Dell EMC SmartFabric OS10 User Guide Release 10.5.0

CLI Basics

The OS10 CLI is the software interface you use to access a device running the software — from the console or through a network connection. The CLI is an OS10-specific command shell that runs on top of a Linux-based OS kernel. By leveraging industry-standard tools and utilities, the CLI provides a powerful set of commands that you can use to monitor and configure devices running OS10.

User accounts

Key CLI features

Consistent command names

Commands that provide the same type of function have the same name, regardless of the portion of the system on which they are operating. For example, all show commands display software information and statistics, and all clear commands erase various types of system information.

Available commands

Information about available commands is provided at each level of the CLI command hierarchy. You can enter a question mark (?) at any level and view a list of the available commands, along with a short description of each command.

Command completion

Command completion for command names (keywords) and for command options is available at each level of the hierarchy. To complete a command or option that you have partially entered, click the Tab key or the Spacebar. If the partially entered letters are a string that uniquely identifies a command, the complete command name appears. A beep indicates that you have entered an ambiguous command, and the possible completions display. Completion also applies to other strings, such as interface names and configuration statements.

CLI command modes

When you enter CONFIGURATION mode, you are changing the current operating configuration, called the running configuration. By default, all configuration changes are automatically saved to the running configuration.

You can change this default behavior by switching to Transaction-Based Configuration mode. To switch to Transaction-Based Configuration mode, use the start transaction command. When you switch to the Transaction-Based Configuration mode and update the candidate configuration, changes to the candidate configuration are not added to the running configuration until you commit them to activate the configuration. The start transaction command applies only to the current session. Changing the configuration mode of the current session to the Transaction-Based Configuration mode does not affect the configuration mode of other CLI sessions.

• After you explicitly enter the commit command to save changes to the candidate configuration, the session switches back to the default behavior of automatically saving the configuration changes to the running configuration.
• When a session terminates while in the Transaction-Based Configuration mode, and you have not entered the commit command, the changes are maintained in the candidate configuration. You can start a new Transaction-Based Configuration mode session and continue with the remaining configuration changes.
• All sessions in Transaction-Based Configuration mode update the same candidate configuration. When you use the commit command on any session in Transaction-Based Configuration mode or you make configuration changes on any session in Non-Transaction-Based mode, you also commit the changes made to the candidate configuration in all other sessions running in the transaction-based configuration mode. This implies that inconsistent configuration changes may be applied to the running configuration. Dell EMC recommends only making configuration changes on a single CLI session at a time.
• When you enter the lock command in a CLI session, configuration changes are disabled on all other sessions, whether they are in Transaction-Based Configuration mode or Non-Transaction-Based Configuration mode. For more information, see Candidate configuration.

CLI command hierarchy

CLI commands are organized in a hierarchy. Commands that perform a similar function are grouped together under the same level of hierarchy. For example, all commands that display information about the system and the system software are grouped under the show system command, and all commands that display information about the routing table are grouped under the show ip route command.

To move directly to EXEC mode from any sub-mode, enter the end command. To move up one command mode, enter the exit command.