To get started working with the CLI, we learned some basic IOS commands. These commands are fairly simplistic and, because you’ll use them so much, easy to remember.
There are lots of commands that you’ll learn that you don’t use very often. For this reason, sometimes we forget the exact parameters that we need to pass to a command or perhaps forget which order they go in (such as with EIGRP). Fortunately, IOS has a help system built-in to help us out and keep us from having to dig out our copy of the CCNA Portable Command Guide.
Help Me, Router
Help, Help Me, Router
The context-sensitive help built into the Cisco IOS software gives us a list of the commands available to us as well as the arguments that we can pass to those commands. It’s called context-sensitive because the list of commands is presented within the context of the current IOS mode.
You’ve already learned a few basic IOS commands but, as you might guess, there are a whole lot more. How could we possibly find out what all of them are? It’s simple, just ask IOS!
We can obtain help at any time in the CLI by pressing the ? key. It’s easier to demonstrate than explain — and you’ll understand it a lot quicker — so let’s take a look, shall we?
In user executive mode, simply press ? at the prompt. You should see output similar to the following:
Router> ?
Exec commands:
access-enable Create a temporary Access-List entry
access-profile Apply user-profile to interface
clear Reset functions
connect Open a terminal connection
crypto Encryption related commands.
disable Turn off privileged commands
disconnect Disconnect an existing network connection
enable Turn on privileged commands
ethernet Ethernet parameters
exit Exit from the EXEC
help Description of the interactive help system
lat Open a lat connection
lock Lock the terminal
login Log in as a particular user
logout Exit from the EXEC
modemui Start a modem-like user interface
mrinfo Request neighbor and version information from a multicast
router
mstat Show statistics after multiple multicast traceroutes
mtrace Trace reverse multicast path from destination to source
name-connection Name an existing network connection
--More--
NOTE: As I mentioned in a previous article, Introduction to Cisco Devices and Cisco IOS, the commands available depend on the feature set and version of IOS. For this reason, the commands you see listed on your own router may vary slightly from what you see in the output displayed here.
On the left, we see a list of commands that we can issue to the router along with a description of each command’s purpose on the right. Looking through the list, you should recognize at least a few of them:
disable Turn off privileged commands enable Turn on privileged commands
Remember those? They allow us to switch back and forth between user exec mode and privileged exec mode, like we discussed in The Cisco CLI: IOS Modes.
Notice that “--More--” prompt at the bottom of the screen? Whenever the output from a command won’t fit on a single screen, Cisco IOS will paginatethe output and display this prompt. When this happens, you can do one of three things:
- press <SPACE> to display the next screen of output,
- press <ENTER> to display the next line of output, or
- press any other key to cancel and return to the prompt
Go ahead and press the space bar to see the next screenful of output:
pad Open a X.29 PAD connection ping Send echo messages ppp Start IETF Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) release Release a resource renew Renew a resource resume Resume an active network connection rlogin Open an rlogin connection set Set system parameter (not config) show Show running system information slip Start Serial-line IP (SLIP) ssh Open a secure shell client connection systat Display information about terminal lines tclquit Quit Tool Command Language shell telnet Open a telnet connection terminal Set terminal line parameters tn3270 Open a tn3270 connection traceroute Trace route to destination tunnel Open a tunnel connection udptn Open an udptn connection where List active connections x28 Become an X.28 PAD x3 Set X.3 parameters on PAD Router>
The rest of the output fit on the screen this time so the router finishes up and returns us to the prompt.
We’ve learned a few show commands already:
- show running-configuration
- show version
- show ip interface brief
- show interface
I know what you’re thinking, though. You’re wondering what other show commands are available, aren’t you? Well, today is your lucky day because we can get a list of all of them! To do that, simply type show at the prompt, followed by the space bar, and then press the ? key. Your output should look something like this:
Router> show ? aaa Show AAA values acircuit Access circuit info adjacency Adjacent nodes alps Alps information appfw Application Firewall information arp ARP table auto Show Automation Template backup Backup status bfd BFD protocol info bgp BGP information bootvar Boot and related environment variable calendar Display the hardware calendar call Show call caller Display information about dialup connections capability Capability Information cca CCA information cdapi CDAPI information cdp CDP information class-map Show QoS Class Map clock Display the system clock cns CNS agents compress Show compression statistics --More--
Go ahead and press the spacebar a few times to scroll through the rest of the list. Feel free to try out a few of them if you’d like, just issue the appropriate show <argument> command, such as:
Router> show clock *20:53:57.591 EST Fri Sep 2 2011
Context-Sensitive Help
Near the beginning of this article, I wrote:
It’s called context-sensitive because the list of commands is given to us within the context of the current IOS mode.
To understand what this means, let’s switch into privileged exec (“enable”) mode and look at what show commands are available:
Router> enable
Router# show ?
aaa Show AAA values
access-expression List access expression
access-lists List access lists
accounting Accounting data for active sessions
acircuit Access circuit info
adjacency Adjacent nodes
aliases Display alias commands
alps Alps information
appfw Application Firewall information
appletalk AppleTalk information
arap Show Appletalk Remote Access statistics
archive Archive functions
arp ARP table
async Information on terminal lines used as router
interfaces
auto Show Automation Template
backhaul-session-manager Backhaul Session Manager information
backup Backup status
beep Show BEEP information
bfd BFD protocol info
bgp BGP information
bootvar Boot and related environment variable
--More--
If you compare these commands with the ones from user exec mode, you’ll notice some differences. For example, let’s compare the first five commands from user exec mode with the first five from privileged exec mode.
User exec mode:
aaa Show AAA values acircuit Access circuit info adjacency Adjacent nodes alps Alps information appfw Application Firewall information
Privileged exec mode:
aaa Show AAA values access-expression List access expression access-lists List access lists accounting Accounting data for active sessions acircuit Access circuit info
Out of the first five commands available in privileged exec mode, three of them weren’t listed in user exec mode! This is what is meant by context-sensitive help. Because those commands are not available to us in user exec mode, IOS does not show them in the list. It is only when we are in privileged exec mode that they show up.
Go ahead and explore a bit more if you’d like. Browse through the list of available show commands and run a few of them. I’ll wait, I promise.
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that
When we issue a command to a router or switch, it works from left to right to figure out what we want it to do. If it understands our command, it will execute it and, if appropriate, display output.
If you’ve used Linux or UNIX much, you might have heard of the “UNIX philosophy” — a set of rules that well-behaved programs should adhere to. One of these is the “rule of silence”:
When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing.
Cisco IOS (usually) abides by this rule. When IOS successfully executes a command that you issue, it will “say nothing” (unless it is supposed to, such as the show commands). IOS, as a general rule, only provides negative feedback.
You’ve seen this rule in action already without even knowing it. Remember when we were switching back and forth between user exec mode and privileged mode?
Router> enable Router# disable Router>
IOS doesn’t waste our time by telling us that it was successful in carrying out our command, it just does it and returns us to the prompt.
When we do something wrong, though, it will not only tell us but will also describe what is wrong with the command that we’ve entered, such as when we tried to look at the running config from user exec mode:
Router> show running-configuration
^
% Invalid input detected at '^' marker.
Router>
Notice how the caret points at the “u” in “running”. If you view the list of show commands available from user exec mode, you’ll see that running-configuration is absent from the list:
Router> show ? ... queue Show queue contents queueing Show queueing configuration radius Shows radius information rbscp RBSCP information redundancy Redundancy Facility (RF) information rmi Resource User Infrastructure information rmon rmon statistics rpms-proc RPMS Process Information sasl show SASL information sessions Information about Telnet connections ...
Nope, no “running-configuration” there! Remember that the caret was pointing at the “u”, though. That is where the error occurred. There are other commands available to us that begin with an “r” (radius, rbscp, redundancy, etc.) so the command was actually valid up to that point.
Summary
As you can see, the error messages from IOS can be quite helpful if you pay attention to them. In this article, you learned how to use the help system built-in to Cisco IOS and got an introduction to its error messages.
The next article, Cisco IOS Error Messages, will explain the three major types of error messages that you’ll encounter. Later, we’ll look at some Cisco IOS Shortcuts you can use to save yourself some typing.