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dnikas1
Staff
dnikas1
Staff
August 28, 2019

Technical Tip: CLI command console output mode

  • August 28, 2019
  • 0 replies
  • 23259 views

Description


This article describes how to set the CLI output to standard (no pause), or more (pause once the screen is full, resume on key press).

This setting only applies to console commands (serial console, web console or SSH)  show, ? (question mark) or get commands. It doesn't apply to debugs or sniffer output.

 

Scope

 

FortiGate.

Solution


Through the FortiGate's CLI, the default behavior to display the command output is by a method called 'paging', displaying content and displaying more by interaction. Paging on FortiGate is enabled by default with the setting 'more' and is exhibited below:

 

FGT # show
....
config system global
   set admin-scp enable
   set admin-sport 4443
   set admin-telnet disable
   set autorun-log-fsck enable
   set cfg-save manual
   set device-idle-timeout 60
   set gui-local-out enable
   set gui-theme onyx
   set management-port-use-admin-sport disable
   set proxy-auth-timeout 5
   set switch-controller enable
   set sys-perf-log-interval 1
   set timezone "Europe/Amsterdam"
end
config system accprofile
   edit "prof_admin"
       set secfabgrp read-write
       set ftviewgrp read-write
       set authgrp read-write
       set sysgrp read-write
       set netgrp read-write
       set loggrp read-write
--More--

 

Output resumes on key press (typically the space key) or can be interrupted with the button press of 'q'. By default, output paging is enabled; however, to view the whole command output, such as when saving console output to a log file, this gets in the way since it repeatedly displays the message --More-- in each output window. 

To remove the pause between output data, use these CLI commands:
 
config system console
    set output standard
end
 
To bring paging back:
 
config system console
    set output more
end
 
Notes:
  • This setting is global and, as such, can have unintended consequences for other administrators, especially on a serial console. For example, if 'show' is typed without any context, FortiGate will show the complete configuration without stopping until the output is completed.
  • This is useful for saving the configuration through SSH without having breaks between outputs.
  • This is also useful when FortiManager uses CLI scripting to apply configuration changes through the FGFM tunnel.
  • This command can also be used in FortiSwitch CLI when FortiSwitch is added as an unmanaged switch.
  • Debug output is not affected by this change.
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