Juju client

This page covers various operations that can be applied to the Juju client, the software that is used to manage Juju, whether as an administrator or as a regular user.

The following topics are covered:

Client directory
Client backups
Client upgrades

See the Concepts page for a full definition of the client.

Client directory

The Juju client directory is located, on Ubuntu, at ~/.local/share/juju.

Aside from things like a credentials YAML file, which you are presumably able to recreate, this directory contains unique files such as Juju's SSH keys, which are necessary to be able to connect to a Juju machine. This location may also be home to resources needed by charms or models.

Note: On Microsoft Windows, the directory is in a different place (usually C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Juju).

Client backups

A backup of the client enables one to regain management control of one's controllers and associated cloud environments.

This section will cover the following topics:

Creating a backup
Restoring from a backup

Note: Data backups can also be made of the Juju controller. See the Controller backups page for guidance.

Creating a backup

Making a copy of the client directory is sufficient for backing up the client. This is normally done with backup software that compresses the data into a single file (archive). On a Linux/Ubuntu system, the tar program is a common choice:

cd ~
tar -cpzf juju-client-$(date "+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S").tar.gz .local/share/juju

Note: For Microsoft Windows any native Windows backup tool will do.

The above invocation embeds a timestamp in the generated archive's filename, which is useful for knowing when a backup was made. You may, of course, call it what you wish.

The archive should normally be transferred to another system (or at the very least to a different physical drive) for safe-keeping.

Warning: Whoever has access to a client backup will have access to its associated environments. Appropriate steps should be taken to protect it (e.g. encryption).

Restoring from a backup

Restoring your client settings is a simple matter of extracting the backup created earlier. For Ubuntu:

cd ~
tar -xzf juju-yymmdd-hhmmss.tar.gz

Warning: This command will extract the contents of the archive and overwrite any existing files in the Juju directory. Make sure that this is what you want.

Client upgrades

The client software is managed by the operating system's package management system. On Ubuntu this is traditionally APT:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install juju

If Juju was installed via snaps then no action is required since a snap, by default, will update automatically. However, this is how to update manually:

sudo snap refresh juju

The current Juju snap version can be queried like so:

snap info juju

For more installation information and what versions are available, see Reference: Installing Juju.

Note: Models can also be upgraded. See the Model upgrades page for guidance.