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 standalone 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:
-
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). -
Run the installer:
- For Mac and Windows™, run the installer.
- For Linux™, extract the package and run the
install
script.
-
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 utilize 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 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.
-
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. -
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
-
Add to the
PATH
environment variable and enable shell autocompletion.- Add the
{YOUR_DIRECTORY}/IBM_CLOUD_CLI
to thePATH
environment variable. - For shell autocompletion support (Mac and Linux™ only), see Enabling shell autocompletion for IBM Cloud CLI.
- Add the
Updating the IBM Cloud CLI
You must 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.