Running and viewing commands and shells using the Remote Shell view

About this task

From the Remote System Explorer, you can use the Remote Shell view to run and interact with commands and command shells on various remote servers.

Specifically, use the view to:

Whenever you launch a command shell from the Remote System Explorer, the Remote Commands view displays the output and provides a way to work with that output. You can launch a shell from any folder in your IBM® i IFS, Local, Windows, Linux, UNIX, or AIX® connection. The only place where you cannot launch a shell is from i Objects on the Native IBM i system.

Opening the Remote Systems view and launching a command shell

In the Remote Systems view, navigate to folder where you want to launch a command shell. Right-click the folder and select Launch Shell. You can also switch to the Remote Shell view by clicking Window > Show View > Other > Remote Systems > Remote Shell from the workbench menu bar. To open a new shell in the Remote Shell view, click the drop-down arrow in the view and select Launch shell.

You can also open a shell from the Remote Systems view. Right-click a folder and select Launch Shell to launch a shell from that particular directory. Or, you can right-click the Shells subsystem beneath your connection and select Launch Shell. The advantage of the subsystem is that your specific shells are saved as nodes under the Shells subsystem in the Remote Systems view; thus you can keep track of multiple shells.

Working with command shells

When the Remote Shell view is open, you can work with typical command shells, or QShell commands for the IBM i IFS. For example, if you type cd .., you can change the working directory for that shell. The environment for all commands in the shell can change in response to your input.

Viewing output in an editor

You can double-click certain lines of output to open it in an editor, or right-click certain lines of output for pop-up actions. For example, if you encounter an error while running a command, you can double-click the error and the editor opens the source to the line of code where the parser found a problem.

Closing and clearing shells

The Remote Shell view has a toolbar with buttons that enable you to clear or terminate and remove the shell. You can also right-click shell nodes in the Remote Systems view and select actions to Cancel or Remove the shell.

Saving shell input and output

The Remote Shell view toolbar also has action for exporting shell output and retrieving shell input history.

Content assist

The Remote Shell view supports content assist (also known as code assist). You can, for example, press CTRL+space to complete file names or environment variable names while you type commands.


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