#733 ipa help is confusing regarding options
Closed: Fixed None Opened 13 years ago by dpal.

If you call help on any ipa command you get something like this:

[dpal@lenovo yum.repos.d]$ ipa help host-add
Purpose: Add a new host.
Usage: ipa [global-options] host-add HOSTNAME
Options:
   -h, --help           show this help message and exit
   --desc=STR           A description of this host
   --locality=STR       Host locality (e.g. "Baltimore, MD")
   --location=STR       Host location (e.g. "Lab 2")
   --platform=STR       Host hardware platform (e.g. "Lenovo T61")
   --os=STR             Host operating system and version (e.g. "Fedora 9")
   --password=STR       Password used in bulk enrollment
   --random             Generate a random password to be used in bulk
                        enrollment
   --certificate=BYTES  Base-64 encoded server certificate
   --force              force host name even if not in DNS
   --no-reverse         skip reverse DNS detection
   --ipaddr=STR         Add the host to DNS with this IP address
   --all                retrieve and print all attributes from the server.
                        Affects command output.
   --raw                print entries as stored on the server. Only affects
                        output format.

I suggest we change the usage line to something like:
Usage: ipa [global-ipa-options] host-add HOSTNAME [options]

The problem is that global options are not the ones that are listed below while the [options] are not mentioned at the end so you do not know how use the command: options fist then host name or vice versa.
If you try to use the options listed instead of the global options you get errors which is fine but lives you confused.


Since options can be before or after the required argument usage line can also be something like:

ipa [global-ipa-options] host-add [options] HOSTNAME [options]

Metadata Update from @dpal:
- Issue assigned to jzeleny
- Issue set to the milestone: FreeIPA 2.0 - 2011/01 (cleanup)

7 years ago

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