Core Issue
A terminal length configuration value of 0 causes output to scroll by without stopping.
Resolution
If the output of show commands scrolls by without stopping, you can issue the set length command to control the number of lines displayed at a time. This is the syntax:
set length number [default]
This is a description of the command syntax:
- Number. The number of lines to display on the screen. Valid values are from 0 to 512.
- Default (optional). The keyword to set the number of lines in the terminal display screen for the current administration session and all other sessions. The default value is 24 lines upon starting a session.
Setting the screen length to 0 turns off the scrolling feature and causes the entire output to display at once. Unless you issue the default keyword, a change to the terminal length value applies only to the current session. When you issue the clear config command, the number of lines in the terminal display screen is reset to the default of 100.
The default keyword is available only in privileged mode.
This example shows how to set the screen length to 60 lines:
Console> (enable) set length 60
Screen length for this session set to 60.
Console> (enable)
This example shows how to set the default screen length to 40 lines:
Console> (enable) set length 40 default
Screen length set to 40.
For Cisco IOS®-based devices, use the EXEC mode terminal length screen-length command.
For example, to set the number of lines displayed to 25 on a Cisco IOS-based device, issue this command:
Router# terminal length 25
Once the changes have been made and the output from a single show command overflows, the display screen is followed by the --More-- prompt. At the --More-- prompt, you have these options:
- Press Ctrl+C, q, or Q to interrupt the output and return to the command prompt.
- Press the spacebar to display an additional screen of output.
- Press Enter to display one more line of output.
