[NANOG] Re: The Network CLI -- Love it ? Hate it? Needed?

[Alex Buie via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

I love CloudVision configlets for this in Arista land. Best of both worlds.

GUI is a CLI acceleration tool for me.

To me it’s like learning to show your work for long division. I can’t
remember the last time I did or needed to do long division by hand. I
always have some kind of silicon within half a mile of me. But I just
checked and I still know how to do it because I practiced hundreds of hours
of it in school.

I _can_ do everything manually in the CLI. But should I? I’ve got a lot to
do…..




On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 11:38 PM Justin Streiner via NANOG <
nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:

> CLI is the way to go, but tools are wonderful for automating repetitive CLI
> tasks and ensuring that provisioning/deprovisioning is done consistently is
> massively helpful.
>
> GUIs have their place, as long as they're not web apps that require
> client-side Java (Cisco ASDM for example) are just plain evil...
>
> Thank you
> jms
>
> On Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 10:46 PM Tom Beecher via NANOG <
> nanog () lists nanog org>
> wrote:
>
> > > There is also a lot of new gear where just putting a port on a vlan and
> > > accepting un-tagged traffic becomes a 10 line config in cli.  Who
> thought
> > > this was a good idea?  Yes, I can do it with 10 clicks in the GUI, but
> I
> > > don't want to, I want to blow a standardized config on it, then just
> > make a
> > > couple of tweaks.
> >
> >
> > I don't know who needs 10 lines of config for this, but I hear copy paste
> > is a viable option for such a need.
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 6:51 PM Shawn L via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > "Grew up" on elm and vi (someone please make a gmail addon that
> supports
> > > VI keys) -- CLI all the way.
> > >
> > > I will admit (grudgingly) that there are some things that a GUI is more
> > > suited for.  It can be a lot easier to visualize traffic flows with
> > graphs,
> > > etc. rather than packet counters.
> > >
> > > There is also a lot of new gear where just putting a port on a vlan and
> > > accepting un-tagged traffic becomes a 10 line config in cli.  Who
> thought
> > > this was a good idea?  Yes, I can do it with 10 clicks in the GUI, but
> I
> > > don't want to, I want to blow a standardized config on it, then just
> > make a
> > > couple of tweaks.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: "borg--- via NANOG" <nanog () lists nanog org>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2025 6:11pm
> > > To: nanog () lists nanog org
> > > Cc: borg () uu3 net
> > > Subject: [NANOG] Re: The Network CLI -- Love it ? Hate it? Needed?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > CLI forever ;) But more seriously. CLI is great, its quick, can
> > > run on toaster and its easya automated using scripting
> > > (generate, replace, preprocess).
> > >
> > > I like CLI to the point that my docs stuff runs under CLI terminal.
> > > The GUI is only used for visualizers.
> > > I hope that CLI will stay for a long time...
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------- Original message ----------
> > >
> > > From: Mark Prosser via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
> > > To: nanog () lists nanog org
> > > Cc: Mark Prosser <mark () zealnetworks ca>
> > > Subject: [NANOG] The Network CLI -- Love it ? Hate it? Needed?
> > > Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:05:33 -0400
> > >
> > > Hi NANOG community,
> > >
> > > I posed this question in several chat groups, but I'd like to get your
> > > opinions.
> > >
> > > Do you love the CLI? Do you hate the CLI? Would you -- or do you
> already
> > > --
> > > enjoy a world where you never need to touch the CLI, to manage your
> > > network?
> > >
> > > This applies to both provisioning and troubleshooting; to which, you
> may
> > > have
> > > different answers.
> > >
> > > So far, I've seen a variety of replies around the usual
> "should/must/must
> > > not/should not".
> > >
> > > Warm regards,
> > >
> > > --
> > > Mark Prosser
> > > // E: mark () zealnetworks ca
> > > // W: https://zealnetworks.ca
> > >
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