Re: OT: Hidden commands support

  Agreed. I talked to some Cisco folks who basically said the same. They
wouldn't run them in prod mostly because you never know when (what
version) it may or may not be there or how stable it would be. But they
are helpful and sometimes fun for labbing or for troubleshooting.

--Hammer--

On 9/28/2010 10:30 PM, Nick Matthews wrote:
> Hidden commands are usually hidden for a reason. Some of them become
> wide spread, and find new uses, and become unhidden.
>
> Most of the time they are the experiment of a developer to 'patch'
> something. Either the solution is not worth the effort to fully
> document and go through traditional methods because it's a one-off,
> it's something more powerful than cisco really wants the customer to
> have full access to, or that by documenting it requires references to
> other undocumented references that should not/can not be documented.
> Some times they are very specific developer commands to do all types
> of crazy things. For example, I've seen hidden debugs and IOS
> commands change the EEPROM on cards and they suddenly become a
> different type of card.
>
> For support - it varies. There are hidden commands that are more
> well-known than others. Chances are, if you have the hidden command
> on your equipment it's because it was on a public document somewhere,
> and it has spread all over the place. Sometimes it gets on there
> because someone read an article on the internet, and in combination of
> any other set of unrelated events, the problem is fixed and the
> command stays there permanently. Either way, the more common it is
> the less problems you will have with supportability, but keep in mind
> that they are at the top of the common suspects list.
>
> Determining the original context and relevance of the hidden command
> can be a futile exercise; sometimes it is simple. Short answer: YMMV.
>
> -nick
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 11:32 AM, --Hammer-- <bhmccie_at_gmail.com
> <mailto:bhmccie_at_gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> So, I just read up on a hidden command I hadn't seen before that
> Taqdir submitted. I've seen hidden commands before but this was a
> new one and actually is somewhat intriguing to me. So, the bigger
> question is, does anyone have experience with implementing hidden
> commands in production environments and what Ciscos position is
> regarding them? We have direct lines to some Cisco resources and
> I'm going to ask the same but I thought I would throw it out to
> the group.
>
> --
>
>
> --Hammer--
>
>
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Received on Wed Sep 29 2010 - 09:18:08 ART