Keyboard Wizardry – CLI Mastery 

Standard

Yes yes I haven’t posted in anything in a long time, but hey! I’m back now!

This post will go over some of the handy tips and tricks in the Cisco CLI.

Moving Around

Cursor Movement Shortcuts
SHORTCUT DESCRIPTION
Ctrl+A Move cursor to the beginning for the line
Ctrl+E Move cursor to the end of the line
Ctrl+F Move cursor forward one character
Ctrl+B Move cursor backward
Esc+F Moves forward one word
Esc+B Moves backwards one word
Ctrl+P Previous command
Ctrl+N Next command
Editing Shortcuts
SHORTCUT DESCRIPTION
Ctrl+W Delete the word to the left from the cursor
Ctrl+U Delete the whole line
Ctrl+T Swap or transpose the current character with the one before it
Ctrl+K Erase characters from the cursor to end of the line
Ctrl+X Erase characters from the cursor to beginning of the line
Esc+D Delete from Cursor to end of word
Delete Removes the character to the right of the cursor
Backspace Removes the character to the left of the cursor
Up Arrow Allows you to scroll forward through previous commands
Down Arrow Allows you to scroll backwards through previous commands
Functional Shortcuts
SHORTCUT DESCRIPTION
Ctrl+L Reprint the line
Ctrl+R Refresh
Tab Command autocomplete
Ctrl+C Exit. Exit from config mode
Ctrl+Z Apply the command line and exit from config mode ie. return to privileged EXEC mode.
Ctrl+Shift+6 (X) CTRL-SHIFT-6 is one action, the X is the second action
Less Common Shortcuts
SHORTCUT DESCRIPTION
Esc, C Makes the letter at the cursor uppercase.
Esc, L Changes the word at the cursor to lowercase
Esc, U Makes letters from the cursor to the end of the word uppercase.
Using the Delete Buffer
SHORTCUT DESCRIPTION
The buffer stores the last ten items that have been deleted using Ctrl-K, Ctrl-U, or Ctrl-X
Ctrl-Y Paste the most recent entry in the delete buffer
Esc-Y Paste the Previous entry in the history buffer

Showing Run who’s boss

You can control the output of show run in a few different ways in order to to help you be more efficient when looking through your configuration.

If you want to look at the configuration on a particular interface, you can use the show run interface <#> 

R1#show run interface l0 
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 99 bytes
!
interface Loopback0
 ip address 150.1.1.1 255.255.255.255
 ipv6 address 2001:150:1:1::1/128

You can also display line numbers with the show run linenum command, this is handy if you want to help guide someone to a certain part of the config.

R1#show run linenum
 Building configuration...
Current configuration : 2435 bytes
 1 : !
 2 : ! Last configuration change at 06:47:30 UTC Tue Nov 17 2015
 3 : !
 4 : version 15.5
 5 : no service timestamps debug uptime
 6 : no service timestamps log uptime
 7 : no platform punt-keepalive disable-kernel-core
 8 : platform console serial
 9 : !
 10 : hostname R1
 11 : !
 12 : boot-start-marker
 13 : boot-end-marker
 14 : !

Cisco automatically hides default config values from show run but you can override this behavior with show run all this is a good way of learning what the default settings are for your device.

R1#show run all
 Building configuration...
Current configuration with default configurations exposed : 225746 bytes
 !
 ! Last configuration change at 06:47:30 UTC Tue Nov 17 2015
 !
 version 15.5
 downward-compatible-config 15.5
 no service log backtrace
 no service config
 no service exec-callback
 no service nagle
 service slave-log
 no service slave-coredump
 no service pad to-xot
 no service pad from-xot
 no service pad cmns
 service pad

You can also search for configuration by pressing the / key when the show run is displaying –more

R1#show run
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 2435 bytes
!
!
 --More--
/router 
filtering...
router ospf 1
 auto-cost reference-bandwidth 1000
 area 1 virtual-link 150.1.6.6
 network 150.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 0
 network 155.1.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0
 network 155.1.13.0 0.0.0.255 area 4
 network 155.1.146.0 0.0.0.255 area 1

Pipe Dreams

One of the most powerful tools you have for controlling output is pipe commands (|) these allow you to use regular expressions to filter show command output to exactly what you need.

The exact pipe commands you get depends on your platform but the most commonly used is:

Begin: Starts the output at the first match found.

R1#show run | begin router
router ospf 1
 auto-cost reference-bandwidth 1000
 area 1 virtual-link 150.1.6.6
 network 150.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 0
 network 155.1.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0
 network 155.1.13.0 0.0.0.255 area 4
 network 155.1.146.0 0.0.0.255 area 1
!
!
virtual-service csr_mgmt
!
ip forward-protocol nd

Include: Display only the line that matches the expression

R1#show ip route | in 150 
 150.1.0.0/32 is subnetted, 11 subnets
C 150.1.1.1 is directly connected, Loopback0
O 150.1.2.2 [110/10003] via 155.1.146.4, 05:45:01, GigabitEthernet1.146
O 150.1.3.3 [110/10003] via 155.1.146.4, 05:45:01, GigabitEthernet1.146
O 150.1.4.4 [110/2] via 155.1.146.4, 05:45:01, GigabitEthernet1.146
O 150.1.5.5 [110/3] via 155.1.146.4, 05:45:01, GigabitEthernet1.146
O 150.1.6.6 [110/2] via 155.1.146.6, 1d02h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 150.1.7.7 [110/3] via 155.1.146.6, 1d02h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 150.1.8.8 [110/4] via 155.1.146.4, 05:45:11, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 150.1.9.9 [110/4] via 155.1.146.6, 1d02h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 150.1.10.10 [110/5] via 155.1.146.4, 05:45:11, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 150.1.22.22 [110/10003] via 155.1.146.4, 1d01h, GigabitEthernet1.146

Exclude: Display everything but the matching line.

R1#show ip int br | exclude unassign
Interface IP-Address OK? Method Status Protocol
GigabitEthernet1.13 155.1.13.1 YES manual up up 
GigabitEthernet1.100 169.254.100.1 YES manual up up 
GigabitEthernet1.146 155.1.146.1 YES manual up up 
Loopback0 150.1.1.1 YES manual up up 
Tunnel0 155.1.0.1 YES manual up up

Section: Display the matching line and any sub-configuration beneath it.

R1#show run | section line
line con 0
 exec-timeout 0 0
 privilege level 15
 logging synchronous
 stopbits 1
line vty 0 4
 privilege level 15
 no login

You can also use Regular Expressions to get more fancy with your matching.

R1#show ip route | in (\.5\.)+
O 150.1.5.5 [110/3] via 155.1.146.4, 05:49:10, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 155.1.5.0/24 [110/3] via 155.1.146.4, 1d02h, GigabitEthernet1.146

You can also do a logical OR by adding a second pipe

R4(config-router)#do sh ip route | in 110|120
R 11.11.11.11 [120/1] via 155.1.146.1, 00:00:16, GigabitEthernet1.146
O 150.1.1.1 [110/2] via 155.1.146.1, 15:14:44, GigabitEthernet1.146
O 150.1.2.2 [110/10002] via 155.1.45.5, 1d15h, GigabitEthernet1.45
O 150.1.3.3 [110/10002] via 155.1.45.5, 1d15h, GigabitEthernet1.45
O 150.1.5.5 [110/2] via 155.1.45.5, 1d15h, GigabitEthernet1.45
O 150.1.6.6 [110/2] via 155.1.146.6, 1d16h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA 150.1.7.7 [110/3] via 155.1.146.6, 1d11h, GigabitEthernet1.146

You can use as many ORs as you need to get the exact output you want

R1#  show int | in up|MTU|address
GigabitEthernet1 is up, line protocol is up 
  Hardware is CSR vNIC, address is fa16.3e3a.d2a4 (bia fa16.3e3a.d2a4)
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1000000 Kbit/sec, DLY 10 usec, 
  Full Duplex, 1000Mbps, link type is force-up, media type is RJ45
  output flow-control is unsupported, input flow-control is unsupported
GigabitEthernet1.13 is up, line protocol is up 
  Hardware is CSR vNIC, address is fa16.3e3a.d2a4 (bia fa16.3e3a.d2a4)
  Internet address is 155.1.13.1/24
  MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1000000 Kbit/sec, DLY 10 usec, 

It is also possible to do a logical AND with your show commands by chaining together .* in between your keywords

R4(config-if)#do sh ip int br | include (.*up.*down)
Tunnel1                unassigned      YES unset  up                    down

Finally we can use IOS.sh to get some grep love into the mix!

R1#terminal shell

Now we can use linux style grep commands

R1#show ip route | grep (150) | grep -v (\.10\.) 
      150.1.0.0/32 is subnetted, 11 subnets
C        150.1.1.1 is directly connected, Loopback0

R1#show ip route | grep (150) | grep (10003)     
O        150.1.2.2 [110/10003] via 155.1.146.4, 15:51:41, GigabitEthernet1.146
O        150.1.3.3 [110/10003] via 155.1.146.4, 15:51:41, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA     150.1.22.22 [110/10003] via 155.1.146.4, 1d11h, GigabitEthernet1.146

R1#show ip route | grep (150) | grep -v (10003)
      150.1.0.0/32 is subnetted, 11 subnets
C        150.1.1.1 is directly connected, Loopback0
O        150.1.4.4 [110/2] via 155.1.146.4, 15:51:57, GigabitEthernet1.146
O        150.1.5.5 [110/3] via 155.1.146.4, 15:51:57, GigabitEthernet1.146
O        150.1.6.6 [110/2] via 155.1.146.6, 1d12h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA     150.1.7.7 [110/3] via 155.1.146.6, 1d12h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA     150.1.8.8 [110/4] via 155.1.146.4, 15:52:07, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA     150.1.9.9 [110/4] via 155.1.146.6, 1d12h, GigabitEthernet1.146
O IA     150.1.10.10 [110/5] via 155.1.146.4, 15:52:07, GigabitEthernet1.146

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