Many or most of you know that you can enable a Cisco router to function as an HTTP server using the ‘ip http server’ command. Once you do this you can open your web browser and browse to an ip address of the router and it will present you with a somewhat bland webpage for interacting with the router. The most commonly used function of this interface is the ‘Monitor the router’ link that points to the following address:  

http://router ip address/level/15/exec/- 

From this page you can enter some commands that you would like to execute on the router or you can click through the commands offered. You can also configure aspects of the router from this interface using the address: 

http://router ip address/level/15/exec/-/configure/http 

…this was a nice feature back in like 1997 but today we offer more intuitive, graphical style interfaces like those found in the SDM. Some people (myself included) still prefer however to configure and manage their routers using the CLI but have a need for an interface that is not as powerful as the SDM interface but not as limiting as the base IOS web server interface either…For instance I have customers that are very well versed on the CLI but need a way to provide visibility into the router for their NOC so that when there is a service interrupting issue, the NOC can provide limited troubleshooting via the phone without exposing the CLI to NOC engineer. Well here is an old trick that you may already know, but a Cisco router can function as webserver (already established that in the opening sentence) so why not provide a nice web interface into the router so that your NOC personnel can simply browse to the router/switch/firewall and simply click a command and have the router output the data for the engineer and why not make this interface customizable? Well you can…and we have already provided a nice customizable interface that you can manipulate to suit your needs and you can even add your own pictures/logos to the files…It’s know as the IOS Command Center and the webpage detailing it’s installation can be found here:

IOS Command Center

Listed there is a .zip file that contains all the files you need to get your customized web interface up and running. You can see a sample screenshot of what the interface looks like here: Sample Screen Shot. Since it’s a standard HTML doc you can edit it in any HTML editor to meet your needs….oh yeah, some of you may want to use this and use the SDM at the same time…not a problem…simply create a new directory in flash on the router and install the IOS Command Center into that directory and leave the SDM files in their default location.