Datacenter CLI (DCLI) 2.9.1 has been released and the new features are fantastic! One of the key new updates is how we install this new version of DCLI. In the past, DCLI was installed as part of vSphere CLI (vCLI). In this current version, DCLI is installed through the Python Package Index (PyPI) using pip. PyPI is the official, third-party, online repository for Python packages. Pip is a package management system which handles the installation process of Python packages from repositories like PyPI.
If you already have Python installed, version 2.7 or later, we can install DCLI with the following command:
pip install dcli
Let’s cover a couple scenarios where the above might not work.
Command Not Found – MacOS
MacOS comes with Python installed by default. However, this version of Python is generally used for system related tasks, isn’t up to date, and doesn’t always include pip. That means that there is a chance you could be greeted with the following:
Installing a new, updated, version of Python is quite simple and can be done in multiple ways. My preferred way of installing Python on MacOS is with Homebrew, a widely used command line driven package manager. It can be easily downloaded and installed with the following command:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Then, we can install Python with the following command:
brew install python
Afterwards, pip will now be available and we can now easily install DCLI with the command above!
Command Not Found – Windows
Windows does not come natively with Python installed. The first step will be to download and install a supported version of Python (2.7 or better). This can be obtained from the Python Downloads page. When performing the installation, ensure the ‘Add Python x.x to PATH’ option is checked.
Once the installation is complete, open up your favorite terminal window (I used PowerShell), and run the following command:
pip install dcli
Summary
Datacenter CLI 2.9.1 greatly expands the available features and changed the installation process. This blog took a detailed look at the installation process and how to the more well-known issues people have ran into.
For more information about the DCLI 2.9.1 release, see the following vSphere blog post: New Release: VMware Datacenter CLI 2.9.1 For more specific information about, see the VMware Datacenter CLI (DCLI) User’s Guide.
