balena-cli/INSTALL-MAC.md

balena CLI Installation Instructions for macOS

These instructions are for the recommended installation option. Advanced users may also be interested in advanced installation options.

Selected operating system: macOS

1. Download the installer from the latest release page. Look for a file name that ends with "-installer.pkg":
   balena-cli-vX.Y.Z-macOS-x64-installer.pkg

2. Double click the downloaded file to run the installer. After the installation completes, close and re-open any open command terminal windows (so that the changes made by the installer to the PATH environment variable can take effect).

3. Check that the installation was successful by running the following commands on a command terminal:

   • balena version - should print the CLI's version
   • balena help - should print a list of available commands

No further steps are required to run most CLI commands. The balena ssh, build, deploy and preload commands may require additional software to be installed, as described in the next section.

To update the balena CLI, repeat the steps above for the new version.
To uninstall it, run the following command on a terminal prompt:

sudo /usr/local/lib/balena-cli/bin/uninstall

Additional Dependencies

build and deploy

These commands require Docker or balenaEngine to be available (on a local or remote machine). Most users will follow Docker's installation instructions to install Docker on the same workstation (laptop) as the balena CLI. The advanced installation options document describes other possibilities.

balena ssh

The balena ssh command requires the ssh command-line tool to be available. To check whether it is already installed, run ssh on a Terminal window. If it is not yet installed, the options include:

• Download the Xcode Command Line Tools from https://developer.apple.com/downloads
• Or, if you have Xcode installed, open Xcode, choose Preferences → General → Downloads → Components → Command Line Tools → Install.
• Or, install Homebrew, then brew install openssh

The balena ssh command also requires an SSH key to be added to your balena account: see SSH Access documentation. The balena key* command set can also be used to list and manage SSH keys: see balena help -v.

balena preload

Like the build and deploy commands, the preload command requires Docker, with the additional restriction that Docker must be installed on the local machine (because Docker's bind mounting feature is used). Also, preloading balenaOS images for some older device types (like the Raspberry Pi 3, but not the Raspberry 4) requires Docker to support the AUFS storage driver. Unfortunately, Docker Desktop for Windows or macOS dropped support for the AUFS filesystem in Docker CE versions greater than 18.06.1. The present workarounds are to either:

• Install the balena CLI on Linux (e.g. Ubuntu) with a virtual machine like VirtualBox. This works because Docker for Linux still supports AUFS. Hint: if using a virtual machine, copy the image file over, rather than accessing it through "file sharing", to avoid errors.
• Downgrade Docker Desktop to version 18.06.1. Link: Docker CE for Mac

We are working on replacing AUFS with overlay2 in balenaOS images of the affected device types.