linode-cli

The Linode Command Line Interface

Installation

From pypi:

pip install linode-cli

From source:

git clone [email protected]:linode/linode-cli.git
cd linode-cli
make install

This will need to be repeated on each pull. For a build to succeed, see Building from Source below.

Usage

The Linode CLI is invoked with the linode-cli. The CLI accepts two primary arguments, command and action:

linode-cli <command> <action>

command is the part of the CLI you are interacting with, for example "linodes". You can see a list of all available commands by using --help:

linode-cli --help

action is the action you want to perform on a given command, for example "list". You can see a list of all available actions for a command with the --help for that command:

linode-cli linodes --help

Some actions don't require any parameters, but many do. To see details on how to invoke a specific action, use --help for that action:

linode-cli linodes create --help

The first time you invoke the CLI, you will be asked to configure it with a token, and optionally select some default values for "region," "image," and "type." If you configure these defaults, you may omit them as parameters to actions and the default value will be used.

Common Operations

List Linodes:

linode-cli linodes list

List Linodes in a Region:

linode-cli linodes list --region us-east

Make a Linode:

linode-cli linodes create --type g5-standard-2 --region us-east --image linode/debian9 --label cli-1 --root_pass

Make a Linode using Default Settings:

linode-cli linodes create --label cli-2 --root_pass

Reboot a Linode:

linode-cli linodes reboot 12345

View available Linode types:

linode-cli linodes types

View your Volumes:

linode-cli volumes list

View your Domains:

linode-cli domains list

View records for a single Domain:

linode-cli domains records-list 12345

View your user:

linode-cli profile view

Reconfiguring

If your token expires or you want to otherwise change your configuration, simply run the configure command:

linode-cli configure

Suppressing Defaults

If you configured default values for image, region, and Linode type, they will be sent for all requests that accept them if you do not specify a different value. If you want to send a request without these arguments, you must invoke the CLI with the --no-defaults option. For example, to create a Linode with no image after a default Image has been configured, you would do this:

linode-cli linodes create --region us-east --type g5-standard-2 --no-defaults

Suppressing Warnings

In some situations, like when the CLI is out of date, it will generate a warning in addition to its normal output. If these warnings can interfere with your scripts or you otherwise want them disabled, simply add the --suppress-warnings flag to prevent them from being emitted.

Environment Variables

If you prefer, you may store your token in an environment variable named LINODE_CLI TOKEN instead of using the configuration file. Doing so allows you to bypass the initial configuration, and subsequent calls to linode-cli configure will allow you to set defaults without having to set a token. Be aware that if the environment variable should be unset, the Linode CLI will stop working until it is set again or the CLI is reconfigured with a token.

Customizing Output

Changing Output Fields

By default, the CLI displays on some pre-selected fields for a given type of response. If you want to see everything, just ask:

linode-cli linodes list --all

Using --all will cause the CLI to display all returned columns of output. Note that this will probably be hard to read on normal-sized screens for most actions.

If you want even finer control over your output, you can request specific columns be displayed:

linode-cli linodes list --format 'id,region,status,disk,memory,vcpus,transfer'

This will show some identifying information about your Linode as well as the resources it has access to. Some of these fields would be hidden by default - that's ok. If you ask for a field, it'll be displayed.

Output Formatting

While the CLI by default outputs human-readable tables of data, you can use the CLI to generate output that is easier to process.

Machine Readable Output

To get more machine-readable output, simply request it:

linode-cli linodes list --text

If a tab is a bad delimiter, you can configure that as well:

linode-cli linodes list --text --delimiter ';'

You may also disable header rows (in any output format):

linode-cli linodes list --no-headers --text

JSON Output

To get JSON output from the CLI, simple request it:

linode-cli linodes list --json --all

While the --all is optional, you probably want to see all output fields in your JSON output. If you want your JSON pretty-printed, we can do that too:

linode-cli linodes list --json --pretty --all

Building from Source

In order to successfully build the CLI, your system will require the following:

• The make command
• python and python3 (both versions are required to build a package)
• pip and pip3 (to install requirements.txt for both python versions)

Before attempting a build, install python dependencies like this:

make requirements

Once everything is set up, you can initiate a build like so:

make build

If desired, you may pass in SPEC=/path/to/openapi-spec when running build or install. This can be a URL or a path to a local spec, and that spec will be used when generating the CLI. A yaml or json file is accepted.

To install the package as part of the build process, use this command:

make install PYTHON=3

When using install, the PYTHON argument is optional - if provided, it will install the CLI for that version of python. Valid values are 2 and 3, and it will default to 3.

Testing

WARNING! Running the CLI tests will remove all linodes and data associated with the account. It is only recommended to run these tests if you are an advanced user.

Installation

The CLI uses the Bash Automated Testing System (BATS) for testing. To install run the following:

OSX users:

brew install bats-core

Installing Bats from source

Check out a copy of the Bats repository. Then, either add the Bats bin directory to your $PATH, or run the provided install.sh command with the location to the prefix in which you want to install Bats. For example, to install Bats into /usr/local:

git clone https://github.com/bats-core/bats-core.git
cd bats-core
./install.sh /usr/local

Running the Tests

Running the tests is simple. The only requirement is that you have a .linode-cli in your user folder containing your test user token:

./test/test-runner.sh

Running Tests via Docker

Run the following command to build the tests container:

docker build -f Dockerfile-bats -t linode-cli-tests --build-arg TOKEN=$INSERT_YOUR_TOKEN_HERE .

Run the following command to run the test

docker run --rm linode-cli-tests

Contributing

This CLI is generated based on the OpenAPI specification for Linode's API. As such, many changes are made directly to the spec.

Specification Extensions

In order to be more useful, the following Specification Extensions have been added to Linode's OpenAPI spec:

Attribute	Location	Purpose
x-linode-cli-display	property	If truthy, displays this as a column in output. If a number, determines the ordering (left to right).
x-linode-cli-command	path	The command name for operations under this path. If not present, "default" is used.
x-linode-cli-action	method	The action name for operations under this path. If not present, operationId is used.
x-linode-cli-color	property	If present, defines key-value pairs of property value: color. Colors must be understood by colorclass.Color. Must include a default_
x-linode-cli-skip	path	If present and truthy, this method will not be available in the CLI.