Using the VAST CLI

About the VAST CLI

The VAST CLI is a command line interface for administrating and monitoring VAST Cluster. It can be accessed over local network connection to VAST Cluster CNodes.

Connecting to the VAST CLI

Ensure that your PC is connected to the same network as VAST Cluster CNodes.
Establish a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to any CNode in the cluster.
For first-time connection, you can use the management VIP that you provided during installation. This is the IP used to connect to the VAST Cluster management server.
Tip
If you are connecting from another node of the same cluster, you can specify the node name instead of the node IP. The node name is shown in the Name column of the CNodes or DNodes page in VAST Web UI and in the Name field in VAST CLI cnode list or dnode list command output.
You are prompted to log into the CNode.
For first-time login, use the OS (Linux) user credentials for the CNode.
Refer to Managing VAST Cluster Passwords for the OS (Linux) user credentials.
The VAST OS prompt is displayed.
At the VAST OS prompt, run the vcli command to access the CLI.
To run VAST CLI for the first time and log in with the factory default VMS user account:
```
vcli -u admin -p 123456
```
Tip
For more command options, see VAST CLI Running Options.
Note
VAST Cluster has one factory default VMS user account. You cannot delete the factory default VMS user account or reduce its permissions. After first-time login, you can change the password for the default VMS user, create additional VMS users, and/or configure role-based access. For more information, see Provisioning VMS Access.
The CLI welcome text and prompt appear.
```
Welcome to VAST Management CLI!!!
Type help or ? to see a list of commands
vcli: admin>
```

VAST CLI Command Syntax

The VAST CLI commands follow this naming and syntax convention:

<command> <subcommand> --<argument1> <value1> --<argument2> <value2> ... --<argumentn> <valuen>

The <command> part of the command name is a type of object, such as a cluster, a user, or a virtual IP address. The <subcommand> part of the command name is an action to perform, such as list to display objects of the specified type, or create to create a new object of the specified type.

For example, the command vip with the subcommand list displays virtual IPs. The optional argument cnode-name can filter the list by a specific CNode. So, to display all virtual IPs of the CNode named cnode-1, the command vip, is entered with the subcommand list, and the optional argument cnode-name is specified with the value cnode-1:

vip list --cnode-name cnode-1

+-----------+--------------+---------+------------+
| VIP-Pool  | Virtual-IP   | CNode   | Cluster    |
+-----------+--------------+---------+------------+
| vippool-2 | 172.21.11.11 | cnode-1 | my-cluster |
| vippool-2 | 172.21.11.12 | cnode-1 | my-cluster |
| vippool-2 | 172.21.11.14 | cnode-1 | my-cluster |
| vippool-2 | 172.21.11.16 | cnode-1 | my-cluster |
| vippool-2 | 172.21.11.6  | cnode-1 | my-cluster |
+-----------+--------------+---------+------------+

This guide refers to commands in the format <command> <subcommand>.

Getting Syntax Help

To see syntax information for a given command, display its help message by entering the command name at the prompt, followed by -h or --help. The help message indicates supported arguments.

For example, to display arguments for the command view create , run view create --help:

vcli: admin> view create --help
optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --cluster-id
  --path
  --alias
  --policy-id
  --qos-policy-id
  --create-dir
<...>

For help entering a valid value for an argument, type a space after the argument to reveal a generic value format, an array of possible values, or an example. For example:

VAST CLI Running Options

There are three ways you can run VAST CLI commands:

Open the command line prompt in the shell and run commands interactively (default).
Run a single command non-interactively.
Run a batch of commands saved to a file.

vcli [-h | --help]
     [-c <command> | --command <command>]
     [-b <batch file> | --batch-file <batch file>]
     [-u <user> | --user <user>]
     [-p <password> | --password <password>] 
     [-d | --debug]

Option	Description
-h, --help	Shows the help text.
`-c <command> \| --command <command>`	Runs a single command, non-interactively. `<command>` is the full command string of the command you want to run. For example, to run the command `ldap list`: `$ vcli -c ldap list`
`[-b <batch file> \| --batch-file <batch file>]`	Runs a batch of commands. The commands must be saved to a file and stored under the `/vast/deploy/` path. `<batch file>` is the name of the file.
`-u <user> \| --user <user>`	Specifies user name for login. If you omit it, you'll be prompted for your user name after you run the command.
`-p <password> \| --password <password>`	Specifies password for login. If you omit it, you'll be prompted for your password after you run the command.
-d \| --debug	Enters debug mode.

VAST CLI Commands

For command reference pages, see VAST Cluster 5.5 CLI Command Reference.

Documentation Index