2.2.1. Install the CLI

Official Download

Copy and paste the following line in your terminal. It will download the install.sh bash script and execute it; then the Colmena CLI will be installed to your terminal.

curl -O https://gitlab.com/colmena-project/dev/installer-cli/-/raw/main/install.sh && sh install.sh

If any of the requirements mentioned in the previous section is not present, the installation will stop. You should install the required software and then try again by running the same command.

You’ll be prompted to select your preferred shell environment, then the installation process will be completed. If you’re not sure which shell you’re using please type the following command in your terminal or visit this website that’ll help you understand which is your current shell.

printf "My current shell - %s\n" "$SHELL"

OS dependencies note: this script checks for some OS requirements that are needed to perform a successful installation. For example, it needs git and make to perform the initial installation steps. If you don’t have these tools, the CLI prompts a message with instructions to install them. Though there could be some needed packages that this CLI is not aware of. For example, some linux based OSs might not ship with python3-venv. You’ll be prompted a message if you need to install it.

You’ll notice a .colmena directory has been created in your home path, where the CLI is located.

Check installation

Just type colmena in your terminal to check that it’s properly installed in your system. The expected output is similar to the following:

$ colmena
Usage: colmena [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Group command

Options:
  --help  Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  configure     Group command
  init          Starts the Colmena services.
  install       Downloads and installs the Colmena Installer tool.
  requirements  Verifies all requirements are met.
  stop          Stops the Colmena services.
  uninstall     Uninstalls and removes Colmena files.
  update        Looks for updates in the Colmena platform.

This message can be obtained by doing colmena --help too. It shows the available commands by the colmena cli.

Then run colmena requirements to check if your system meets the minimum requirements to run the Colmena platform.

When ready, proceed to the next section.