Discussion on:

10 commands you should master when working with the Cisco IOS

Does this list offer a good foundation for mastering the most essential commands? Are there any commands you would add to the list?

Jody,

Where's the list?

Tim

There are quite a few good commands that help you troubleshoot, the Cisco IOS:
- show ? - lists the show commands for the mode you are in.
- no ip domain-lookup - turns off trying to automatically resolve an unrecognised command to a local host name.

I love my copy of 'CCNA Command Quick Reference', its a really good book to have on hand. (ISBN: 1-58713-159-5).

Thanks for the reference info Fred. I'll be looking for a copy.

CatSwitch#sh mac address-table address xxxx.xxxx.xxxx where xxxx.xxxx.xxxx is the Mac address of a computer is unbbelievably helpful when trying to identify where a given device is pugged into a switch andidentify it's vlan. If you are running an older switch running CatOS the command is show cam xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx. when trying to work on an undocumented rats nest these commands can save hours.

Solarwinds has a gui utility which gives the dns name, ip and mac of devices and which port they are plugged into. There is a free utility Oputils that is good also.

"reload in x" and "reload cancel" are a good safety net to use when configuring remote routers, especially when dealing with access-lists.

Any time the debug command is referenced it should come with the standard warning to inform those new to the field of the possible dangers of overloading the system that it is being used on.

This is a pretty good list.

I wish I'd had this last week! I ended up purchasing "Mastering Cisco Routers" 2nd Edition by Chris Brenton and Bob Abuhoff (ISBN 0-7821-4107-2). It was very helpful and easy for a Cisco novice to understand but I had to dig through it to find out some of the things that are listed here rather succinctly.

just as the title says...
basic info, but useful for the newbies.

dittos on the debug comment - it can be resource intensive.

Great info as always. These are definately the 10 most used commands in the IOS.