OpenStack command line clients

The OpenStack CLI tools perform many of the actions performed by the OpenStack dashboard GUI but on the command line. They also allow more functionality above and beyond the OpenStack dashboard. The command line clients can be used from any machine, virtual or otherwise, and only require having an internet connection and the command line clients installed. The below discussion of command line client(s), assumes that they are being used on a Linux machine. It may be possible to use them in Windows however, this has not yet been explored.

Connecting CLI to OpenStack

To begin, get the openstack environment setup file: On the OpenStack dashboard go to compute->Access & Security-> API Access-> Download OpenStack RC File. This file sets environment variables so that the command line client(s) know how to connect to your OpenStack project. Then source the file (you will need to provide your OpenStack password) with something like

[name@server ~]$  source <project name>-openrc.sh

Combined OpenStack CLI

The OpenStack combined CLI replaces the various separate command line tools, such as nova, swift, glance, cider etc. (see Separate Command Line Clients for a brief overview of the older separate command line clients). See for the official OpenStack CLI documentation for more information about the OpenStack command line clients. The rest of this section gives a very basic overview to get a user started and points out some of the commands available.

Installation

If you have admin access on the machine you will run these from (e.g. your desktop) you can do

[name@server ~]$ sudo apt-get install python-dev python-pip
[name@server ~]$ sudo pip install python-openstackclient

To install on a machine without admin privileges (provided pip is already installed) use:

[name@server ~]$  pip install --user python-openstackclient

which installs to ~/.local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/. By adding export PYTHONPATH=${HOME}/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/:${PYTHONPATH} to your .bashrc file if you are using Python major version X=2, and minor version Y=7, python can then load the OpenStack modules (see [] for information about working with the Python OpenStack API). Further adding export PATH=${HOME}/.local/bin:${PATH} to your .bashrc will allow you to run the OpenStack commands directly. To install a specific version of the client using pip do pip install python_openstackclient==2.3.0.

Some distributions may have pre-built packages for the client, e.g., on Fedora 23:

[name@server ~]$ sudo dnf install python-openstackclient

see the OpenStack documentation on installation for more details.

Executing commands

The combined CLI tool can be used interactively by running

[name@server ~]$ openstack

and then issuing commands at the prompt. Alternatively the commands can be issued as one-offs by preceding the command with openstack, for example

[name@server ~]$ openstack server list

When running in interactive mode a list of available commands can be seen by typing help at the OpenStack prompt. The available commands are categorized by groups, many of the most commonly used groups are listed below (e.g. the server command group). A list of commands belonging to a command group can be obtained by typing help <command group>. To get help on a particular command (e.g. options and arguments of the command) one can type help <command group> <command>. Note that many of the available commands are available only to OpenStack administrators and will show some meaningless error message if a non-administrator tries using it. For this reason a list of available commands grouped by command groups is provided below to allow one to easily identify commands available to the average user.

server command group

add security group	migrate	resume	unlock
add volume	pause	set	unpause
create	reboot	shelve	unrescue
delete	rebuild	show	unset
dump create	remove security group	ssh	unshelve
image create	remove volume	start
list	rescue	stop
lock	resize	suspend

volume command group

create	set
delete	show
list	unset

console command group

log show

url show

flavor command group

list

show

image command group

create
delete
list

ip command group

fixed add	floating list
fixed remove	floating pool list
floating add	floating remove
floating create	floating show
floating delete

keypair command group

create	list
delete	show

network command group

create	set
delete	show
list

snapshot command group

create	set
delete	show
list	unset

security group command group

create	rule list
delete	rule show
list	set
rule create	show
rule delete

Separate Command Line Clients

The older version of the command line clients were separated into individual clients which operated on the various aspects of OpenStack. They are mentioned here, since, as of the time of writing, not all the functionality of the older separate command line clients has been incorporated into the new combined command line clients and one may find them useful in addition to the newer combined command line client.