Command Line Interface (CLI)

About 6 min

Command Line Interface (CLI)

IoTDB provides Cli/shell tools for users to interact with IoTDB server in command lines. This document shows how Cli/shell tool works and the meaning of its parameters.

Note: In this document, $IOTDB_HOME represents the path of the IoTDB installation directory.

1. Running Cli

After installation, there is a default user in IoTDB: root, and the
default password is TimechoDB@2021(Before V2.0.6 it is root). Users can use this username to try IoTDB Cli/Shell tool. The cli startup script is the start-cli file under the $IOTDB_HOME/bin folder. When starting the script, you need to specify the IP and PORT. (Make sure the IoTDB cluster is running properly when you use Cli/Shell tool to connect to it.)

Here is an example where the cluster is started locally and the user has not changed the running port. The default rpc port is
6667

If you need to connect to the remote DataNode or changes
the rpc port number of the DataNode running, set the specific IP and RPC PORT at -h and -p.

You also can set your own environment variable at the front of the start script

The Linux and MacOS system startup commands are as follows:

# Before version V2.0.6.x
Shell > bash sbin/start-cli.sh -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6667 -u root -pw root

# V2.0.6.x and later versions
Shell > bash sbin/start-cli.sh -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6667 -u root -pw TimechoDB@2021

The Windows system startup commands are as follows:

# Before version V2.0.4.x
Shell > sbin\start-cli.bat -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6667 -u root -pw root

# V2.0.4.x and later versions, before version V2.0.6.x
Shell > sbin\windows\start-cli.bat -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6667 -u root -pw root

# V2.0.6.x and later versions
Shell > sbin\windows\start-cli.bat -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6667 -u root -pw TimechoDB@2021

After operating these commands, the cli can be started successfully. The successful status will be as follows:

 _____       _________  ______   ______
|_   _|     |  _   _  ||_   _ `.|_   _ \
  | |   .--.|_/ | | \_|  | | `. \ | |_) |
  | | / .'`\ \  | |      | |  | | |  __'.
 _| |_| \__. | _| |_    _| |_.' /_| |__) |
|_____|'.__.' |_____|  |______.'|_______/  version <version>


Successfully login at 127.0.0.1:6667
IoTDB>

Enter quit or exit can exit Cli.

2. Cli Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description	Example
-h `<host>`	string	No	The IP address of the IoTDB server. (Default: 127.0.0.1)	-h 127.0.0.1
-p `<rpcPort>`	int	No	The RPC port of the IoTDB server. (Default: 6667)	-p 6667
-u `<username>`	string	No	The username to connect to the IoTDB server. (Default: root)	-u root
-pw `<password>`	string	No	The password to connect to the IoTDB server. (Default: root)	-pw root
-sql_dialect `<sql_dialect>`	string	No	The data model type: tree or table. (Default: tree)	-sql_dialect table
-e `<execute>`	string	No	Batch operations in non-interactive mode.	-e "show databases"
-c	Flag	No	Required if rpc_thrift_compression_enable=true on the server.	-c
-disableISO8601	Flag	No	If set, timestamps will be displayed as numeric values instead of ISO8601 format.	-disableISO8601
-usessl `<use_ssl>`	Boolean	No	Enable SSL connection	-usessl true
-ts `<trust_store>`	string	No	SSL certificate store path	-ts /path/to/truststore
-tpw `<trust_store_pwd>`	string	No	SSL certificate store password	-tpw myTrustPassword
-timeout `<queryTimeout>`	int	No	Query timeout (seconds). If not set, the server's configuration will be used.	-timeout 30
-help	Flag	No	Displays help information for the CLI tool.	-help

Following is a cli command which connects the host with IP
10.129.187.21, rpc port 6667, username "root", password "root", and prints the timestamp in digital form. The maximum number of lines displayed on the IoTDB command line is 10.

The Linux and MacOS system startup commands are as follows:

Shell > bash sbin/start-cli.sh -h 10.129.187.21 -p 6667 -u root -pw root -disableISO8601 -maxPRC 10

The Windows system startup commands are as follows:

# Before version V2.0.4.x
Shell > sbin\start-cli.bat -h 10.129.187.21 -p 6667 -u root -pw root -disableISO8601 -maxPRC 10

# # V2.0.4.x and later versions
Shell > sbin\windows\start-cli.bat -h 10.129.187.21 -p 6667 -u root -pw root -disableISO8601 -maxPRC 10

3. CLI Special Command

Special commands of Cli are below.

Command	Description / Example
`set time_display_type=xxx`	eg. long, default, ISO8601, yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
`show time_display_type`	show time display type
`set time_zone=xxx`	eg. +08:00, Asia/Shanghai
`show time_zone`	show cli time zone
`set fetch_size=xxx`	set fetch size when querying data from server
`show fetch_size`	show fetch size
`set max_display_num=xxx`	set max lines for cli to output, -1 equals to unlimited
`help`	Get hints for CLI special commands
`exit/quit`	Exit CLI

4. Batch Operation of Cli

-e parameter is designed for the Cli/shell tool in the situation where you would like to manipulate IoTDB in batches through scripts. By using the -e parameter, you can operate IoTDB without entering the cli's input mode.

In order to avoid confusion between statements and other parameters, the current version only supports the -e parameter as the last parameter.

The usage of -e parameter for Cli/shell is as follows:

The Linux and MacOS system commands:

Shell > bash sbin/start-cli.sh -h {host} -p {rpcPort} -u {user} -pw {password} -e {sql for iotdb}

The Windows system commands:

# Before version V2.0.4.x 
Shell > sbin\start-cli.bat -h {host} -p {rpcPort} -u {user} -pw {password} -e {sql for iotdb}

# V2.0.4.x and later versions
Shell > sbin\windows\start-cli.bat -h {host} -p {rpcPort} -u {user} -pw {password} -e {sql for iotdb}

In the Windows environment, the SQL statement of the -e parameter needs to use `` to replace " "

In order to better explain the use of -e parameter, take following as an example(On linux system).

Suppose you want to create a database root.demo to a newly launched IoTDB, create a timeseries root.demo.s1 and insert three data points into it. With -e parameter, you could write a shell like this:

# !/bin/bash

host=127.0.0.1
rpcPort=6667
user=root
pass=root

bash ./sbin/start-cli.sh -h ${host} -p ${rpcPort} -u ${user} -pw ${pass} -e "create database root.demo"
bash ./sbin/start-cli.sh -h ${host} -p ${rpcPort} -u ${user} -pw ${pass} -e "create timeseries root.demo.s1 WITH DATATYPE=INT32, ENCODING=RLE"
bash ./sbin/start-cli.sh -h ${host} -p ${rpcPort} -u ${user} -pw ${pass} -e "insert into root.demo(timestamp,s1) values(1,10)"
bash ./sbin/start-cli.sh -h ${host} -p ${rpcPort} -u ${user} -pw ${pass} -e "insert into root.demo(timestamp,s1) values(2,11)"
bash ./sbin/start-cli.sh -h ${host} -p ${rpcPort} -u ${user} -pw ${pass} -e "insert into root.demo(timestamp,s1) values(3,12)"
bash ./sbin/start-cli.sh -h ${host} -p ${rpcPort} -u ${user} -pw ${pass} -e "select s1 from root.demo"

The results are shown in the figure, which are consistent with the Cli and jdbc operations.

 Shell > bash ./shell.sh 
+-----------------------------+------------+
|                         Time|root.demo.s1|
+-----------------------------+------------+
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.001+08:00|          10|
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.002+08:00|          11|
|1970-01-01T08:00:00.003+08:00|          12|
+-----------------------------+------------+
Total line number = 3
It costs 0.267s

It should be noted that the use of the -e parameter in shell scripts requires attention to the escaping of special characters.

5. Access History Feature

Since IoTDB V2.0.9.1, the access history feature is supported. After a client logs in successfully, key historical access information is displayed, and the feature supports distributed scenarios. Both administrators and regular users can only view their own access history. The core displayed information includes:

Last successful session: displays date, time, access application, IP address, and access method (not shown for first login or when no history exists).
Most recent failed attempt: displays the date, time, access application, IP address, and access method of the latest failed login attempt before the current successful login.
Cumulative failed attempts: total number of failed session attempts since the last successful session was established.

5.1 Enabling Access History

You can enable or disable the access history feature by modifying relevant parameters in the iotdb-system.properties file. A restart is required for changes to take effect. For example:

# Controls whether the audit log feature is enabled
enable_audit_log=false

When enabled: login information is recorded and expired data is cleaned periodically.
When disabled: no data is recorded, displayed, or cleaned.
If disabled and then re-enabled, the displayed history will be the last record before disabling, which may not represent the actual latest login.

Usage example:

---------------------
Starting IoTDB Cli
---------------------
 _____       _________  ______   ______
|_   _|     |  _   _  ||_   _ `.|_   _ \
  | |   .--.|_/ | | \_|  | | `. \ | |_) |
  | | / .'`\ \  | |      | |  | | |  __'.
 _| |_| \__. | _| |_    _| |_.' /_| |__) |
|_____|'.__.' |_____|  |______.'|_______/  Enterprise version 2.0.9.1 (Build: xxxxxxx)


---Last Successful Session------------------
Time: 2026-03-24T10:25:47.759+08:00
IP Address: 127.0.0.1
---Last Failed Session----------------------
Time: 2026-03-24T10:27:26.314+08:00
IP Address: 127.0.0.1
Cumulative Failed Attempts: 1
Successfully login at 127.0.0.1:6667
IoTDB>

5.2 Viewing Access History

The root user and users with the AUDIT privilege can view access history records using SQL statements.

Syntax:

SELECT * FROM root.__audit.login.u_{userid}.**

The userid can be obtained using the LIST USER statement.

Example:

IoTDB> SELECT * FROM root.__audit.login.**
+-----------------------------+------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|                         Time|root.__audit.login.u_0.node_1.result|root.__audit.login.u_0.node_1.ip|root.__audit.login.u_0.node_1.username|
+-----------------------------+------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|2026-03-25T10:55:58.240+08:00|                                true|                       127.0.0.1|                                  root|
+-----------------------------+------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
Total line number = 1
It costs 0.039s

IoTDB> SELECT * FROM root.__audit.login.u_0.**
+-----------------------------+------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|                         Time|root.__audit.login.u_0.node_1.result|root.__audit.login.u_0.node_1.ip|root.__audit.login.u_0.node_1.username|
+-----------------------------+------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|2026-03-25T10:55:58.240+08:00|                                true|                       127.0.0.1|                                  root|
+-----------------------------+------------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
Total line number = 1
It costs 0.020s