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Installing the stand-alone IBM Cloud CLI

Installing the stand-alone IBM Cloud CLI

The IBM Cloud® Command Line Interface provides commands for managing resources in IBM Cloud. When you install the stand-alone IBM Cloud CLI, you get only the CLI itself without any recommended plug-ins or tools.

If you want to install both the latest IBM Cloud CLI and other recommended plug-ins and tools for developing applications for IBM Cloud, see Getting started with the IBM Cloud CLI and Extending IBM Cloud CLI with plug-ins.

Before you begin

If you need to use a 32-bit version, or a previous version other than the latest for IBM Cloud Dedicated environments, see IBM Cloud CLI releases.

Installing with an installer

Use the following steps to install the latest stand-alone IBM Cloud CLI:

  1. Use a browser to access the official ibm-cloud-cli-releases GitHub repository, and select the installer of your OS to begin the download. The following operating systems are supported: macOS X 64-bit, Windows™ 64-bit, Linux™ x86 64-bit, and Linux™ LE 64-bit (ppc64le).

  2. Run the installer:

    • For Mac and Windows™, run the installer.
    • For Linux™, extract the package and run the install script.
  3. Log in to IBM Cloud:

    ibmcloud login
    

    Now, you're ready to manage IBM Cloud resources. Enter ibmcloud help to view the command descriptions.

    If you're using a federated ID, log in with a one-time passcode or an API key.

Installing from the shell

To install the latest CLI for your OS from the shell manually, use the following command for your OS:

If you don't want to install from the shell because it might use root permissions, you can download and run the installer.

  • For Mac, copy and paste the following command to a terminal and run it:

    curl -fsSL https://clis.cloud.ibm.com/install/osx | sh
    
  • For Linux™, copy and paste the following command to a terminal and run it:

    curl -fsSL https://clis.cloud.ibm.com/install/linux | sh
    
  • For Windows™, copy and paste the following command to a Windows™ PowerShell 5 terminal console and run it:

    iex (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://clis.cloud.ibm.com/install/powershell')
    

    If you encounter errors like The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send, make sure that you have .Net Framework 4.5 or later installed. Also try to enable TLS 1.2 protocol by running the following command:

    [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
    

Installing to a custom directory

When you use installers or a shell script to install the IBM Cloud CLI, it is installed in your system directories. If you want to specify a different directory, use the following steps.

If you install the IBM Cloud CLI to a custom directory, the ibmcloud update command can't be used to update the CLI.

  1. Use a browser to access the official ibm-cloud-cli-releases GitHub repository, and select the matching binary of your platform to begin the download. The following platforms are supported: macOS, linux32, linux64, ppc64le, win32, and win64.

  2. Extract the package to a directory that you specify.

    You can see the following extracted content:

    For Linux™ and Mac:

    IBM_Cloud_CLI
    ├── LICENSE
    ├── NOTICE
    ├── autocomplete
    │   ├── bash_autocomplete
    │   └── zsh_autocomplete
    ├── ibmcloud
    └── ibmcloud-analytics
    

    For Windows™:

    IBM_Cloud_CLI
    ├── LICENSE
    ├── NOTICE
    ├── ibmcloud-analytics.exe
    └── ibmcloud.exe
    
  3. Add to the PATH environment variable and enable shell autocompletion.

Updating the IBM Cloud CLI

Use the latest version of the CLI. If you aren't using the latest version, run the following command to update your CLI:

ibmcloud update

To determine your IBM Cloud CLI version, run the following command:

ibmcloud -v

If you are running the current release, the following output is displayed:

Checking for updates...
No update required. Your CLI is already up-to-date.

To get notified about new IBM Cloud CLI releases, subscribe to the IBM Cloud CLI releases repository.