[Cisco IOS-XE] [4507R+E]
How to exclude interfaces without description on 'sh int description' command using regex?
Couldn't find any related/previous questions.
3 Answers
First off, you should enable shell processing on your device, either by using terminal shell for current session testing or permanent enabling it by using:
#conf t
(config)#shell processing full
(config)#end
#wr
Building configuration...
[OK]
Now you can use Linux commands, like grep. You can use man grep to see the manual description of the function. show shell functions will give you a full overview of available functions on your device.
Grep can get the information you want. My show interface desc looks like:
#sh int desc
Interface Status Protocol Description
Vl1 admin down down
Vl3 up up SW_MGMT
Gi0/0 down down
Te1/0/1 up up X10 Po11
Te1/0/2 up up X10 Po12
Te1/0/3 up up X11 Po13
Te1/0/4 up up X11 Po14
Te1/0/5 up up X12 Po15
Te1/0/6 up up X13 Po16
Te1/0/7 up up X13 Po17
Te1/0/8 up up X14 Po18
Te1/0/9 up up X15 Po19
Te1/0/10 up up X15 Po20
Te1/0/11 up up X16 Po21
Te1/0/12 up up X21 Po22
Te1/0/13 up up X21 Po23
Te1/0/14 up up X22 Po24
Te1/0/15 down down
Te1/0/16 down down
Te1/0/17 up up X24 Po27
Te1/0/18 up up X25 Po28
Te1/0/19 up up X25 Po29
Te1/0/20 up up X26 Po30
Te1/0/21 down down X27 Po31
Te1/0/22 up up X31 Po32
Te1/0/23 up up X31 Po33
Te1/0/24 up up X33 Po34
Te1/1/1 up up X34 Po35
Te1/1/2 up up X35 Po36
Te1/1/3 up up X35 Po37
Te1/1/4 up up X36 Po38
Te1/1/5 up up HX HotSpot Po39
Te1/1/6 up up X23 Po43
Te1/1/7 up up HX 6509 Po1
Te1/1/8 up up X23 Po44
Fo1/1/1 down down
Fo1/1/2 down down
Te2/0/1 up up X10 Po11
Te2/0/2 up up X10 Po12
Te2/0/3 up up X11 Po13
Te2/0/4 up up X11 Po14
Te2/0/5 up up X12 Po15
Te2/0/6 up up X13 Po16
Te2/0/7 up up X13 Po17
Te2/0/8 up up X14 Po18
Te2/0/9 up up X15 Po19
Te2/0/10 up up X15 Po20
Te2/0/11 up up X16 Po21
Te2/0/12 up up X21 Po22
Te2/0/13 up up X21 Po23
Te2/0/14 up up X22 Po24
Te2/0/15 down down
Te2/0/16 down down X23 Po26
Te2/0/17 up up X24 Po27
Te2/0/18 up up X25 Po28
Te2/0/19 up up X25 Po29
Te2/0/20 up up X26 Po30
Te2/0/21 down down X27 Po31
Te2/0/22 up up X31 Po32
Te2/0/23 up up X31 Po33
Te2/0/24 up up X33 Po34
Te2/1/1 up up X34 Po35
Te2/1/2 up up X35 Po36
Te2/1/3 up up X35 Po37
Te2/1/4 up up X36 Po38
Te2/1/5 up up HX HotSpot Po39
Te2/1/6 up up X23 Po43
Te2/1/7 up up HX 6509 Po1
Te2/1/8 up up X23 Po44
Fo2/1/1 down down
Fo2/1/2 down down
Po1 up up Uplink
Po11 up up
Po12 up up
Po13 up up
Po14 up up
Po15 up up
Po16 up up
Po17 up up
Po18 up up
Po19 up up
Po20 up up
Po21 up up
Po22 up up
Po23 up up
Po24 up up
Po27 up up
Po28 up up
Po29 up up
Po30 up up
Po31 down down
Po32 up up
Po33 up up
Po34 up up
Po35 up up
Po36 up up
Po37 up up
Po38 up up
Po39 up up
Po40 down down
Po42 down down
Po43 up up X23 Ny
Po44 up up X23 Ny
Now i use grep to get whatever i want via regex:
#sh int desc | grep [updown].......[a-zA-Z0-9] | grep -v admin
Interface Status Protocol Description
Vl3 up up SW_MGMT
Te1/0/1 up up X10 Po11
Te1/0/2 up up X10 Po12
Te1/0/3 up up X11 Po13
Te1/0/4 up up X11 Po14
Te1/0/5 up up X12 Po15
Te1/0/6 up up X13 Po16
Te1/0/7 up up X13 Po17
Te1/0/8 up up X14 Po18
Te1/0/9 up up X15 Po19
Te1/0/10 up up X15 Po20
Te1/0/11 up up X16 Po21
Te1/0/12 up up X21 Po22
Te1/0/13 up up X21 Po23
Te1/0/14 up up X22 Po24
Te1/0/17 up up X24 Po27
Te1/0/18 up up X25 Po28
Te1/0/19 up up X25 Po29
Te1/0/20 up up X26 Po30
Te1/0/21 down down X27 Po31
Te1/0/22 up up X31 Po32
Te1/0/23 up up X31 Po33
Te1/0/24 up up X33 Po34
Te1/1/1 up up X34 Po35
Te1/1/2 up up X35 Po36
Te1/1/3 up up X35 Po37
Te1/1/4 up up X36 Po38
Te1/1/5 up up HX HotSpot Po39
Te1/1/6 up up X23 Po43
Te1/1/7 up up HX 6509 Po1
Te1/1/8 up up X23 Po44
Te2/0/1 up up X10 Po11
Te2/0/2 up up X10 Po12
Te2/0/3 up up X11 Po13
Te2/0/4 up up X11 Po14
Te2/0/5 up up X12 Po15
Te2/0/6 up up X13 Po16
Te2/0/7 up up X13 Po17
Te2/0/8 up up X14 Po18
Te2/0/9 up up X15 Po19
Te2/0/10 up up X15 Po20
Te2/0/11 up up X16 Po21
Te2/0/12 up up X21 Po22
Te2/0/13 up up X21 Po23
Te2/0/14 up up X22 Po24
Te2/0/16 down down X23 Po26
Te2/0/17 up up X24 Po27
Te2/0/18 up up X25 Po28
Te2/0/19 up up X25 Po29
Te2/0/20 up up X26 Po30
Te2/0/21 down down X27 Po31
Te2/0/22 up up X31 Po32
Te2/0/23 up up X31 Po33
Te2/0/24 up up X33 Po34
Te2/1/1 up up X34 Po35
Te2/1/2 up up X35 Po36
Te2/1/3 up up X35 Po37
Te2/1/4 up up X36 Po38
Te2/1/5 up up HX HotSpot Po39
Te2/1/6 up up X23 Po43
Te2/1/7 up up HX 6509 Po1
Te2/1/8 up up X23 Po44
Po1 up up Uplink
Po43 up up X23 Ny
Po44 up up X23 Ny
First i tell it to find anything with up or down. Then i tell it that the maximum white spaces are 7 followed by any character or number. The last grep will remove any admin down interfaces.
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2You could also just skip to column 56:
grep ^.{55}[a-zA-Z0-9]. Note thatgrep -v adminalso removes lines with e.g. interface names containingadmin.– Zac67 ♦Commented Oct 10, 2019 at 15:00 -
Will test tomorrow even though i have no doubt you are correct, nice to learn a little and i didn’t have much time.– CowCommented Oct 10, 2019 at 15:34
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@Zac67 What interfaces on a Cisco device has interface names containing admin?– CowCommented Oct 10, 2019 at 15:46
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@Zac67 So ^.{55} removes 55 chars containing nothing, but keep lines containing [a-zA-Z0-9]? Correctly understood?– CowCommented Oct 10, 2019 at 15:59
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I totally forgot about the repetition using
{}. Shame on me :-)– CowCommented Oct 10, 2019 at 16:00
If you wanna do it without the shell processing (which is not accessible by TCL for example) you can do it with following command:
show interfaces description | include down[ ]+down[ ]+[A-Za-z0-9]|up[ ]+up[ ]+[A-Za-z0-9]
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1Hello @MarioJost, this would work for descriptions without any special characters. Example - If we use description "== Connection to Switch10 ==", the above regex would not work.– userxCommented Oct 17, 2019 at 14:17
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@userx Then, you'd need to adjust the regex to include the value = within the brackets. Cisco does not support the use of \w .This is just a idea to achieve the result requested without using shell processing. Commented Oct 22, 2019 at 12:17
The existing answers filter for characters in the description column, so they also drop any header or footer lines - this may not be desired.
I don't have a proper device at hand for testing, but what you actually asked for is filtering out lines that contain up or down at the end of the line:
show interface description |grep -v (up|down)$
Trailing whitespaces can also be handled by grep -v (up|down)\s*$.
You can also skip to the name column and look for any character there:
show interface description |grep ^.{55}[a-zA-Z0-9]
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Hello @Zac67, ask was to find a filter that excludes any interfaces without description regardless of the switch port status.– userxCommented Oct 17, 2019 at 14:11
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@userx Exactly - that filter should exclude any line that contains
upordownfollow by EOL (either directly or with only whitespaces\sin between). As noted, I can't test it for Cisco but it works with common regex implementations.– Zac67 ♦Commented Oct 17, 2019 at 14:34