Getting started with the cf CLI

The cf CLI is the official command line client for Cloud Foundry. You can use the cf CLI to manage apps, service instances, orgs, spaces, and users in your environment.

Prerequisite

To follow the procedures in this topic, you must download and install the latest version of the cf CLI v7 or v8. For more information, see Installing the Cloud Foundry command line interface.

Log in with the CLI

The cf login command uses the syntax described below to specify a target API endpoint, login credentials, an org, and a space.

The cf CLI prompts for credentials as needed. If you are a member of multiple orgs or spaces, cf login prompts you for which ones to log in to. Otherwise, it targets your org and space automatically.

To log in to the cf CLI:

Run:
```
cf login -a API-URL -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD -o ORG -s SPACE
```
Where:
- API-URL is your API endpoint, the URL of the Cloud Controller in your TAS for VMs instance.
- USERNAME is your username.
- PASSWORD is your password. VMware discourages using the -p option, because it may record your password in your shell history.
- ORG is the org where you want to deploy your apps.
- SPACE is the space in the org where you want to deploy your apps.

When you successfully log in, you see output like the example below:

$ cf login -a https://api.example.com -u username@example.com -o example-org -s development
API endpoint: https://api.example.com

Password>
Authenticating...
OK

Targeted org example-org

Targeted space development


API endpoint:   https://api.example.com
User:           username@example.com
Org:            example-org
Space:          development

Log in with the API

You can write a script to log in to the cf CLI. This allows you to avoid manually logging in to the cf CLI each time you use it.

To write a script to log in:

Target your API by running:
```
cf api API-URL
```
Where API-URL is your API endpoint, the URL of the Cloud Controller in your TAS for VMs instance.

For more information, see api in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
Authenticate by running:
```
cf auth USERNAME PASSWORD
```
Where:
- USERNAME is your username.
- PASSWORD is your password. VMware discourages using the -p option, because it may record your password in your shell history.
For more information about the cf auth command, see the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
Target your org or space by running:
```
cf target -o ORG -s SPACE
```
Where:
- ORG is the org you want to target.
- SPACE is the space you want to target.
For more information about the cf target command, see the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

After you log in, the cf CLI saves a config.json file that contains your API endpoint, org, space values, and access token.

If you change these settings, the config.json file is updated accordingly.

By default, config.json is located in the ~/.cf directory. You can relocate the config.json file using the CF_HOME environment variable.

Localize the CLI

The cf CLI translates terminal output into the language that you select. The default language is en-US.

The cf CLI supports these languages:

Chinese (simplified): zh-Hans
Chinese (traditional): zh-Hant
English: en-US
French: fr-FR
German: de-DE
Italian: it-IT
Japanese: ja-JP
Korean: ko-KR
Portuguese (Brazil): pt-BR
Spanish: es-ES

For more information, see config in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Note: Localization with cf config --locale affects only messages that the cf CLI generates.

To set the language of the cf CLI:

Log in to the cf CLI:
```
cf login
```
Run:
```
cf config --locale LANGUAGE
```
Where LANGUAGE is code of the language you want to set.

Confirm the language change by running:

cf help

The command returns output similar to the example below:

$ cf help
NOME:
   cf - Uma ferramenta de linha de comando para interagir com Cloud Foundry

USO:
   cf [opções globais] comando [argumentos...] [opções de comando]

VERSÃO:
   6.14.1
   ...

Manage users and roles

The cf CLI includes commands that list users and assign roles in orgs and spaces.

List users

To list all users in an org or a space:

Log in to the cf CLI:
```
cf login
```
Run one of these commands:
- To list org users, run:
```
cf org-users
```
- To list space users, run:
```
cf space-users
```

The command returns output similar to the example below:

$ cf org-users example-org
Getting users in org example-org as username@example.com...

ORG MANAGER
  username@example.com

BILLING MANAGER
  huey@example.com
  dewey@example.com

ORG AUDITOR
  louie@example.com

For more information, see org-users and space-users in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Manage roles

You use the commands listed below to manage roles in the cf CLI. These commands require admin permissions and take username, org or space, and role as arguments:

cf set-org-role
For more information, see set-org-role in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
cf unset-org-role
For more information, see unset-org-role in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
cf set-space-role
For more information, see set-space-role in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Manage roles

You use the commands listed below to manage roles in the cf CLI. These commands require admin permissions and take username, org or space, and role as arguments:

cf set-org-role
For more information, see the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
cf unset-org-role
For more information, see the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
cf set-space-role
For more information, see the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
cf unset-space-role
For more information, see the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

The available roles are:

OrgManager
BillingManager
OrgAuditor
SpaceManager
SpaceDeveloper
SpaceAuditor

For more information about user roles, see Orgs, Spaces, Roles, and Permissions.

The example below shows the cf CLI output for assigning the Org Manager role to a user within an org:

$ cf set-org-role huey@example.com example-org OrgManager

Assigning role OrgManager to user huey@example.com in org example-org as username@example.com...
OK

Note: If you are not an admin, you see this message when you try to run these commands: error code: 10003, message: You are not authorized to perform the requested action

Manage roles for users with identical usernames in multiple origins

If a username corresponds to multiple accounts from different user stores, such as both the internal UAA store and an external SAML or LDAP store, the cf set-org-role and the cf unset-org-role commands above return this error:

The user exists in multiple origins. Specify an origin for the requested user from: ‘uaa’, ‘other’

To resolve this ambiguity, you can construct a curl command that uses the API to perform the desired role management function. For an example, see Associate Auditor with the Organization by Username in the Cloud Foundry API documentation.

Push an app

These sections describe how to use the cf push command to push a new app or sync changes to an existing app.

For more information, see push in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Push a new app or push changes to an app

To push an app:

Log in to the cf CLI by running:
```
cf login
```
Go to the directory of the app.
Push a new app or push changes to an app by running:
```
cf push APP-NAME
```
Where APP-NAME is the name of the app.

Push an app using a manifest

You can provide a path to a manifest file when you push an app. The manifest file may include information such as the name of the app, disk limit, and number of instances. You can use a manifest file rather than adding flags to the cf push command.

cf push locates the manifest.yml file in the current working directory by default. Or, you can provide a path to the manifest with the -f flag.

For more information about the -f flag, see push in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Note: When you provide an app name at the command line, cf push uses that app name whether or not there is a different app name in the manifest. If the manifest describes multiple apps, you can push a single app by providing its name at the command line; the cf CLI does not push the others. Use these behaviors for testing.

Push an app with a buildpack

You can specify a buildpack when you push an app with the -b flag. If you use the -b flag to specify a buildpack, the app remains permanently linked to that buildpack. To use the app with a different buildpack, you must delete the app and then push it again.

For more information about available buildpacks, see Buildpacks.

The example below pushes an app called awesome-app to the URL http://awesome-app.example.com and specifies the Ruby buildpack with the -b flag:

$ cf push awesome-app -b ruby_buildpack
Creating app awesome-app in org example-org / space development as username@example.com...
OK

Creating route awesome-app.example.com...
OK
...

1 of 1 instances running

App started
...

requested state: started
instances: 1/1
usage: 1G x 1 instances
urls: awesome-app.example.com
last uploaded: Wed Jun 8 23:43:15 UTC 2016
stack: cflinuxfs3
buildpack: ruby_buildpack

     state     since                    cpu    memory    disk      details
#0   running   2016-06-08 04:44:07 PM   0.0%   0 of 1G   0 of 1G

Important: To avoid security exposure, verify that you migrate your apps and custom buildpacks to use the cflinuxfs4 stack based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish). The cflinuxfs3 stack is based on Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver), which reaches end of standard support in April 2023.

Map a route to an app

You can provide a hostname for your app when you push the app. If you do not provide a hostname, the cf push command routes your app to a URL of the form APP-NAME.DOMAIN, where APP-NAME is the name of your app and DOMAIN is your default domain.

For information about mapping a route to your app, see Routes and domains.

To map a route to the app:

Log in to the cf CLI by running:
```
cf login
```
Map a route by running:
```
cf push APP-NAME --hostname APP-HOSTNAME
```
Where:
- APP-NAME is the name of the app.
- APP-HOSTNAME is the hostname of the app.

Manage user-provided service instances

These sections describe how to create or update a service instance.

Create a service instance

To create a new service instance, use the cf create-user-provided-service or cf cups commands. For more information, see create-user-provided-service in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

To create or update a user-provided service instance, you must supply basic parameters. For example, a database service might require a username, password, host, port, and database name.

You can provide these parameters in these ways:

Interactively. For more information, see Supply Parameters Interactively.
Non-interactively. For more information, see Supply Parameters Non-Interactively.
With third-party log management software as described in RFC 6587. For more information, see Supply Parameters Through a Third Party and RFC 6587.

Note: When used with third-party logging, the cf CLI sends data formatted according to RFC 5424. For more information, see [RFC 5424](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5424).

Supply parameters interactively

To create a new service while supplying parameters interactively:

Log in to the cf CLI by running:
```
cf login
```
List parameters in a comma-separated list after the -p flag. Run:
```
cf cups SERVICE -p "PARAMETER, SECOND-PARAMETER, THIRD-PARAMETER"
```
Where:
- SERVICE is the name of the service you want to create.
- PARAMETER, SECOND-PARAMETER, and THIRD-PARAMETER are parameters such as username, password, host, port, and database name.

Supply parameters non-interactively

To create a new service while supplying parameters non-interactively:

Log in to the cf CLI by running:
```
cf login
```
Pass parameters and their values in as a JSON hash, bound by single quotes, after the -p tag. Run:
```
cf cups SERVICE -p '{"host":"HOSTNAME", "port":"PORT"}'
```
Where:
- SERVICE is the name of the service you want to create.
- HOSTNAME and PORT are service parameters.

Supply parameters through a third party

For specific log service instructions, see Streaming app logs to third-party services.

To create a service instance that sends data to a third party:

Log in to the cf CLI:
```
cf login
```
Create a service instance that sends data to a third party by running:
```
cf cups SERVICE -l THIRD-PARTY-DESTINATION-URL
```
Where:
- SERVICE is the name of the service you want to create.
- THIRD-PARTY-DESTINATION-URL is the external URL of the third-party service.

Bind and unbind service instances

After you create a user-provided service instance, you can:

Bind the service to an app with cf bind-service. For more information, see bind-service in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
Unbind the service with cf unbind-service. For more information, see unbind-service in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
Rename the service with cf rename-service. For more information, see rename-service in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.
Delete the service with cf delete-service. For more information, see delete-service in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Update a service instance

To update one or more of the parameters for an existing user-provided service instance, use cf update-user-provided-service or cf uups.

For more information, see update-user-provided-service in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

Note: The cf uups command does not update any parameter values that you do not supply.

Retrieve cf CLI return codes

The cf CLI uses exit codes, which help with scripting and confirming that a command has run successfully.

To view a cf CLI exit code:

Log in to the cf CLI by running:
```
cf login
```
To check that the login was successful, run one of these commands, depending on your OS:
- For Mac OS, run:
```
echo $?
```
- For Windows, run:
```
echo %ERRORLEVEL%
```

If the command succeeds, the exit code is 0.

View CLI help output

The cf help command lists the cf CLI commands and a brief description of each. For more information, see help in the Cloud Foundry CLI Reference Guide.

To list detailed help for any cf CLI command, add the -h flag to the command.

The example below shows detailed help output for the cf delete command:

$ cf delete -h
NAME:
   delete - Delete an app

USAGE:
   cf delete APP_NAME [-f -r]

ALIAS:
   d

OPTIONS:
   -f       Force deletion without confirmation
   -r       Delete any mapped routes (only deletes routes mapped to a single app)