Using The Cli Utility; Cli Utility Overview; Execution Modes; Command Line Mode - Avocent MERGEPOINT SP MANAGER Installer/User Manual

Using the CLI Utility

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CLI Utility Overview

An administrator (the root user, the admin user or a member of the admin group) can configure
the MergePoint SP manager using the CLI utility. While in the CLI utility, an administrator can
escape to the shell and when finished can return to the CLI utility.
Administrators often prefer using the CLI utility over the web interface because they can run
frequently performed CLI configuration commands from shell scripts or from text files that can be
executed in batch mode. For example, on a MergePoint SP manager with 40 private Ethernet
ports, configuring all the service processors one by one could be tedious and prone to error, so
scripting the configuration of multiple service processors at one time is a good use of the CLI
utility.
The CLI utility provides a set of commands (described under see CLI Commands on page 126)
that act on parameters nested in a format called the CLI parameter tree. Some parameters require
arguments when the parameters are entered with some commands.
NOTE: This section describes the CLI commands and how to navigate the CLI parameter tree, but it does not
describe all the parameters and values.
NOTE: In the examples in this section, the failover parameter in the /network/interface/mode directory is only for the
MergePoint SP5x24/SP5x40 manager.

Execution Modes

The CLI utility has three modes: a command line mode, interactive mode and batch mode.

Command line mode

Command line mode refers to when the CLI utility is invoked on the Linux command line with
options, commands, parameters and values.
The CLI utility performs the specified commands, displays any values requested by a command
(such as the get command) and returns the shell prompt. To commit the changes made in
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