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

[Jeff Moore via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

Always been CLI first myself. Too darned efficient once you get any depth.
But I like vi too so take that with a grain of salt. One thing of note is
security. I have always felt that one of the best security commands on
network gear is "no ip http server". Old unix instructor I had always beat
it into our head if you don't use it every day remove it. Every added
service/component is one more avenue into your system and another potential
failure point. If in the case of closed source you cant fully remove it
then at least disable it.



On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 5:36 AM brent saner via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 15:06 Mark Prosser via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
> wrote:
>
> > 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,
>
> *NIX sysops (not netops) lurker here.
>
> I'm not surprised to see so many prefer a CLI over a GUI, and have many of
> the same reasons for the same preference myself in my scope of duties.
>
> But I'm dying to know, for those in here that are *also* proficient in
> sh/bash/ksh/csh/zsh/whatever...

Sucker for bash here. Coworker always tried to talk me into using zsh. He
was an old Solaris pro. I'm just too lazy for that. Though his setup with
vi incorporated was pretty slick.


> Is it just familiarity bias on my part or is net kit shell command syntax
> just kind of _terrible_?
> It seems like it's mostly/all (depending on vendor) just subcommand after
> subcommand and positional arguments (which of course you can't visually
> parse as distinct from each other). Y'all's Tab keycaps must be worn
> through.
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