1. ACLI Configuration Guide
  2. How to use the ACLI
  3. Data Entry

Data Entry

To enter data using the ACLI, your entries must conform to required field formats. This section describes these formats, gives information about preset values, default values, and error messages.

The final part of this section covers information about using quotation marks (“”) and parentheses (()) to enhance your data entry options and capabilities.

Note that, unless specified by the criteria of a specific field, the maximum number of characters that you can enter to a single ACLI command is 1023.

ACLI Field Formats

This section describes required data entry formats. You can learn the data type for a field by using the menu or the help function.

Boolean Format

Boolean entries take the form of either enabled or disabled. To choose one of these two values, type either enabled or disabled.

Carrier Format

Carrier entries can be from 1 to 24 characters in length and can consist of any alphabetical character (Aa-Zz), numerical character (0-9), punctuation mark (! ”$ % ^ & * ( ) + - = ‘ | { } [ ] @ / \ ‘ ~ , . _ : ; ), or any combination of alphabetical characters, numerical characters, or punctuation marks. For example, both 1-0288 and acme_carrier are valid carrier field formats.

Date Format

Date entries must adhere to the ccYY-mM-dD format, where cc is the century, YY is the year, mM is the month, and dD is the day (e.g., 2005-06-10). The minimum entry requirement for date fields is YY-M-D.

The Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller can assign the current century (cc) information, as well as leading zeroes for the month (m) and the day (d). Date fields must be entered in the valid format described above.

Date and Time Format

The date and time format displays both the date and time and adheres to the yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss.zzz or yyyy-mm-dd-hh:mm:ss.zzz where y=year, m=month, d=day, h=hours, m=minutes, s=seconds, and z=milliseconds.

Day of Week Format

Day of week entries set any combination of day(s) of the week plus holidays that the local-policy-attributes can use for preference determination. The day of week field options are:

  • U—Sunday
  • M—Monday
  • T—Tuesday
  • W—Wednesday
  • R—Thursday
  • F—Friday
  • S—Saturday
  • H—Holiday

    This field format cannot accept spaces. For example, U-S and M,W,F are valid day of week field entries.

Enumerated Format

Enumerated parameters allow you to choose from a preset list of values. To access the list of choices from within the ACLI, use the help function for the appropriate parameter.

Hostname (or FQDN) Format

Hostname (FQDN) entries consist of any number of Domain Labels, separated by periods, and one Top Label. The minimum field value is a single alphabetical character to indicate the top label value (e.g., c to indicate ‘.com’).

All hostname fields support IPv4 addresses as well as hostnames.

For Example: In the hostname acme-packet.domainlabel.example100.com, acme-packet is a domain label, domainlabel is a domain label, example100 is a domain label, and com is the top label.

  • domain label—acme-packet, domainlabel, example100
  • top label—com

    Note that each label is separated by a period.

    The following describes hostname (FQDN) format label types:

  • Domain Label—A domain label consists of any number or combination of alphabetical or numerical characters, or any number or combination of alphabetical or numerical characters separated by a dash (-). A dash must be surrounded on both sides by alphabetical or numerical characters, any number or combination. A dash cannot immediately follow or precede a period (.). A domain label is not required in a hostname field value.
  • Top Label—A top label is the last segment of the hostname. A top label must start with an alphabetical character; it cannot start with a numerical character or with a dash (-). After the first character, a top label can consist of any number, or combination of alphabetical or numerical characters or any number or combination of alphabetical or numerical characters separated by a dash. Similar to dashes in domain labels, a top label dash must be surrounded on both sides by alphabetical or numerical characters, any number or combination. A single alphabetical character is the minimum requirement for a hostname field value.

IP Address Format

IP address entries must follow the dotted decimal notation format and can only include numerical characters (0-9). Entries for an IP address field should be between 0.0.0.0 and 255.255.255.255.

Name Format

Name entries must start with an upper- or lower- case alpha numeric character(A-Z, a-z, 0-9) or an underscore symbol (_). The length of a name entry can continue for another 127 characters for a total of 128 characters. Additional valid characters in the 2nd -128th position include period (.), dash (-), and additional underscores (_) (e.g., acmepacket_configuration).

Number Format

Number entries (e.g., phone number digits without dashes, any address that is not a hostname, etc.) can be any numerical character (0-9) or alphabetical character from A through F (A-Fa-f) or any combination of numerical and alphabetical characters from A through F (0-9A-Fa-f) (e.g., 18005551212 or 18005552CAB). The minimum number of characters for a number entry is 1, and the maximum number is 32.

Text Format

Text entries (e.g., description fields) do not need to follow a particular format. Text fields can accommodate any combination of printable numerical and alphabetical characters, spaces, and most symbols. Noted exceptions are the ampersand (&), the apostrophe (‘), and the less than symbol (<). Entries with spaces must be entered fully within quotation marks. For example, “This is the official Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller configuration” is a valid text entry.

Time of Day Format

Time of day entries must include only numerical characters (0-9) and must follow the 4-digit military time format (e.g., 1400). Time of day entries set the time of day that attributes can be considered for preference determination. The minimum field value is 0000, and the maximum field value is 2400.

Preset Values

All configurations share one field: last-modified-date. This field value is set by the system database and can not be altered. It displays the date and time of the last modified action. The system sets this value automatically.

Default Values

By default, the system populates some ACLI values with preset system values if you do not configure them.

Error Messages

The ACLI produces error messages when information cannot be saved or commands cannot be executed. These events may occur when there is a problem either with the command itself, the information entered, the format of the information entered, or with the system in general.

For example, if you enter several words for a description and you do not put the entry inside quotation marks, the ACLI will tell you that you have entered an invalid number of arguments. In the example below, a user entered a media-type field value of “audio visual,” but did not enclose the value in quotation marks (“”). 

ORACLE(media-profile)# media-type audio visual
invalid number of arguments
ORACLE(media-profile)#

When the value does not conform to format requirements, the ACLI returns a message that you have made an invalid entry for a given field. In the example below, a user entered an invalid IP address. 

ORACLE(snmp-community)# ip-addresses (1877.5647.457.2 45.124 254.65.23)
invalid IP address
ORACLE(snmp-community)#
Message Description
error invalid data... You have entered a value not permitted by the system. This error includes numeric values that exceed defined parameters and misspellings of specifically spelled values (such as “enabled” or “disabled”).
% command not found You entered a command that is not valid. The command may be misspelled, or it may not exist where you are working.
invalid selection... You have selected an item that does not exist in the system.
invalid number of arguments You either have entered too many arguments (or commands) on one line or you may not have quotation marks (“”) around your multi-word entry.
error 500 saving ... The system could not save the data you entered to the system database.

Special Entry Types Quotation Marks and Parentheses

The ACLI uses certain syntax in order to increase ease of use.

  • Quotation marks (““)—The values inside quotation marks are read as being one argument; commonly used in text fields.
  • Parentheses (())—The values inside parentheses are read as being multiple arguments for an element.

Multiple Values for the Same Field

To enter multiple values for the same field, you can either use quotation marks (“”) or parentheses (()) in order to express these values to the system. In a field that might contain multiple values, you must use either of these when you enter more than one value.

Your use of either of these methods signals to the system that it should read the data within the punctuation marks as multiple values. The following example shows how parentheses (()) are used in an instance of the local-policy element.

In the example that follows, there are three entries for the to-address in the parentheses (()).

Note:

If you enter multiple values within either quotation marks (“”) or parentheses (()), be sure that the closing marks are made directly after the final value entered. Otherwise, the system will not read your data properly. 
ORACLE(local-policy)# to-address (196.154.2.3 196.154.2.4 196.154.2.5) 
ORACLE(local-policy)# show
local-policy
        from-address
                                       *
        to-address
                                       196.154.2.3
                                       196.154.2.4
                                       196.154.2.5
        source-realm
                                       public
        description
        activate-time                  N/A
        deactivate-time                N/A
        state                          enabled
        policy-priority                none
        last-modified-by
        last-modified-date

Multi-Word Text Values

For many fields, you may want to enter a multi-word text value. This value may either be a series of descriptive words, a combination of words and numbers that identify a location, or a combination of words and numbers that identify a contact person.

To enter a multi-word text value, surround that value either with quotation marks (“”) or parentheses (()). Generally, quotation marks are most commonly used to configure text fields. The example below shows how quotation marks (“”) surround a multi-word value. 

ORACLE(session-router-config)# holidays
ORACLE(session-router-holidays)# date 2008-01-01
ORACLE(session-router-holidays)# description "new year's day"
ORACLE(session-router-holidays)# done
        holiday
                date                           2010-10-10
                description                    sample day

An Additional Note on Using Parentheses

Parentheses can be used in the ACLI to enter multiple arguments on the same line. A command line can contain any number of entries inside parentheses. Single parentheses (()) connote one list, nested parentheses ((())) connote a list within a list, and so forth.

Option Configuration

The options parameter shows up in many configuration elements. This parameter is used for configuring the Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller to behave with either non-standard or customer-specific behavior.

Several options might be configured for a single configuration element. Every time you configure the option parameter, you overwrite the previously configured option list for the selected instance of the configuration element.

There is a shortcut to either add or delete a single option to the full option list. By typing a “+” to add or a “-” to subtract immediately before an option, you can edit the currently configured option list.

Append Example

With the forceH245 option preconfigured, you can append a new option without deleting the previously configured option : 

ORACLE(h323)# options +noAliasInRCF
ORACLE(h323)#  show
h323-config
        state                          enabled
        log-level                      NOTICE
        response-tmo                   4
        connect-tmo                    32
        rfc2833-payload                101
        alternate-routing              proxy
        codec-fallback                 disabled
        enum-sag-match                 disabled
        remove-t38                     disabled
        options                        noAliasInRCF
        last-modified-by               admin@console
        last-modified-date             2014-01-14 20:17:42

Delete Example

You can also delete a single existing option from the options list. Continuing from the previous example: 

ORACLE(h323)# options -forceH245
ORACLE(h323)# show
h323-config
        state                          enabled
        log-level                      NOTICE
        response-tmo                   4
        connect-tmo                    32
        rfc2833-payload                101
        alternate-routing              proxy
        codec-fallback                 disabled
        enum-sag-match                 disabled
        remove-t38                     disabled
        options                        noAliasInRCF
        last-modified-by               admin@console
        last-modified-date             2014-01-14 20:19:43