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INSTALL-WINDOWS.md

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balena CLI Installation Instructions for Windows

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

Selected operating system: Windows

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

  2. Double click on the downloaded file to run the installer and follow the installer's instructions.

  3. Check that the installation was successful:

    • Click on the Windows Start Menu, type PowerShell, and then click on Windows PowerShell.
    • On the command prompt, type balena version and hit Enter. It should display the version of the balena CLI that you have installed.

No further steps are required to run most CLI commands. The balena device ssh, device detect, build, deploy and preload commands may require additional software to be installed, as described below.

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 as the balena CLI. The advanced installation options document describes other possibilities.

balena device ssh

The balena device ssh command requires the ssh command-line tool to be available. Microsoft started distributing an SSH client with Windows 10, which is automatically installed through Windows Update. To check whether it is installed, run ssh on a Windows Command Prompt or PowerShell. It can also be manually installed if needed. For older versions of Windows, there are several ssh/OpenSSH clients provided by 3rd parties.

The balena device 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 device detect

The balena device detect command requires a multicast DNS (mDNS) service like Apple's Bonjour. Many Windows machines will already have this service installed, as it is bundled in popular applications such as Skype (Wikipedia lists several others). Otherwise, Bonjour for Windows can be downloaded and installed from: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL999

balena preload

Like the build and deploy commands, the preload command requires Docker. 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 and 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 Windows

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