The MAAS CLI can do everything that the web UI can do, and more. The CLI uses the maas command exclusively which, in turn, connects to the API. This page explains what is needed to get started with the CLI.
Note that this article does not provide complete coverage of the MAAS CLI. For an exhaustive treatment, you may want to check the API documentation. Also note that this page represents user-entered values as uppercase variables preceded with the ‘$’ character (e.g. $PROFILE and $EMAIL_ADDRESS). You should replace these placeholders with actual values.
Six questions you may have:
- How do I access the MAAS CLI?
- How do I create an administrator account?
- How do I complete the required login?
- How do I get help via the CLI?
- How do I log out?
- What are some the next steps I can take with the CLI?
The maas command
You can obtain the maas command via the maas-cli Ubuntu package installed on every region API server and rack controller. To manage MAAS at the CLI level from a remote workstation, you will need to install this package:
sudo apt install maas-cli
Create an administrator
MAAS requires an initial administrator, sometimes called a MAAS “superuser”. When you access the web UI for the first time, you will be prompted to create this user:
sudo maas createadmin --username=$PROFILE --email=$EMAIL_ADDRESS
You can create extra administrators in the same way. See User accounts for instructions on creating regular users.
Log in (required)
To use the CLI you must first log in to the API server (region controller).
You will need the API key that MAAS generated when creating your MAAS account. To obtain it, run this command on the region controller:
sudo maas apikey --username=$PROFILE > $API_KEY_FILE
You can obtain a user’s API key from the web interface. Click on ‘username’ in the top right corner, and select ‘Account’.
Log in. MAAS will prompt you for the API key:
maas login $PROFILE $MAAS_URL
For example, to log in with the account whose username is ‘admin’ and where the region controller is on the localhost:
maas login admin http://localhost:5240/MAAS/api/2.0
To log in by referring to the API key file created earlier:
maas login $PROFILE $MAAS_URL - < $API_KEY_FILE
A handy shell script, say maas-login.sh, is provided:
#!/bin/sh
# Change these 3 values as required
PROFILE=admin
API_KEY_FILE=/home/ubuntu/tmp/api_key
API_SERVER=localhost
MAAS_URL=http://$API_SERVER/MAAS/api/2.0
maas login $PROFILE $MAAS_URL - < $API_KEY_FILE
Get help
MAAS has a thorough built-in help reference, which you can access in stages to understand how to build commands.
The maas command accepts the -h or --help argument after every keyword and will display results with increasing detail.
For example, suppose you were interested in tag management but didn’t know where to start. You might try this:
maas $PROFILE --help
At this stage, you’ll see all available MAAS commands, including the tag and tags commands, along with a brief explanation of what each command does. To see what the tag and tags commands have to offer, try:
maas $PROFILE tag --help
And:
maas $PROFILE tags --help
Suppose you want to create a new rudimentary tag. Find the next level of help like this:
maas admin tags create --help
In this way, you can discover all that the MAAS CLI has to offer.
Log out
Once you finish with the CLI, you can log out from the given profile, flushing the stored credentials.
maas logout $PROFILE
Next steps
To continue with your exploration of the MAAS CLI, simply choose any relevant page in the menu at left and switch to the “CLI” page for your particular version and build format. You should find extensive instructions about using the CLI commands relevant to each topic.