cisco show commands cheat sheet

The Show commands display important information about the configuration as well as the operation of the device in the Cisco IOs Command Line Interface (CLI) mode. Network administrators can use different show commands to check device status; interfaces, process and configuration files to confirm the device operational status.

The network administrator can also view the process and function of the router and verify it using show commands.  The important show commands of Cisco IOS are the following:-

1.show version

2.show running-config as well as show startup-config

3.show arp

4.show interfaces

5.show protocols and also, show ip protocols

6.show ip route and show ip interface brief also

7.show cdp neighbours

Show Commands Details

show version

The show version command on the Cisco router displays hardware information. The command output gives insight into the router’s capabilities. The abbreviation of this command is sh ver. The output of the show version command consists of the following unique information:-

• IOS version
• Image filename
• System uptime
• Type of processor and also show the amount of RAM
• Number of ports on the switch
• Amount of flash memory
• Current configuration register

The figure below illustrates the output of the show version command on the Cisco router.

Show running-config

We can use this command to display the configuration information running on the terminal. We can also use this command in combination with the show startup-config command to compare the information in running memory to the information stored in NVRAM or in a place specified by the CONFIG_FILE. The abbreviation of this command is sh ru

show arp

This command displays the ARP table of the router. The ARP table is the table which contains the resolved IPv4 address to MAC address mappings. If a host is can’t ping? Make sure using the show arp command that you’re getting an arp entry of the host that you want to ping. The abbreviated command is Sh ar

show interfaces

The show interface command displays all type of interfaces with configuration and statistics. This command provides a lot of information in the output. The abbreviation of this command sh int.  The figure below illustrates the output of the show interface command.

show protocols

This command displays the status of configured layer three protocols on all interfaces of the Cisco routers. This command can be abbreviated as sh prot

show ip route

The show ip route command is used to show the routing table of the router. The routing table is the list of all networks that the router can communicate; their metrics and how to communicate with them. This command can be abbreviated with sh ip ro. The command also has parameters after route (ro) like sh ip ro rip for all RIP routes. The figure below illustrates the output of the show ip route command

show ip interface brief

The show ip interface brief is one of the most frequently used commands in the Cisco devices. This command provides abbreviated output than the show ip interface command. It provides an outline of the key information for all the network interfaces on a router. The figure below illustrates the output of this command.

The output displays all interfaces on the router; the IP address assigned interfaces, if any, and the operational status of the interface. The show ip interface brief command can also be used to verify the status of the switch interfaces.

Show CDP neighbours

We can use this command to display currently connected Cisco devices information. Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) is a Cisco proprietary protocol and will only detect Cisco products. To show detailed information about neighbouring devices discovered using CDP; use the show cdp neighbours command in privileged EXEC mode. The command can also be abbreviated with sh cd ne.