OpenStack command line clients

Parent page: OpenStack

The OpenStack command line tool allows you to perform many of the actions provided by the OpenStack dashboard GUI, as well as providing some functionality which the dashboard does not. The command line client can be used from any machine, virtual or otherwise, and only requires having an internet connection and the client installed. The discussion below assumes that it is being used on a Linux machine.

Installation

If you have administrative privileges on the machine you will run these from (e.g. your desktop)

On Ubuntu do:

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

and on CentOS 7 as root user do:

[name@server ~]$ yum install epel-release
[name@server ~]$ pip install python-openstackclient

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

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

which installs to ~/.local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/. You may wish to add export PATH=${HOME}/.local/bin:${PATH} to your .bashrc file in this case so you can run the OpenStack commands directly.

If you wish to explore the OpenStack API for Python, add export PYTHONPATH=${HOME}/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/:${PYTHONPATH} to your .bashrc file. Adjust the python2.7 phrase to match the Python version you have installed.

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

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

See the OpenStack installation documentation for more details.

Connecting CLI to OpenStack

Your command line client must now be told how to find your OpenStack project on the CC-Cloud. The most convenient way to do this is to download an OpenStack environment setup file. On the OpenStack dashboard go to Compute-> Access & Security-> API Access-> Download OpenStack RC File.

On East-cloud there are two RC files to choose from, a v2.0 and a v3 file. Unless you have a specific reason to choose v2.0, choose v3. If your OpenStack client version is version 2.5.0 or later, you will have to add the line export OS_IDENTITY_API_VERSION=3 to the East-cloud v3 file.

Then source the file with something like

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

It will ask you for your OpenStack password, which is simply your CC-Cloud password. Test your setup by typing

[name@server ~]$ openstack image list

If you switch between different RC files (e.g. east and west cloud RC files) you should be careful of environment variables which may still be set from the previous RC file, these may cause your OpenStack client commands to fail. Either ensure that all environment variables set in the RC file are unset with unset <variable-name>, or start a fresh new session without any of the RC environment variables set.

Executing commands

The CLI tool can be used interactively by typing

[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. 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 commands are available only to OpenStack administrators and will return an 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.

Command groups

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	save
delete	set
list	show

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