Device Tunnel CLI quick start

Setup and quick-start guide for Device Tunnel CLI

This document provides a step-by-step guide to set up and get started with Device Tunnel CLI, including prerequisites, authentication methods, and a quick-start workflow.

Prerequisites

Follow these prerequisites to get started with Device Tunnel CLI:

Account requirements

• A BrowserStack account with Bridge Cloud or Dedicated Device access, and your Username and Access key. You can find this in your account profile. If you do not have an account yet, you can sign up for a free trial.

• Custom Device Lab provisioned. Verify using the following command:

System requirements

Following are the system requirements to run Device Tunnel CLI:

Get the Device Tunnel binary

You can get the Device Tunnel binary either by downloading it directly, or by installing the BrowserStack SDK for your language, which bundles and auto-downloads the binary for you.

Direct download

Install through the SDK

Installing the BrowserStack SDK for your language bundles the binary and auto-downloads it for your OS into ~/.browserstack/cli/ on first use. You don’t manage the binary directly, you only install whichever SDK matches your stack:

After installation, the binary is fetched on first use and lives at ~/.browserstack/cli/binary-<platform>. For example, on macOS with an Apple silicon chip: /Users/username/.browserstack/cli/binary-macos-arm64.

You can also invoke this path directly for Device Tunnel commands:

Choose the binary that matches your machine’s architecture.

Setup

Run the following command to set up the Device Tunnel CLI:

Authentication

Following are the authentication methods for Device Tunnel CLI:

Inline flags (recommended for CI):

YAML config:

Place device-tunnel.yml in the same directory as the binary to skip the --config flag.

To connect to iOS devices, pass --enable-ios with the start command, or set enable_ios: true in device-tunnel.yml.

Quick start

Follow the steps below to get your first tunnel up and running: