The devicefarm-cli tool

The Amazon Linux 2 test host uses a standardized version management tool called devicefarm-cli to select software versions. This tool is separate from the AWS CLI and only available on the Device Farm Test Host. With devicefarm-cli, you can switch to any pre-installed software version on the test host. This provides a straightforward way to maintain your Device Farm test spec file over time and gives you a predictable mechanism to upgrade software versions in the future.

The snippet below shows the help page of devicefarm-cli:

$ devicefarm-cli help
 Usage: devicefarm-cli COMMAND [ARGS]
     
     Commands:
         help                         Prints this usage message.
         list                         Lists all versions of software configurable
                                      via this CLI.
         use <software> <version>     Configures the software for usage within the
                                      current shell's environment.

Let's review a couple of examples using devicefarm-cli. To use the tool to change the Python version from 3.10 to 3.9 in your test spec file, run the following commands:

$ python --version
Python 3.10.12
$ devicefarm-cli use python 3.9
$ python --version
Python 3.9.17

To change the Appium version from 1 to 2:

$ appium --version
1.22.3
$ devicefarm-cli use appium 2
$ appium --version
2.1.2