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Docs › Build tools › Mbed CLI 1 › Install and set up

Installers

The installers are a great way to get started with Mbed OS:

There is no installer for Linux; please follow the manual installation guide.

Note: The GNU Arm embedded toolchain (GCC) is bundled with the installers. If you want to compile using the Arm Compiler, visit the supported compilers list to see which versions you can use.

Manual installation

1. Install dependencies

Instructions for Windows

  1. Download and install Python 3.7.x (which includes pip).
  2. Download and install Git (versions 1.9.5 or later are supported).
  3. Download and install Mercurial (versions 2.2.2 or later are supported).

Instructions for macOS

  1. If your version of macOS does not come with Python 3, download and install Python from the official website. This package includes pip.
  2. Download and install Git (versions 1.9.5 or later are supported).
  3. Download and install Mercurial (versions 2.2.2 or later are supported).

Instructions for Linux

Linux distributions typically manage software through package managers. The specific commands to install the dependencies will vary depending on your distribution. Please see your distribution's documentation for more information.

As an example, the following is a command to install all dependencies on Ubuntu:

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip git mercurial

2. Install Mbed CLI

Note: We suggest you install Mbed CLI from within a virtual environment and run all commands from within your virtual environment. This will ensure that changes made by the Mbed CLI installation do not propagate to the rest of your system and cause unexpected changes in behavior in any existing Python installation.

To install Mbed CLI with pip:

python3 -m pip install mbed-cli

To verify Mbed CLI installed correctly, run mbed --help.

To update Mbed CLI, run:

python3 -m pip install -U mbed-cli

3. Install a compiler

Download and install one of the supported compilers.

4. Configure the compiler location

To build project, Mbed CLI needs to know where the compiler is installed. It checks three configuration options in the following order:

  1. Mbed CLI config (local first, then global).
  2. Environment variables.
  3. System path.

Configure compiler location with Mbed CLI

If you cannot place the compiler in the system PATH, or if you have to use a different version of the compiler than the one in your system path, you must configure the location of the compiler with Mbed CLI. Use the mbed config command to set the compiler's location:

$ mbed config -G ARM_PATH "C:\Program Files\ARM"
[mbed] C:\Program Files\ARM now set as global ARM_PATH

The -G argument sets the location globally, so that it applies to all projects. You can omit the argument if you are configuring a compiler location for a specific project.

Mbed CLI supports a setting for each toolchain path:

Toolchain Setting name Example binary location Example path
Arm Compiler 6 ARMC6_PATH C:\Program Files\ARMCompiler6\bin\armclang C:\Program Files\ARMCompiler6 \bin
GCC Arm Embedded Compiler GCC_ARM_PATH /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc /usr/bin

Configure compiler location with environment variables

You can set the location of the compiler with environment variables. Use the path listed in the previous section Configuring compiler location with Mbed CLI.

Toolchain Environment variable
Arm Compiler 6 MBED_ARMC6_PATH
GCC Arm Embedded Compiler MBED_GCC_ARM_PATH

Install compilers in the system PATH

Installing the compilers in the system PATH will allow the tools to automatically discover the compilers without further configuration. Most compiler installers have an option to add the compiler to the system PATH for you.

Optional configuration

Bash completion

To install mbed-cli bash completion:

  1. Clone the Mbed CLI repository: git clone https://github.com/ARMmbed/mbed-cli.
  2. Navigate to the mbed-cli/tools/bash_completion directory.
  3. Copy the mbed script into the ~/.bash_completion.d directory (you may need to create this directory first, and then you may also need to add a line, for example source ~/.bash_completion.d/mbed to ~/.bashrc).
  4. Restart the terminal.

Configuration options

The Mbed CLI configuration syntax is:

mbed config [--global] <var> [value] [--unset]

To see the active Mbed CLI configuration:

$ mbed config --list
[mbed] Global config:
ARM_PATH=C:\Program Files\ARM\armcc5.06
IAR_PATH=C:\Program Files\IAR Workbench 7.0\arm

[mbed] Local config (D:\temp\mbed-os-program):
No local configuration is set

Command options:

Option Explanation
--global Defines the default behavior of Mbed CLI across all applications, unless overridden by local settings.
None Any configuration done without --global is specific to a single Mbed application. It overrides global or default Mbed CLI settings. If you do not specify a value, then Mbed CLI prints the value for this setting in the current working context.
--unset Remove a setting.
--list List global and local configuration.

Available configurations:

Option Explanation Default value
target The default target for compile, test and export; an alias of mbed target. No default.
toolchain The default toolchain for compile and test; can be set through mbed toolchain. No default.
ARM_PATH, ARMC6_PATH, GCC_ARM_PATH Define the paths to Arm Compiler and GCC Arm Workbench toolchains. No default.
protocol The default protocol used for importing or cloning programs and libraries. The possible values are https, http and ssh. Use ssh if you have generated and registered SSH keys (Public Key Authentication) with a service such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. For more information, see SSH keys on GitHub. Default: https.
depth The clone depth for importing or cloning. Applies only to Git repositories. Note that though this option may improve cloning speed, it may also prevent you from correctly checking out a dependency tree when the reference revision hash is older than the clone depth. For more information, see shallow clones on GitHub. No default.
cache The local path that stores small copies of the imported or cloned repositories. Mbed CLI uses it to minimize traffic and speed up future imports of the same repositories. Use on or enabled to turn on caching in the system temp path. Use none to turn caching off. Default: none (disabled).
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