iTerm2 Tip: Repeating Commands Using a Coprocess
iTerm2 is a great terminal for MacOS; far better than Apple’s built-in Terminal app, and it’s my #1 recommendation for Mac-based network engineers. One of the many reasons I like it is that it has a feature that solves a really annoying problem.

It’s tedious having to issue a command repeatedly so that you can see when and if the output changes. I’ve had to do this in the past, repeating commands like show ip arp so that I can spot when an entry times out and when it it refreshes. The repeated sequence of up arrow, Enter, up arrow, Enter, up arrow, Enter
drives me mad.
Some vendors offer assistance; A10 Networks for example has a repeat
command in the CLI specifically to help with show commands:
a10-vMaster[2/2]#repeat 5 show arp Total arp entries: 25 Age time: 300 secs IP Address MAC Address Type Age Interface Vlan --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10.1.1.65 0000.5e00.01a1 Dynamic 17 Management 1 10.1.1.67 ac4b.c821.57d1 Dynamic 255 Management 1 10.1.1.97 001f.a0f8.d901 Dynamic 22 Management 1 Refreshing command every 5 seconds. (press ^C to quit) Elapsed Time: 00:00:00 Total arp entries: 25 Age time: Continue reading


It supports AWS, Microsoft Azure, and VMware, with Google Cloud Platform coming in 2018.
They will help enterprises who want to automate services across multiple providers.
