The bkr command-line client¶

Supported platforms¶

The Beaker command line client is fully supported on recent versions of Fedora and on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Most commands are also supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (when this is not the case, it will be noted in the documentation of the affected command by indicating the minimum required version of Python).

Installing and configuring the client¶

Pre-built Beaker packages are available from the Download section of Beaker’s web site. Download the repo file that suits your requirements and copy it to /etc/yum.repos.d.

Install the beaker-client package:

$ sudo yum install beaker-client

A sample configuration is installed as /usr/share/doc/beaker-client-*/client.conf.example. Copy it to /etc/beaker/client.conf or ~/.beaker_client/config and edit it there.

First, set the URL of your Beaker server without trailing slash:

HUB_URL = "http://mybeaker.example.com/bkr"

You’ll then need to configure how your Beaker client authenticates with the Beaker server. You can use either password authentication, or Kerberos authentication. For password authentication, add the following:

AUTH_METHOD = "password"
USERNAME = "username"
PASSWORD = "password"

If instead Kerberos authentication is preferred:

AUTH_METHOD = "krbv"
KRB_REALM = "REALM.EXAMPLE.COM"

To verify it is working properly:

$ bkr whoami

It should print your username.

Using the client¶

For full details about the bkr client and its subcommands, refer to the Beaker client man pages. A summary of some common commands is given below.

To create a simple Job workflow, the beaker client comes with the command bkr workflow-simple. This simple Job workflow will create the XML for you from various options passed at the shell prompt, and submit this to the Beaker server. To see all the options that can be passed during invocation of workflow-simple, use the following command:

$ bkr workflow-simple --help

A common set of parameters that may be passed to the workflow-simple options would be the following:

$ bkr workflow-simple --username=<user> --password=<passwd> --dryrun \
    --arch=<arch> --distro=<distro_name> --task=<task_name> \
    --type=<TYPE> --whiteboard=<whiteboard_name> --debug > my_job.xml

To submit an existing Job workflow:

$ bkr job-submit job_xml

If successful, you will be shown the Job ID and the progress of your Job.

To watch a Job:

$ bkr job-watch J:job_id

To cancel a Job you have created:

$ bkr job-cancel J:job_id

To show all Tasks available for a given distro:

$ bkr task-list distro

To add a Task:

$ bkr task-add task_rpm