Install OCI-CLI in 5 minutes

I recently had a weekly digest from medium website and noticed a blog post talking about configuring OCI in 5 minute. The funny thing is that you had to pay a subscription to read about what Oracle documented for free. I don’t know how SEO works but I thought I would use the same title in case people wanted to get access to a comparable tutorial for free. And since my next articles will depend on OCI-CLI, I might a well do it for me.

Context: This is the first article in a series of 4 which aims to prepare learners for quick hands on experiences on OCI.

1. Install and configure oci-cli.
2. Launch an instance using oci-cli.
3. Launch a VCN and and an Instance using Terraform.
4. Launch an instance using oci ansible modules.

Requirement

I have done the installation on windows 10 but the basic install will always require 3 elements:

• A Free Oracle cloud account
• Git Bash
• Oci-cli and Python sdk
  
  

I. OCI CLI Installation

• Windows

  Run the following in Powershell as administrator:

  PS C:\Users\BrokDB> Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
  PS C:\Users\BrokDB> powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oracle/oci-cli/master/scripts/install/install.ps1'))"

  You are prompted to provide installation locations. The script will install Python 3.5 for you.

• Git bash installation (windows)

  This will allow you to have a linux like bash environment where to run oci-cli from. Very straight forward Installation but you can check this install-guide for details.

• Linux/Mac box installation
  
  You would have to run the bellow in a terminal session:

  [root]# bash -c "$(curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oracle/oci-cli/master/scripts/install/install.sh)"

  On Linux the install script will install python 3.5 for you. However, it won’t be the case for Mac OS as you’d have to install a compatible python version before installing oci-cli.

• Common prompts : You might be asked to confirm an upgrade if there is an existing version
  as well as whether you want to update the PATH environment variable.

II. Configure CLI

Once your free account is created and Git Bash installed proceed with the below CLI Setup tasks:

• Gather Tenancy OCID
  Go to the profile icon on the top right of the console page and click on Tenancy.

  

  Oci profile

> Click copy under the tenancy information’s OCID field. Save in your notepad.

Tenancy

• Gather Compartment OCID
  Go to Menu -> Identity -> Compartments and hover on the ocid column to see the little info bubble and copy the ocid.
  Save it in your notepad.
  

  

  Compartment

• Gather User OCID
  Go to Menu -> Identity> Users and select the User with your email as a handle.
  

  

  User Info

  • Click copy and save the OCID in your notepad.
    
• Generate an API Signing Key pair
  
  API key is the last information you will need and no you don’t need to create ssh key pair to interact with your oci account so I won’t include it here.
  Run below commands from the Git-Bash terminal in any folder you like:
  Private pem key

  brokedba@ MINGW64> cd ~/.oci 
  $ openssl genrsa -out .oci/oci_api_key.pem 2048
   Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus (2 primes) 

  Public pem key

  $ openssl rsa -pubout -in .oci/oci_api_key.pem -out .oci/oci_api_key_public.pem

  Fingerprint
  

  $ openssl rsa -in .oci/oci_api_key.pem -pubout -outform DER | openssl md5 -c | awk -F= '{gsub(" ","",$2);print $2}' > .oci/oci_api_key_fingerprint

• Add the API Key public key to your oci user
  
  Copy the content of the public key and add an API key in the oci Console.

  $ cat oci_api_key_public.pem | pbcopy 

  Sign in in to the Cloud Console and Go to Menu -> Identity -> Users -> API Keys -> Add Public Key

  

  > Copy the content of the pem public key and click Add.

• Run CLI Setup
  
  Now that you have all the files along with the tenancy info gathered in your notepad (i.e: TenInfo.txt),
  you can finally configure your oci-cli . To do so run the following:

  $ oci -v
   2.10.0 
  $ oci setup config
  Enter a location for your config [/c/Users/brokedba/.oci/config]: Enter a user OCID: # paste your User OCID Enter a tenancy OCID: # paste your tenancy OCID Enter a region : # choose the one defined in your tennacy (Webconsole)
   Do you want to generate a new API Signing RSA key pair?
  [Y/n]: n 
  Enter the location of your API Signing private key file: /c/Users/brokedba/.oci/oci_api_key.pem 
  Fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Config written to /c/Users/brokedba/.oci/config

Important : Avoid folder Names that have spaces, Python hates it. Just keep the default directory “C:\Users\MyUser”.
Below is the final content of the config file needed upon each API request:

$ cat /c/Users/brokedba/.oci/config
[DEFAULT] 
user=ocid1.user.oc1..aaaaaaaayd2yf6ru5xxxxxxxxxx fingerprint=bf:3b:2e:48:a2:98:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx key_file=C:\Users\brokedba\.oci\oci_api_key.pem tenancy=ocid1.tenancy.oc1..aaaaaaxxxx region=ca-toronto-1

III.Test your first API request

What you can do if it’s just a free tier account and you want to practice real quick with oci-cli is to:

• Create environment variables that stores all your tenancy,user and Compartment ocids so your commands would be shorter (can be in file that you’d source).

  export T="ocid1.tenancy.oc1.xxxx" 
  export U="ocid1.user.oc1..xxx" 
  export C="ocid1.tenancy.oc1..xxx"

• Create a collection of shortcuts and command abbreviations that can be used with default profile:
  

  $ oci setup oci-cli-rc 
  # adds parameters such as command aliases and predefined queries

• Remove the warning about encryption Key permissions since it’s a windows environment (no chmod):
  

  $ export OCI_CLI_SUPPRESS_FILE_PERMISSIONS_WARNING=True

Now go and run your first list request to get the default availability domain in your tenancy:

$ oci iam availability-domain list 
{ "data": [
    { "compartment-id": "ocid1.tenancy.oc1..axxxxx",
    "id": "ocid1.availabilitydomain.oc1..aaaaaaaawshktv3wktr5rplplpshn5vsugutbhi",
    "name": "BahF:CA-TORONTO-1-AD-1" 
    }
   ]
 }

If you don’t like the Json output you can always go for a table layout:

oci iam availability-domain list --output table 
+-----------------------------+------------------+------------------------+
|   compartment-id            |    id            |  name                  | 
+-----------------------------+------------------+------------------------+ 
| ocid1.tenancy.oc1..aaaa5g4a | ocid1.availabili | BahF:CA-TORONTO-1-AD-1 |
+-----------------------------+------------------+------------------------+

Conclusion :

I think I said 5 minutes which was a bit optimistic but you got the idea ;),  and that’s what you’ll remember. Feel free to consult the OCI CLI Command Reference for more request examples.