How to Install and Configure doctl

Validated on 15 Apr 2020 • Last edited on 8 Jul 2024

Step 1: Install doctl

Install doctl following the directions for your package manager or operating system:

To install the latest version of doctl using Homebrew on macOS, run:

brew install doctl

To install the latest version of doctl using Snap on Ubuntu or other supported operating systems, run:

sudo snap install doctl

For security purposes, Snaps run in complete isolation and need to be granted permission to interact with your system’s resources. Some doctl commands require additional permissions:

sudo snap connect doctl:kube-config

sudo snap connect doctl:ssh-keys :ssh-keys

sudo snap connect doctl:dot-docker

Visit the Releases page for the doctl GitHub project and find the appropriate archive for your operating system and architecture. Download the archive from your browser or copy its URL and retrieve it to your home directory with wget.

For example, to download the most recent version of doctl for Linux with wget, run:

cd ~
wget https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl/releases/download/v1.104.0/doctl-1.104.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz

Next, extract the binary. For example, to do so using tar, run:

tar xf ~/doctl-1.104.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz

Finally, move the doctl binary into your path by running:

sudo mv ~/doctl /usr/local/bin

Visit the Releases page for the doctl GitHub project and find the appropriate archive for your operating system and architecture. Download the archive from your browser or copy its URL and retrieve using PowerShell.

For example, to download the most recent version of doctl, run:

Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl/releases/download/v1.104.0/doctl-1.104.0-windows-amd64.zip -OutFile ~\doctl-1.104.0-windows-amd64.zip

Next, extract the binary by running:

Expand-Archive -Path ~\doctl-1.104.0-windows-amd64.zip

Finally, in a PowerShell terminal opened with Run as Administrator, move the doctl binary into a dedicated directory and add it to your system’s path by running:

New-Item -ItemType Directory $env:ProgramFiles\doctl\
Move-Item -Path ~\doctl-1.104.0-windows-amd64\doctl.exe -Destination $env:ProgramFiles\doctl\
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable(
    "Path",
    [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path",
    [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine) + ";$env:ProgramFiles\doctl\",
    [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)
$env:Path = [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path","Machine")

Step 2: Create an API token

Create a DigitalOcean API token for your account with read and write access from the Applications & API page in the control panel. The token string is only displayed once, so save it in a safe place.

Step 3: Use the API token to grant account access to doctl

Note
If you installed doctl using the Ubuntu Snap package, you may need to first create the user configuration directory if it does not exist yet by running mkdir ~/.config.

Use the API token to grant doctl access to your DigitalOcean account. Pass in the token string when prompted by doctl auth init, and give this authentication context a name.

doctl auth init --context <NAME>

Authentication contexts let you switch between multiple authenticated accounts. You can repeat steps 2 and 3 to add other DigitalOcean accounts, then list and switch between authentication contexts:

doctl auth list
doctl auth switch --context <NAME>

Step 4: Validate that doctl is working

Now that doctl is authorized to use your account, try some test commands.

To confirm that you have successfully authorized doctl, review your account details by running:

doctl account get

If successful, the output looks like:

Email                      Droplet Limit    Email Verified    UUID                                        Status
sammy@example.org          10               true              3a56c5e109736b50e823eaebca85708ca0e5087c    active

To confirm that you have successfully granted write access to doctl, create an Ubuntu 23.10 Droplet in the SFO2 region by running:

doctl compute droplet create --region sfo2 --image ubuntu-23-10-x64 --size s-1vcpu-1gb <DROPLET-NAME>

You can get a full list of available Droplet images by running doctl compute image list. The output of that command includes an ID column with the new Droplet’s ID. For example:

ID           Name            Public IPv4    Private IPv4    Public IPv6    Memory    VCPUs    Disk    Region    Image                       Status    Tags    Features    Volumes
187949338    droplet-name                                                  1024      1        25      sfo2      Ubuntu 18.04.3 (LTS) x64    new

Use that value to delete the Droplet by running:

doctl compute droplet delete <DROPLET-ID>

When prompted, type y to confirm that you would like to delete the Droplet.

Step 5: Install Serverless Functions support (Optional)

To use doctl with our serverless Functions product, you must first install a software extension, then use it to connect to the development namespace.

To install the support for serverless Functions, run the serverless install subcommand:

doctl serverless install

This downloads and installs the extension, providing status updates along the way:

Downloading...Unpacking...Installing...Cleaning up...
Done

You are now ready to create a namespace and deploy your functions. See the Functions Quickstart to get started.

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