topic Re: comments in cli in General Topics

comments in cli

Alex_Samad — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 02:12:54 GMT

I have a text file with PANOS command line arguments (set) what character defines a comment line ?

is there one ?

Re: comments in cli

BPry — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:06:19 GMT

Can you explain a little more what you are actually trying to do. To the best of my knowledge there is no character within the cli that dictates a comment. Any script that you are trying to setup would usually have a comment character that simply means it should ignore that line.

Re: comments in cli

TranceforLife — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 15:34:01 GMT

Hi,

It this what you wanted:

# set cli config-output-format set

xxxxxx# show
set deviceconfig system update-server updates.paloaltonetworks.com
set deviceconfig system update-schedule threats recurring daily at 01:15
set deviceconfig system update-schedule threats recurring daily action download-and-install
set deviceconfig system update-schedule global-protect-datafile recurring daily action download-and-install
set deviceconfig system update-schedule global-protect-datafile recurring daily at 01:30
set deviceconfig system update-schedule anti-virus recurring hourly action download-and-install

Re: comments in cli

Alex_Samad — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 01:14:40 GMT

Sorry. needs better explanation.

So I am using a text file - similar to what i did with cisco / arista. which has lines of config in it. But I was able to use

# or !! to signify that those lines where comments - so I could document desiscions

I would use the text files by simply coping and paste into a cli.

so I might want to have something like this

# set up aggregate port

set template vdc config network interface aggregate-ethernet ae1 layer3 ipv6 neighbor-discovery router-advertisement enable no
set template vdc config network interface aggregate-ethernet ae1 comment "10G PO to core switches"

and I would like to be able to select the whole file and just paste.

with PANOS, the # comes up as an error, which makes it harder for me to quickly scan for errors.

Re: comments in cli

Dash.Ranasinghe — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 04:03:18 GMT

Did you find an answer? (Comments in CLI file)

Re: comments in cli

Shawverr — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 15:20:41 GMT

Maybe???

Switch to scripting mode. In scripting mode, you can copy and paste commands from a text file directly into the CLI. Although you can do this without scripting-mode enabled (up to 20 lines). If you cut-and-paste a block of text into the CLI, examine the output of the lines you pasted. If you see lines that are truncated or generate errors, you may have to re-paste a smaller section of text, or switch to scripting-mode admin@PA-3060> set cli scripting-mode on

Re: comments in cli

Alex_Samad — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 20:26:57 GMT

This seems a little silly - unable to allocate a character for comments. makes script files lot better by adding documentation to the script file.

Seems like very basic sort of stuff

Re: comments in cli

shaynekelly — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 16:48:47 GMT

is it possible that the comment would be similar to Juniper (both FreeBSD) and would use the same type of comments found in .xml (see below)

I agree with Alex, seems silly that such a character doesn't exist, but with Palo's constant desire to do everything via GUI I guess that makes some sense.

Palo folks can you please comment and let us know if below syntax is correct?

Re: comments in cli

Dash.Ranasinghe — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 05:26:07 GMT

No go...

Unknown command: <!--

Re: comments in cli

anon4all — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 23:07:10 GMT

i agree that a no comment character is a stupid omission on PA's part. common guys, put a comment character like #, ! or something into the config mode in CLI.

Re: comments in cli

Marko_K — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 11:06:26 GMT

I'm another admin looking for this common practice. Nearly all other vendors have something in this fashion.

Re: comments in cli

ThomasPaine — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 16:49:16 GMT

One workaround I found was to just us a benign config stanza, like a tag... e.g:
top set tag comment comments "this is a note about the next few lines of config"

set ...

and, if you like, follow it with:

top delete tag comment