Subject: [NANOG] Re: The Network CLI -- Love it ? Hate it? Needed? Date: Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 05:52:56PM +0000 Quoting Neil J. McRae via NANOG (nanog@lists.nanog.org):
The live network _should_ be the truth, but unless you have really nailed config and change management then your truth is what you remember and humans make terrible eye witnesses.
Which is why you ask the network. This is what we do when things go wrong. If we want the shiny! management systems to be more than at best some help when the sailing is smooth, we need them to work in the real world. I work with vendor management solutions that do a reasonably good job, and the over- view they offer is at times very good. But when you can't get the really nitty-gritty details, CLI it is. Again.
Things might be working, but are your customers getting billing correctly, or the correct service? Or does that failover work? Did you put back in that filter you took out to debug something?
I see a number of orgs doing all they can to prevent/minimise any use of CLI and in my view I think it’s the only direction the network can go in. There is way to much complexity and that is growing and growing and managing the truth in your head as what you remember will one day hurt.
Outside of power I’d guess CLI makes up the vast majority of network outages. In my view it can’t be the future.
You might be right. But if we're to reach the goal, the management systems need to up their game. A lot. They're not good enough as it is today. -- Måns Nilsson primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina MN-1334-RIPE SA0XLR +46 705 989668 If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET!