ConfigShell is a Python library that provides a framework for building simple but nice CLI-based applications running both as single-command tools and interactive shells providing a UNIX filesystem-like navigation interface, as well as full autocompletion support and interactive inline help. It is part of LIO.

ConfigShell can be used to write any CLI-based program, typically system administration interfaces. The Linux Kernel's SCSI Target CLI, targetcli, is written using ConfigShell (http://github.com/Datera/targetcli).

ConfigShell is currently part of several Linux distributions, either under the configshell name or python-configshell. In most cases, simply installing the version packaged by your favorite Linux distribution is the best way to get it running.

The packages are very easy to build and install from source as long as you're familiar with your Linux Distribution's package manager:

1. Clone the github repository for configshell using git clone https://github.com/Datera/configshell.git.

2. Make sure build dependencies are installed. To build ConfigShell, you will need:

   • GNU Make.
   • python 2.6 or 2.7
   • A few python libraries: epydoc and pyparsing
   • A working LaTeX installation and ghostscript for building the documentation, for example texlive-latex.
   • Your favorite distribution's package developement tools, like rpm for Redhat-based systems or dpkg-dev and debhelper for Debian systems.

3. From the cloned git repository, run make deb to generate a Debian package, or make rpm for a Redhat package.

4. The newly built packages will be generated in the dist/ directory.

5. To cleanup the repository, use make clean or make cleanall which also removes dist/* files.

6. To run the example shell from the source directory use PYTHONPATH=. ./examples/myshell

The ConfigShell packages do ship with a full API documentation in both HTML and PDF formats, typically in /usr/share/doc/python-configshell/doc

Depending on your Linux distribution, the documentation might be shipped in a separate package.

An other good source of information is the http://linux-iscsi.org wiki, offering many resources such as (not necessarily up-to-date) copies of the ConfigShell API Reference Guide (HTML at http://linux-iscsi.org/Doc/configshell/html and PDF at http://linux-iscsi.org/Doc/configshell/configshell-API-reference.pdf). The Targetcli User's Guide at http://linux-iscsi.org/wiki/targetcli might also provide interesting information as an example program written using ConfigShell.

A simple example called myshell is included in the source tree and should be installed on your system in a location like /usr/share/doc/python-configshell/.

LIO was developed by Datera, Inc. http://www.datera.io

The original author and current maintainer is Jerome Martin jxm@netiant.com