Skip to content

Installation

We recommend installing faas-cli through arkade, for the quickest and easiest installation.

There is also a bash script for downloading the binary, and support for brew.

Installation with arkade

Install arkade:

curl -sSL https://get.arkade.dev | sudo -E sh

Install faas-cli:

arkade get faas-cli

You can update faas-cli at any time by running the above command again.

arkade can also be used to download around 120 different DevOps and Kubernetes tools, find out more in the arkade README

Installation with Bash

For Linux or macOS users, the following script can be used:

curl -sSL https://cli.openfaas.com | sudo -E sh

The flag -E allows for any http_proxy environmental variables to be passed through to the installation bash script.

Non-root with curl downloads the binary into your current directory and will then print installation instructions:

curl -sSL https://cli.openfaas.com | sh

Via brew:

brew install faas-cli

Note

The version of faas-cli installed by brew is likely to lag behind a little, so we recommend using arkade instead.

Windows

In PowerShell:

$version = (Invoke-WebRequest "https://api.github.com/repos/openfaas/faas-cli/releases/latest" | ConvertFrom-Json)[0].tag_name
(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile("https://github.com/openfaas/faas-cli/releases/download/$version/faas-cli.exe", "faas-cli.exe")

Pro plugin

The OpenFaaS Pro CLI plugin provides additional features for the faas-cli including SSO and OIDC authentication.

Note: The pro plugin is available for OpenFaaS Standard & For Enterprises customers and requires activation.

Download the pro plugin:

faas-cli plugin get pro

Activate with a static license

If you have a static JWT license for the CLI, you can enable the plugin without any interactive steps. This is the recommended approach for CI/CD pipelines and air-gapped environments.

Save the license to the default location. Run the following, then paste in your license, hit enter once, then Control + D to save the file.

mkdir -p ~/.openfaas
cat > ~/.openfaas/LICENSE_CLI

Once the license is in place, the plugin is enabled automatically and no additional flags or environment variables are needed.

The license can also be provided through alternative sources. They are resolved in the following priority order:

  1. --license flag — literal JWT string
  2. --license-file flag — path to a file containing the JWT
  3. OPENFAAS_LICENSE environment variable
  4. Default file at $HOME/.openfaas/LICENSE_CLI

Contact the OpenFaaS team to obtain a static license for the CLI.

Activate with GitHub

For customers who have a GitHub organisation, you will need to send the OpenFaaS team an email with the name of the organisation, and make sure you can log into your account.

faas-cli pro enable

A browser will open with a device challenge, once completed, the CLI will be enabled.

Does your team not have a GitHub organisation available?

If your organisation does not use GitHub, or you are not a member of its GitHub organisation, you can use a static license instead.

Environment variable overrides

Several overrides exist which will be used by default if set and no other command-line flag has been set.

  • OPENFAAS_TEMPLATE_URL - to set the default URL to pull templates from
  • OPENFAAS_PREFIX - for use with faas-cli new - this can act in place of --prefix
  • OPENFAAS_URL - to override the default gateway URL

Running faas-cli with sudo

If you're running the faas-cli with sudo we recommend using sudo -E to pass through any environmental variables you may have configured such as a http_proxy, https_proxy or no_proxy entry.

Running faas-cli with docker

The faas-cli is also available as a Docker image making it convenient for use in CI jobs such as with a Jenkins pipeline or a task in cron.

ghcr.io/openfaas/faas-cli

There is no "latest" tag, so find the version of the CLI you want to use from the tags page on the Docker Hub. These correspond to the release from GitHub.

Note: the Docker image cannot be used to perform a build directly, but you can use it to generate a build context which can be used with a container builder such as the OpenFaaS Pro Function Builder API, Docker, buildkit or Kaniko in another part of your build pipeline.

Use-cases for the Docker image:

  • Generate the build context without running docker with the faas-cli build --shrinkwrap command
  • Deploy an existing image to a remote server faas-cli deploy
  • Manage secrets with faas-cli secret
  • Invoke functions via cron with faas-cli invoke
  • Check the health of your remote gateway with faas-cli info

Building from source

The contributing guide has instructions for building from source and for configuring a Golang development environment.

Tutorial

5 tips and tricks for the OpenFaaS CLI by Alex Ellis