Creating a profile to use the cpd-cli management commands

Before you can complete certain set up and management tasks for IBM® Cloud Pak for Data, you must create a profile so that you can run the appropriate cpd-cli commands.

About this task

Any user who plans to complete the following tasks needs to create a profile:

Managing service instances (by running the cpd-cli service-instance command)
Migrating metadata between Cloud Pak for Data deployments (by running the cpd-cli export-import command)

A profile enables the cpd-cli to verify that you are a Cloud Pak for Data user and that you have the appropriate administrator permissions to complete a given task.

Procedure

Generate the API key that you'll need for user authentication by going to your Profile and settings page in the Cloud Pak for Data client and clicking Generate API key.
This API key does not expire. The configuration information is stored in $HOME/.cpd-cli/config.
Create a local user configuration for yourself by pasting the API key in the following command:
```
./cpd-cli config users set cpd-admin-user --username admin --apikey api_key
```
where cpd-admin-user is an example name of the new local user configuration.

Anytime you regenerate the API key, you must rerun this command to update your local user configuration.
Tip: To delete a user, you can enter the command:
```
./cpd-cli config users unset cpd-admin-user
```
Set a new profile to store the Cloud Pak for Data URL and its association with the local configuration you created:
```
./cpd-cli config profiles set cpd-admin-profile --user cpd-admin-user --url cpd_route
```
where cpd-admin-profile is an example name of the new profile. If you have multiple Cloud Pak for Data instances, you must set a new profile on every instance. You can also have profiles for other users in the same Cloud Pak for Data URL.
Tip: To delete a profile, you can enter the command:
```
./cpd-cli config profiles unset cpd-admin-profile
```

Results

You can now run cpd-cli commands with this profile using the --profile flag. For example:

./cpd-cli service-instance list --profile cpd-admin-profile

Otherwise, you receive an Error: required flag(s) "profile" not set error.