Command Line

I decided to spend my vacation without access to internet, only wife, children, beach and windsurfing. I succeeded, September 3rd was the first day, after 3 weeks of my vacation, when I opened my mail box. Sorry for the delay in replying for your emails.

Last time I was asked about a procedure how to upload files through console port. The procedure is simple and I will try to show it in this post. Taking Huawei’s S3300 switch as an example I will show you how to upload file through console port, upgrading bootrom at the same time. Notice that uploading files by console is very slow and it is better to use it only for small files, unless you do not have any other choice.

Please use HyperTerminal to upload files by console port.

Power on the switch and enter into bootrom mode by pressing CTRL+B (default password huawei):

BIOS LOADING ...

Copyright (c) 2008-2010 HUAWEI TECH CO., LTD.
(Ver329, Aug 17 2010, 02:01:19)
Press Ctrl+B to enter BOOTROM menu ... 2
password:

BOOTROM  MENU

1. Boot with default mode
2. Enter serial submenu
3. Enter startup submenu
4. Enter ethernet submenu
5. Enter filesystem submenu
6. Modify BOOTROM password
7. Reboot
Enter your choice(1-7): 2

display this

Very useful and very often used command on Huawei’s devices. You can use it in any view. Any time you configure something, you can use it to check what you have configured. If you set parameters, that are the same with the default ones, these parameters will not be displayed. Anyway “display current-configuration” does not also show the default parameters.

Example 1 (interface view):

[NE-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]display this
#
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/1
 description test
 undo shutdown
 ip address 10.1.1.1 255.255.255.252
 isis enable 1
 isis circuit-type p2p
 isis circuit-level level-2
 isis cost 100
 isis bfd enable
 mpls
 mpls te
 mpls rsvp-te
 mpls rsvp-te hello
#
return

header { login | shell }

login – header text is displayed after you are trying to log into a device

shell – header text is displayed after you are successfully logged into a device

Example of configuring header login by using plain text:

[labnario]header login information %
The banner text supports 220 characters max, including the start and
the end character.If you want to enter more than this, use banner file
instead.Input banner text, and quit with the character '%':
welcome to labnario network lab!!!%

Remember that the initial and end characters must be the same. In this case % has been used. The interaction starts after you put % and then enter and automatically closes when you write your header text and put % again.

reset recycle-bin

Sometimes new engineers, not familiar with Huawei devices, complain that there is not enough space in flash to upload a new software by FTP. The reason of it is that files from flash haven’t been deleted permanently from the memory. They use “delete name of file” command to delete files. Actually this command causes that deleted file is moved to recycle bin and “dir” command does not display it in flash, but it still occupies memory of flash. To display all files stored in flash you should use “dir /all” command.

<labnario>dir
Directory of flash:/
1  -rw-     12017319  Jan 19 2012 17:30:51   labnario.bin
2  -rw-     12017553  Aug 12 2008 18:02:39   ar28-vrp340-r0201p20.bin
3  -rw-         9018  Dec 05 2011 16:22:11   config.cfg

31877 KB total ( 7843 KB free)

Look what will happen if we use “delete labnario.bin” command:

<labnario>delete labnario.bin
Delete flash:/labnario.bin?[Y/N]:y
...
%Delete file flash:/labnario.bin...Done.

To start working with Huawei devices, it is necessary to look at CLI (Command Line Interface). All Huawei datacom devices use the same OS called VRP (Versatile Routing Platform). As an example we can take NE40E router with V600R001C00SPC900 software installed. When you establish connection with the router, it does not matter it is telnet, ssh or console, you enter the user view with the prompt of <Quidway>. The prompt < > indicates user view and the prompt [ ] indicates other views. To start configuring the router you should move from user view to system view. You can do this by using “system-view” command.

<Quidway> system-view
[Quidway]

From system view you are able to configure all functions available in VRP software. Let’s assume that you want to configure MPLS, both globally and on Ethernet interface.

[Quidway]
[Quidway]mpls
[Quidway-mpls]quit
[Quidway]interface GigabitEthernet 1/0/5
[Quidway-GigabitEthernet1/0/5]mpls

Besides command line views the system adopts a hierarchical protection mode that has 16 command levels. The default command levels are as follows:

• Level 0 – visit
• Level 1 – monitoring
• Level 2 – configuration
• Level 3 – management