaded the file. Note that your password is not displayed on the screen as you type it in.

  • If you have MFA enabled on your account, this is also where you input your code. If you do not have MFA enabled then simply hit ENTER

  Warning

  You should never type in your password on the command line (or pass it as an argument to the client tools), because the password will be stored in plain text in the shell history file. This is unsafe and could allow a potential attacker to compromise your credentials.

• You can confirm the configuration works by running a simple command, such as openstack network list and ensuring it returns no errors.

Difference between OpenRC for Linux/macOS and for Windows¶

You will notice that when you go to download the OpenRC file from the dashboard there are 2 version available. One that is for Linux and Mac based systems, and one that is for Windows. The reason for this is because Windows Powershell works differently than the Linux and Mac equivalent.

When authenticating with the linux/macOS open RC, you need to supply a password and MFA if you have it. If not, then you hit enter to continue and you are issued a token for authentication. This token lasts up to 12 hours before you need to authenticate your details again. Powershell, does not work with this functionality and as such, if you do not have MFA then you need to authenticate only with your password using the --NoToken flag. This is discussed more in the Setting up the command line environment on Windows section.

This means that for Windows users authenticating without MFA, you are storing your password in your command line environment. This is not as secure as using a token, but this does mean that you will not have to re-authenticate because of an expired token.

The next step¶

We highly recommend that if you are going to be using the CLI often that you take the time to go through the documentation section on setting up your first instance, using the CLI method. It gives you a great step-by-step process to how to create an instance but also teaches you the common commands found in openstack and the CLI.