Prerequisites

Before starting the course, please ensure you have the following tools installed on your machine. This guide provides installation instructions for both macOS and Windows platforms.

1. Podman or Docker

You only need one of these container runtimes. Container runtimes allow you to build, run and publish container images locally.

Podman

Podman is a daemonless and rootless alternative to Docker, which enhances the security. Podman is fully compatible with the docker CLI commands and OCI standards.

macOS

brew install podman
podman machine init
podman machine start

Windows

Download and install from the official site: https://podman.io/getting-started/installation

Docker

macOS & Windows

Download Docker Desktop from: https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop

Note: Docker Desktop requires a free Docker account.

2. IBM Cloud CLI

Download and install from: https://github.com/IBM-Cloud/ibm-cloud-cli-release/releases/

After installation, verify with:

ibmcloud version

Optionally, you can also enable the autocompletion:
https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/cli?topic=cli-shell-autocomplete

3. Bruno (API test client)

Bruno is a lightweight API client, ideal for working with REST APIs. In later chapters you’ll interact with the IBM Cloudant Database APIs. Bruno will come in handy to test the APIs before implementing them in your code.

Download the latest release for your OS :
https://www.usebruno.com/downloads

Install the version appropriate for your system.

4. Python (version 3.8 or higher)

macOS

brew install python

Windows

Download and install from: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/

Note: During installation, make sure to select “Add Python to PATH”.

5. Code editor (VS Code or any other)

Recommended is using Visual Studio Code for this course but any other editor will also do the job.

macOS & Windows

Download from: https://code.visualstudio.com/Download

You can use any other editor you’re comfortable with.

Verification checklist

After installation, you should be able to run the following commands in your terminal or command prompt:

podman --version       # or docker --version
ibmcloud version
python --version

Environment variables

Throught the workshop, we’ll be using environment variables to configure our applications and execute commands. How to set those environment variables will depend on your operating system and Command Line Interface. Below you find instructions for macOS/Linux and Windows. The rest of the lab is primarely documented for macOS/Linux. Come back here to see how you’d adapt the instructions for Windows.

macOS & Linux

# Setting variables
export VARIABLE_NAME=value
export ANOTHER_VAR="value with spaces"

# Using variables
echo $VARIABLE_NAME
command --param=${VARIABLE_NAME}

# Setting multiple variables inline for a single command
VARIABLE1=value1 VARIABLE2=value2 command

Windows (Powershell)

# Setting variables
$env:VARIABLE_NAME = "value"
$env:ANOTHER_VAR = "value with spaces"

# Using variables
echo $env:VARIABLE_NAME
command --param=$env:VARIABLE_NAME

# Setting multiple variables for a command (must be set before running command)
$env:VARIABLE1 = "value1"
$env:VARIABLE2 = "value2"
command

WIndows (Command Prompt)

:: Setting variables
set VARIABLE_NAME=value
set ANOTHER_VAR=value with spaces

:: Using variables
echo %VARIABLE_NAME%
command --param=%VARIABLE_NAME%

:: Setting multiple variables for a command (must be set before running command)
set VARIABLE1=value1
set VARIABLE2=value2
command

Once everything is installed and working, you’re ready to begin!