balena-cli inconsistancies with 'balena device' command subset

openBalena
1

Hi guys,

I’ve noticed a few inconsistencies that have started to annoy me since I’ve noticed them. These are all in the ‘balena device’ subset of commands…

If we use balena devices, we get a list of devices. Good.

$ balena devices
ID UUID    DEVICE NAME   DEVICE TYPE APPLICATION NAME STATUS IS ONLINE SUPERVISOR VERSION OS VERSION
35 7341412 still-glitter jetson-nano triage           Idle   true      11.14.0            balenaOS 2.60.1+rev1

Now to bring up the information on that device, the help says:

$ balena help --verbose
USAGE
$ balena [COMMAND] [OPTIONS]

PRIMARY COMMANDS
........
  devices                                list all devices
  device <uuid>

Using the shortened UUID as per the output of balena devices, we get:

$ balena device 7341412
BalenaDeviceNotFound: Device not found: 7341412

Ok, what about the DEVICE NAME field… Nope:

$ balena device still-glitter
BalenaDeviceNotFound: Device not found: still-glitter

But when we use the ID:

$ balena device 35
== STILL GLITTER
ID:                    35
DEVICE TYPE:           jetson-nano
STATUS:                idle
IS ONLINE:             true
IP ADDRESS:            10.1.1.194
......
UUID:                  73414124ca8ab35699814c985d555a02

So now we can get the full UUID, which also seems to work:

$ balena device 73414124ca8ab35699814c985d555a02
== STILL GLITTER
ID:                    35
DEVICE TYPE:           jetson-nano
STATUS:                idle
IS ONLINE:             true
IP ADDRESS:            10.1.1.194

So, what should I suggest to make this command set logical and follow what the help actually states?

Should it also match the shortened UUID? Should the documentation / help say to use the ID and not UUID? Should it be something else?

Thanks in advance.

6

Hello Steve,

Thanks for reaching out. On balena CLI version v12.12.0
Both commands balena device <short-UUID> and balena device <full-UUID> works for me. I haven’t tried using balena device <ID> yet and TIL that it works as well. I am not sure, device field ever worked though which is why there is no mention of balena device <device-name> in the documentation or command help that I pasted below.

➜  ~ balena help device --verbose
Show info about a single device.

USAGE
  $ balena device <uuid>

ARGUMENTS
  <uuid>  the device uuid

OPTIONS
  -h, --help  show CLI help

DESCRIPTION
  Show information about a single device.

EXAMPLE
  $ balena device 7cf02a6

Regarding documentation/help, I would say UUID is the recommended way to go. I feel we can start by investigating why balena device <short-UUID> didn’t work for you.

9

I’m using a newer client - could this be a regression?

$ balena --version
12.28.2

Against open-balena 3.1.1.

10

Hi

There are some known issues with balena CLI and openBalena - see this issue for more information about it - https://github.com/balena-io/balena-cli/issues/1610

Can you downgrade your CLI to v12.2.2 -