Getting started at the command line

Many operations in Arvados can be performed using either the web Workbench or through command line tools. Some operations can only be done using the command line.

To use the command line tools, you can either log into an Arvados virtual machine where those tools are pre-installed, or install the Arvados tools on your own system.

Option 1: Using an Arvados virtual machine

This is the command line interface we recommend for most day-to-day work, because the tools are all preinstalled and preconfigured for you. You can log in to any virtual machine where you have permission by using:

the Webshell client accessible through Arvados Workbench
Unix SSH clients
Windows SSH clients

Option 2: Installing Arvados tools on your own system

This option gives you more flexibility in your work, but takes more time to set up.

Recommended: Install client tools on Linux using `pipx`

To start getting work done on your Arvados cluster from the command line, install the arvados-tools Python package that contains CLI tools and client libraries.

The recommended way to install arvados-tools is to use pipx. If you need to install pipx:

On Debian or Ubuntu, run sudo apt install pipx.
On Red Hat, AlmaLinux, or Rocky Linux, run sudo dnf install pipx.
Then, as your own user, run pipx ensurepath.

If you need troubleshooting or other help, refer to the pipx documentation. After pipx is installed, run:

$ pipx install --include-deps arvados-tools

Alternative: Install client tools using the system package manager

On Debian and Ubuntu

Set up the Arvados package repository and install the packages by running these commands:

# install -d /etc/apt/keyrings
# curl -fsSL -o /etc/apt/keyrings/arvados.asc https://apt.arvados.org/pubkey.gpg
# declare $(grep "^VERSION_CODENAME=" /etc/os-release || echo VERSION_CODENAME=MISSING)
# tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arvados.sources >/dev/null <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://apt.arvados.org/$VERSION_CODENAME
Suites: $VERSION_CODENAME
Components: main
Signed-by: /etc/apt/keyrings/arvados.asc
EOF
# apt update
# apt install arvados-client python3-arvados-python-client python3-arvados-cwl-runner python3-arvados-fuse python3-crunchstat-summary

On Red Hat, AlmaLinux, and Rocky Linux

Set up the Arvados package repository and install the packages by running these commands:

# tee /etc/yum.repos.d/arvados.repo >/dev/null <<'EOF'
[arvados]
name=Arvados
baseurl=https://rpm.arvados.org/RHEL/$releasever/os/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://rpm.arvados.org/RHEL/$releasever/RPM-GPG-KEY-arvados
EOF
# dnf install arvados-client python3-arvados-python-client python3-arvados-cwl-runner python3-arvados-fuse python3-crunchstat-summary

Proceed to configuration

Once you have the command line tools installed, proceed to getting an API token.

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