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Private Cloud as a Service Platform Technical Documentation

Install the oc command line tool

Last updated: May 31, 2023

Users can interact with OpenShift via the oc command line tool. This can be installed on your local machine, or accessed via the web console. It is important to keep your version of oc up to date to match the version of oc on the cluster.

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Install oc on a mac

Install homebrew

  1. Open Terminal

  2. Install homebrew by running this statement in your terminal:

    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

  3. Be sure to follow 'the next steps' in the output to add homebrew to your PATH.

Install openshift-cli (oc)

  1. After installing homebrew, use the command brew install openshift-cli to install the oc command line tool.
  2. When installation is complete, run oc version to confirm successful installation. A successful installation should return the version number of oc.

Please note, oc version may also return an error 'error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized) until you complete the next step.

Test oc login

  1. In order to login with the oc command line tool, first login to the OpenShift Web Console. For instructions, see the Login to OpenShift Web Console page

  2. Click on your name at the top-right corner of the screen, and choose: Copy login command

  3. A new tab will open in your browser. You'll need to login again by clicking the button: Developer Log In

  4. Next, you'll be directed to a page with a link to Display Token. Please do not share your tokens capture them on screen recordings as these grant access to OpenShift on your behalf. Click the link to reveal your tokens

  5. Copy the entire line of text under: Log in with this token

  6. Paste this command into your terminal and run it. If successful, you should see an indication of which cluster you've logged in to, along with the number of projects you have access to and the project you are currently working in.

Update oc

To ensure compatibility as features change, please update your oc command line tool regularly. You can use brew upgrade openshift-cli to achieve this if you installed oc using homebrew as described above.

Install oc on windows

Install wsl

In the OpenShift 101 training, we suggest that new users install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) first, and then install oc within WSL using homebrew. This is to maintain direct compatibility between the commands used across operating systems.

  1. Open PowerShell or Windows Command Prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and selecting "Run as administrator"

  2. Run the command wsl --install

  3. After completion of this command, you'll need to restart your computer to continue installing Ubuntu in WSL.

  4. During the Ubuntu install process, you'll be prompted to setup a new username and password for the Ubuntu installation. Please make sure to remember this new username and password as you will need it later.

  5. You may need to check and set up your connection to github in your new Ubuntu environment, you can follow these instructions to check, generate, add and test your github SSH key.

Install homebrew

From within your WSL terminal, install homebrew.

  1. Install homebrew by running /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" in your WSL terminal. You'll be prompted for the sudo password that you created earlier.
  2. Be sure to follow the steps in the output to add homebrew to your PATH.

Install openshift-cli (oc)

Once homebrew is installed:

  1. Use the command brew install openshift-cli to install the oc command line tool
  2. When installation is complete, run oc version to confirm successful installation. A successful installation should return the version number of oc

Please note, oc version may also return an error 'error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized) until you complete the next step.

Test oc login

  1. In order to login with the oc command line tool, first login to the OpenShift Web Console. For instructions, see the Login to OpenShift Web Console page

  2. Click on your name at the top-right corner of the screen, and choose: Copy login command

  3. A new tab will open in your browser. You'll need to login again by clicking the button: Developer Log In

  4. Next, you'll be directed to a page with a link to Display Token. Please do not share your tokens capture them on screen recordings as these grant access to OpenShift on your behalf. Click the link to reveal your tokens

  5. Copy the entire line of text under: Log in with this token

  6. Paste this command into your terminal and run it

If successful, you should see an indication of which cluster you've logged in to, along with the number of projects you have access to and the project you are currently working in.

Update oc

To ensure compatibility as features change, please update your oc command line tool regularly. You can use brew upgrade openshift-cli to achieve this if you installed oc using homebrew as described above.

Use the web terminal

If you can't install oc locally, you may wish to use the OpenShift web terminal for some purposes. More information is available from Redhat.