Stubby Post – Changing the Prompt on the ASA

RichardF commented on an article I wrote last November and mentioned the prompt command in the ASA.  I never set aside any time to research it, but I finally took the time today while waiting for a maintenance window.

This is one of those little things in life that make me happy.  Since the active ASA always has the same hostname and IP address, I find it hard to keep track of to which firewall I'm actually connected.  That "configurtions are no long in sync" message you get when you conf t on the standby firewall really irks me.  With the prompt command, I can see which firewall I'm on and in what state it is.

Here are the options you can use.

firewall(config)# prompt ?

configure mode commands/options:
  context   Display the context in the session prompt (multimode only)
  domain    Display the domain in the session prompt
  hostname  Display the hostname in the session prompt
  priority  Display the priority in the session prompt
  state     Display the traffic passing state in the session prompt

Note that the command is similar to the service timestamps in IOS where you can stack options.  I wound up setting my prompts to "hostname priority state" so I can see that information without having to do a show failover.  If you run contexts, I'm sure that would be a good one to include as well.  I imagine adding "domain" may make the prompt too long for use, though.  Heh.

Send any candy hearts questions my way.

jac