Install gcloud SDK on AIX

Installing the gcloud sdk on AIX will allow you to download and upload from Google Cloud Storage buckets, as well as controlling other aspects of your google cloud environment. In AIX, it is primarily used for interacting with Storage Buckets and objects.

This Guide is not comprehensive, as covering all AIX versions and types is not possible. Note that it is easiest on AIX 7.3, as it requires python 3.8 or above. This example assumes a system built by downloading the AIX 7.3 TL1 stock image.

First, prepare your filesystems for new content

chfs -a size=+2G /opt
chfs -a size=+500M /tmp
chfs -a size=+500M /var

Next, I recommend you update your system using SUMA. To do this, we’ll clear out /usr/sys/inst.images first

rm -rf /usr/sys/inst.images/*
smitty suma

Select Download Updates Now (Easy)
Select Download All Latest Fixes

Once those have downloaded, update your system using

smitty update_all

For the directory, enter /usr/sys/inst.images
Change ACCEPT new license agreements? to yes

Once those updates have installed run

updtvpkg
dnf update python3 dnf

You should now be ready to install requisite software for the gcloud sdk

dnf install curl coreutils tar git bash python3-pip

Change your path to use the new gnu utilities

export PATH=/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH

Download the gcloud sdk installer and run it

curl https://sdk.cloud.google.com | bash

For an installation directory use /opt/freeware/
For Do you want to help improve the Google Cloud CLI (y/N)? say n

You will now see:

ERROR: (gcloud.components.update) The following components are unknown [gcloud-crc32c].

You can disregard this. You may wish to switch to a non-root user for the remaining steps.

Set your path

export PATH=/opt/freeware/google-cloud-sdk/bin/:$PATH:/opt/freeware/bin

Now you can run the google cloud sdk:

gcloud auth login

Follow the login prompts, pasting in the code to authenticate.

Adjust your crc settings. Using if_fast_else_skip is faster and uses less CPU, but also does no crc checking.

gcloud config set storage/check_hashes if_fast_else_skip

gcloud config set storage/check_hashes always

You should now be able to list the content of buckets you have access to, and download files.

gcloud storage ls gs://<bucketname>
gcloud storage cp gs://<bucketname>/<filename> /path/to/download/