appcfg.sh Command Line Arguments

The appcfg.sh tool does a variety of application management tasks including deploying your app and updating datastore indexes. The appcfg tool is included with the App Engine SDK, which you can download and install at App Engine Java 8 SDK.

usage: appcfg.sh [options] <action> [<app-dir>] [<argument>]

<app-dir> must be the directory that contains your WAR file. See deploying your app for more information.

Action must be one of:
help: Print help for a specific action.
download_app: Download a previously uploaded app version.
request_logs: Write request logs in Apache common log format.
rollback: Rollback an in-progress update.
start_module_version: Start the specified module version.
stop_module_version: Stop the specified module version.
update: Create or update an app version.
update_indexes: Update application indexes.
update_cron: Update application cron jobs.
update_queues: Update application task queue definitions.
update_dispatch: Update the application dispatch configuration.
update_dos: Update application DoS protection configuration.
version: Prints version information.
set_default_version: Set the default serving version.
cron_info: Displays times for the next several runs of each cron job.
resource_limits_info: Display resource limits.
vacuum_indexes: Delete unused indexes from application.
backends list: List the currently configured backends.
backends update: Update the specified backend or all backends.
backends rollback: Roll back a previously in-progress update.
backends start: Start the specified backend.
backends stop: Stop the specified backend.
backends delete: Delete the specified backend.
backends configure: Configure the specified backend.
list_versions: List the currently uploaded versions.
delete_version: Delete the specified version.

Use 'help <action>' for a detailed description.

options:

-s SERVER, --server=SERVER
The server to connect to.
-e EMAIL, --email=EMAIL
The username to use. Will prompt if omitted.
-H HOST, --host=HOST
Overrides the Host header sent with all RPCs.
-p PROXYHOST[:PORT], --proxy=PROXYHOST[:PORT]
Proxies requests through the given proxy server. If --proxy_https is also set, only HTTP will be proxied here, otherwise both HTTP and HTTPS will.
--proxy_https=PROXYHOST[:PORT]
Proxies HTTPS requests through the given proxy server.
--no_cookies
Do not save/load access credentials to/from disk.
--sdk_root=root
Overrides where the SDK is located.
--passin
Always read the login password from stdin.
-A APP_ID, --application=PROJECT_ID
Specifies the project ID.
-M MODULE, --module=SERVICENAME
Override the name of the service, which was formerly known as "modules", from the appengine-web.xml or app.yaml files.
-V VERSION, --version=VERSION
Override (major) version from appengine-web.xml or app.yaml
--oauth2
Ignored (OAuth2 is the default).
--noisy
Log much more information about what the tool is doing.
--enable_jar_splitting
Split large jar files (> 10M) into smaller fragments.
--jar_splitting_excludes=SUFFIXES
When --enable-jar-splitting is set, files that match the list of comma separated SUFFIXES will be excluded from all jars.
--disable_jar_jsps
Do not jar the classes generated from JSPs.
--enable_jar_classes
Jar the WEB-INF/classes content.
--delete_jsps
Delete the JSP source files after compilation.
--retain_upload_dir
Do not delete temporary (staging) directory used in uploading.
--compile_encoding
The character encoding to use when compiling JSPs.
-n NUM_DAYS, --num_days=NUM_DAYS
Number of days worth of log data to get. The cut-off point is midnight UTC. Use 0 to get all available logs. Default is 1.
--severity=SEVERITY
Severity of app-level log messages to get. The range is 0 (DEBUG) through 4 (CRITICAL). If omitted, only request logs are returned.
--include_all
Include everything in log messages.
-a, --append
Append to existing file.
-n NUM_RUNS, --num_runs=NUM_RUNS
Number of scheduled execution times to compute
-f, --force
Force deletion of indexes without being prompted.
--no_usage_reporting
Disable usage reporting.
--use_google_application_default_credentials
Use Google Application Default Credentials as described in https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/application-default-credentials
--service_account_json_key_file=path
location of the service account json key file for a Service Account Credential login. (The cloud SDK uses ~/.config/gcloud/application_default_credentials.json)

Alternatives to appcfg command line for staging configuration

The command line staging options include the following:

  • --enable_jar_splitting
  • --jar_splitting_excludes=SUFFIXES
  • --disable_jar_jsps
  • --enable_jar_classes
  • --delete_jsps

Instead of using these command line options, you should consider setting staging configuration in the application configuration file. This means you can set configuration once for your application instead of having to specify configuration every time you deploy.