[146871] in North American Network Operators' Group
Network device command line interfaces
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathon Exley)
Wed Nov 23 23:41:57 2011
From: Jonathon Exley <Jonathon.Exley@kordia.co.nz>
To: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 04:41:01 +0000
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Does anyone else despair at the CLIs produced by networking vendors?
Real routers use a CLI that is command based, like IOS, TiMOS or Junos. The=
se interfaces work well over low bandwidth connections (unlike web interfac=
es), can work with config backup systems like RANCID, have a (mostly) consi=
stent structure and good show commands.
However vendors of low cost routers/switches/muxes seem to take a stab in t=
he dark and produce some really nasty stuff. I have a personal hate of text=
based menus and binary config backup files.
Doe this p*** off anyone else? The business part of the company says "This =
device is great! It's cheap and does everything." However the poor sap who =
is given the task to make it work has to wrestle with a badly designed user=
interface and illogical syntax.
Maybe the vendors need some sort of best practices guide for what manageabi=
lity features their kit needs to support to make them acceptable to the mar=
ket. Does anyone know if there is anything along these lines?
Jonathon.
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