Switch the Domino CLI from S3 to using the API (troubleshooting CLI errors)

If you're having trouble with the Domino command line interface (CLI), one culprit may be the authorization pathway. If you're seeing issues such as failures running domino init or domino get, or any error messages about blob transfer or s3 issues, you may want to try switching the auth mode from S3 to API.  Read on if this sounds like your issue.

We will go through the process of switching how the CLI talks to S3. We will use the API to authenticate instead. Here are the instructions.

Set client_blob_mode from "S3" to "API". This will send requests through the API rather than directly to the S3. Follow these steps to do this:

• Locate the file install_config.json In my test environment, it was underC:\Users\Domino\.dominoconfig\install_config.json and on a mac the path is typically  /Users/<username>/.dominoconfig/install_config.json 
• Log in to the CLI
• Edit the file `install_config.json` to change "client_blob_mode ":"S3" to "API"

For example, change this:

{"host":"https://some.deployment.com","user_id":"123456","username":"dominopetter","api_key":"123456","client_blob_mode":"S3","is_cloud_mode":true,"report_errors_to_server":false,"cli_installer_location":"https://some.deployment.com/assets/cli/default"}

to this:

{"host":"https://some.deployment.com","userid":"123456","username":"dominopetter","apikey":"123456","client_blob_mode":"API","is_cloud_mode":true,"report_errors_to_server":false,"cli_installer_location":"https://some.deployment.com/assets/cli/default"}

Re-try a domino get without logging in again and you should be using the API instead of S3 mode.

Note that the API mode of authentication is slightly slower, so if you notice any slowness after making this change let us know and we can help you fix the underlying issue with the original auth mode, though this can take a little longer than just changing the auth mode.