Really, No CLI on Cisco Catalyst Express 500?

[mmedwid]

A IT person (from another company) was telling me about these switches and said there was no way to ssh or telnet or otherwise console to these switches. Your only option for managing was a GUI. Is that for real? Seems pretty limiting for version control and other automation you might want to do.

[mattcalderon · Accepted solution]

It looks as if you can not configure from the CLI and from the guide below, it looks as if there are not any current plans for CLI to be available. i have never personally worked on these but i found this:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps6545/prod_qas0900aecd80322b09.html

[mmedwid]

Even the Mac comes with a CLI these days!

[scottmac]

Might have to dig a little, but there was a post here some time back that described how to get to the "GUI CLI" (graphical terminal screen).

If I an dig it up, I'll post the link.

Good Luck

Scott

[prestonstrait · Accepted solution]

There is a GUI CLI that can be invaluable with these switches as many features are only accessible from there. To access it login to the GUI normally and then type "/exec" at the end of the address.

[mmedwid]

That's valuable insight indeed! It would be interesting to see if via perl and expect you could grab config via http, run your own show commands and grab results etc.

Thanks for the tip.

[scottmac]

Thanks! I knew it was out there, I just couldn't remember where.

Good Luck

Scott

[muca]

That's cool!!!

[jcoke]

There is a CLI but I've only heard of TAC getting into it. If it's that big an issue, migrate to a 2960 series box.

[davidmeiker]

Greetings

The CE500 have a CLI Mode, Yes it have!

But In my humble opinion I think its a Emulation of the CLI

When you do all the configuration in the SW, just type in you internet explorer.."http:// + IP Swithc + /exec" for example "http://192.168.10.2/exec"

And you can emulate the CLI in the CE500.