Setup command line tools to work with IBM Cloudant

Command line tools are always welcome.  Today i need to setup my MAC to work with IBM Cloudant

Install curl on your MAC if you haven’t done it yet.

1 - You need to setup the Cloudant DB using your IBM Cloud account.

2 - Go to service credentials and get your username, password and hostname

Sample: "username": "xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix", "password": "yourcloudantpassword", "host": "xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix.cloudant.com"

3 - Test the connection

curl –v –u xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix 'https://xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix.cloudant.com'

The command will prompt for the password: yourcloudantpassword

You will see a lot off lines but pay attention on the line Authorization: Basic. This will be used to setup acurl (authorized curl) to avoid type the password every time you use curl.

\* Using HTTP2, server supports multi-use \* Connection state changed (HTTP/2 confirmed) \* Copying HTTP/2 data in stream buffer to connection buffer after upgrade: len=0 \* Server auth using Basic with user ’ xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix’ \* Using Stream ID: 1 (easy handle 0x7fabd0805800) > GET / HTTP/2 > Host: xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix.cloudant.com > Authorization: Basic asddadasdDASDdaDadaDSERQERQRQERQEDSGSFDGSFDG==

4 - Edit the .bash_profile or .bashrc file in any text editor. For example, from the command line, issue the following command: open –e .bash_profile

5 - Add the following line to the file, then save the file. alias acurl="curl -s --proto '=https' -g -H 'Authorization: Basic asddadasdDASDdaDadaDSERQERQRQERQEDSGSFDGSFDG=='"

6 - On the terminal run : source .bash_profile

7 - Issue a command using the new alias. For example, issue a command to view your account information. acurl -X GET 'https://xxxx-xxx-xxx-bluemix.cloudant.com'

TIP: The hostname is not friendly you can edit your hosts file and create an alias:

On MAC terminal type: sudo vi /etc/hosts

ping your hostname to get the ip address

add a line like this one bellow:

  xxxx-xxx-xxx -bluemix.cloudant.com  keniodb.cloudant.com

Save the hosts file

test the connection

acurl -X GET 'https://keniodb.cloudant.com