Environment Variables for Globus CLI

This document covers the various environment variables with special meanings for the Globus CLI.

Globus SDK Variables

The CLI supports all of the environment variables which can be used to configure the Globus SDK.

For the most part, CLI users will not need to modify these values. However, for the particular case of GLOBUS_SDK_ENVIRONMENT, the CLI has special additional handling.

When the environment is set, as in GLOBUS_SDK_ENVIRONMENT="preview", the CLI will isolate any credentials used for login and session management. globus login, globus logout, and other commands will operate in the context of the "preview" environment, for example.

Interactivity with GLOBUS_CLI_INTERACTIVE

Certain features of the CLI will be enabled or disabled based on whether or not the terminal session used to run it is detected as interactive or not. For example, additional usage hints may be printed to stderr in an interactive terminal.

However, it is possible for the interactivity detection to be fooled. For example, an automated tool which emulates a login shell may appear interactive even though it is not.

To control these behaviors, the CLI allows users to explicitly specify whether or not the shell is interactive. Use GLOBUS_CLI_INTERACTIVE=0 to set "not interactive", and GLOBUS_CLI_INTERACTIVE=1 to set "yes, interactive".

Profile-switching with GLOBUS_PROFILE

The Globus CLI allows users to login, logout, and perform various other authentication- and authorization-related activities. Until version 3, however, the only way to switch to another Globus Account was to logout and login again.

Starting in version 3, the Globus CLI respects a new variable, GLOBUS_PROFILE, which names the "profile", or set of credentials, which the CLI uses.

When the GLOBUS_PROFILE variable is not set, a default profile is used. Any string value which is assigned to the profile variable acts as an alternative profile name.

For example, one could setup the default profile and a profile named bar as follows:

$ globus login
...  # login as foo@example.org
$ export GLOBUS_PROFILE=bar
$ globus login
...  # login as bar@example.org

Now, unset GLOBUS_PROFILE will allow the user to act as foo@example.org and export GLOBUS_PROFILE=bar will allow the user to switch back to bar@example.org.

Note

Switching between accounts using GLOBUS_PROFILE is a way of keeping them unlinked, meaning that the user has multiple identities which are isolated into separate accounts. This is not the same as having multiple identities which are linked into a single Globus Account.

Client Credentials with GLOBUS_CLI_CLIENT_ID

New in Globus CLI version 3.2!

The Globus CLI supports use of client credentials for login, if you have registered a client.

To use client credentials, you must set GLOBUS_CLI_CLIENT_ID to your client ID, and GLOBUS_CLI_CLIENT_SECRET to your client secret. You may then use globus commands as normal, with no need to run globus login.

For example, with an ID of b0500dab-ebd4-430f-b962-0c85bd43bdbb and a secret of ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP0123456789=:

$ export GLOBUS_CLI_CLIENT_ID="b0500dab-ebd4-430f-b962-0c85bd43bdbb"
$ export GLOBUS_CLI_CLIENT_SECRET="ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP0123456789="
$ globus whoami
b0500dab-ebd4-430f-b962-0c85bd43bdbb@clients.auth.globus.org

Note

Although globus login is not allowed with client credentials, globus logout still has an effect. logout will clean up any cached credentials for the current client.