PCD CLI - pcdctl

Manage your Private Cloud Director services efficiently with PCD CLI (pcdctl). This unified command line tool helps you install, configure, and automate operations across your Private Cloud environmen

PCD CLI (pcdctl) is a unified command line interface (CLI) tool to manage all your Private Cloud Director services. pcdctl lets you install, manage, update Platform9 host agent and related software components on your hypervisor hosts. It also enables you to run all supported operations across all Private Cloud Director services. The goal of PCD CLI is to be a single unified tool that enables you to control all Private Cloud Director services and automate them.

Under The Hood

pcdctl acts as a wrapper on OpenStack CLI and exposes all OpenStack CLI commands for OpenStack services that Private Cloud Director is API compatible with. Read Service Specific Commands for more info.

pcdctl also provides access to all non OpenStack services that Private Cloud Director utilizes and exposes.

Important

pcdctl acts as a wrapper on OpenStack CLI and exposes all OpenStack CLI commands for OpenStack services that Private Cloud Director is API compatible with. Read Service Specific Commands for more info.

Before You Install

Before you install PCD CLI, please note the following:

  • If you have PCD CLI installed previously and need to update it with the latest PCD CLI then do run the commandrm /usr/bin/pcdctl before running the curl to the setup script

  • When using PCD CLI to prepare and onboard a new host to be added to Private Cloud Director, you need to install and run the CLI on the host being added. Ability to perform remote install and onboarding of new host using PCD is coming in the future.

  • When using PCD CLI to control your Private Cloud Director services, you can run PCD CLI on any node with network connectivity to your Private Cloud Director environment.

Prerequisites

  • If using PCD CLI to onboard a new host into your Private Cloud Director setup, make sure to install PCD CLI on that host. Also ensure that the host prerequisites are met before using PCD CLI to onboard a new host.

  • If using PCD to access your Private Cloud Director service specific commands beyond host onboarding, you can install it on any Ubuntu machine with network access to your Private Cloud Director setup.

  • If your host is configured with network bonds, verify that the bonding mode is either active-passive or LACP.

Installation

To install PCD CLI pcdctl, execute the following command on the machine you are installing the CLI on:

To view available commands and their information, use the help command:

For help with a specific command, run the following:

Global Flags

Following global flags apply to any run of pcdctl

--log-dir string — path to save pcdctl logs

--no-prompt disable all user prompts

--verbose print verbose logs

Configuration

Before using pcdctl with your Private Cloud Director environment, you need to configure it:

  1. Navigate to Settings menu option located on the top right corner in the UI.

  2. Choose API Access -> pcdctl RC.

  3. Copy the contents to a new file named pcdctlrc

  4. Update OS_PASSWORD with your Private Cloud Director password

  5. Run source pcdctlrc to set the required environment variables

Configuration Commands

config set

This command sets the configuration details for your Private Cloud Director setup. These configuration details are stored in ~/pf9/db/config.json `file`.

Run this command first prior to running any other pcdctl commands to set your account url and credentials once instead of having to specify it for each command.

Parameters:

-u, --account-url string – Sets account URL

-h, --help – Displays help for set

-p, --password string – Sets password (use 'single quotes' to pass password)

-r, --region string – Sets region

-t, --tenant string – Sets tenant

-e, --username string – Sets the username

-l, --proxy-url string — Sets the http(s) proxy URL specified as [][:@]:

For the repository specified by the --private-package-repo flag to be used to install dependencies and to avoid configuring ubuntu official repositories pcdctl prep-node must be run with the --skip-repo-config flag.

Note: User themselves needs to make sure no unreachable apt sources are present before they run pcdctl. Also, users need to manually trust CA certs for Self-Signed Private Registries as this is NOT being handled within pcdctl.

--private-package-repo string — Sets the URL for the registry to use for installing dependencies

config get

Retrieves the current configuration settings

Host Onboarding & Management Commands

prep-node

The prep-node command allows you to add a new host to your Private Cloud Director environment. This command prepares the host with required pre-requisites by downloading and installing a set of required software packages on the host, so that it can be used in your Private Cloud Director environment.

Parameters:

You can configure the private repository by using pcdctl config set --private-package-repo <repo>

--skip-repo-config boolean, default: false — disable configuration of ubuntu cloud archive repos - only applicable if using private repos to host dependencies

authorize-node

This command assigns a Private Cloud Director role to the host.

Flags:

-h, --help help message for authorize-node

--role string role for the host

decommission-node

Decommissions this host from PCD management plane and purges all PCD components on the host.

Parameters:

-h, --help help message for decommission-node

-f, --force force decommission node purging everything

-r, --skip-installed-role-check — skip checking for installed roles

deauthorize-node

Removes roles from an onboarded node.

Parameters:

-h, --help help message for deauthorize-node

-t, --timeout string, default: "5m", timeout for the operation

Service Specific Commands

pcdctl acts as a wrapper on open source OpenStack CLI for all operations specific to the following Private Cloud Director services, as these services expose OpenStack APIs.

  • Compute Service

  • Block Storage Service

  • Network Service

  • Identity Service

It exposes all commands that are exposed by the OpenStack CLI corresponding to these services.

You can find a complete reference here for supported OpenStack CLI commands. When executing these commands with pcdctl, replace openstack with pcdctl before executing the command.

Examples

Following command lists all block storage volumes.

Following command lists all networks in your Private Cloud Director setup

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues:

  • Ensure your configuration file is sourced correctly

  • If you receive endpoint or SSLErrors, it is likely due to using a self-signed certificate. The --insecure flag can be used as a workaround

  • Verify network connectivity to your Private Cloud Director environment

  • Check that you have the necessary permissions for the operation

  • Review logs for detailed error information

Support bundle

The pcdctl generate-support-bundle utility generates an encrypted archive file containing logs and configuration files specific to PCD troubleshooting scenarios. This command must be executed from the host where the support bundle is required, as the collected data pertains exclusively to that host.

Options specific to the generate-support-bundle command are:

Info

It is recommended to run the command with --verbose option to monitor the progress of support bundle generation.

The command to generate the support bundle is:

A sample execution of the support bundle generation:

The archived contents are stored in an encrypted format within the /tmp/pf9-support.tgz.*.gpg file by default. For comprehensive guidance on sharing the support bundle, please reach out to the Platform9 support team.

To specify a custom path for the archived support bundle, use the --log-dir option.

PreviousSSO with pcdctlNextBeginner's Guide to Deploying PCD Community Edition

Last updated

Was this helpful?