KEA-SHELL(8)

📦
version 3.0.4 · 23 versions
, in fedora 43

💖 KEA-SHELL(8) — the little text client that talks to your Kea servers 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because kea-shell is literally the REST client for the Kea kea-dhcp4, kea-dhcp6, and kea-dhcp-ddns servers and it's giving ✨command-line glamour✨. (iykyk 🎀)

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

kea-shell [-h] [-v] [--host] [--port] [--path] [--ca] [--cert] [--key]
[--auth-user] [--auth-password] [--auth-password-file] [--timeout]
[--service] [command]

no cap, that's the whole vibe up top 👑

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so kea-shell hands you a REST client for the Kea kea-dhcp4, kea-dhcp6 and kea-dhcp-ddns servers. back in the day it was made for the Control Agent (CA) daemon, but lowkey that thing is deprecated now, so… moving on 💅

it takes commands as a command-line parameter, and then sends them to the Kea server with proper JSON encapsulation — like, it wraps them up all cute before shipping them off 🎁. optional arguments? you can drop those on the standard input, no biggie. the request goes out over HTTP, a response comes back, and it gets displayed on the standard output. periodt. 💖

also: basic HTTP authentication and HTTPS (that's TLS transport, for the uninitiated 🧚) are both supported. we love a secure queen 🔥

👑 ARGUMENTS 👑

the arguments are as follows, bestie, read them all, don't skip 🙈

  • -h — shows you the help for all the command-line parameters. your bestie when you're lost 🫶
  • -v — prints the Kea version. flex the number 💅
  • --host — which host to connect to. the Kea server has to actually be running there, okay? if you don't specify it, 127.0.0.1 is used. 🏠
  • --port — which TCP port to connect to. the server must be listening on it. if you don't specify, 8000 is the default. 🔌
  • --path — the path in the URL you're connecting to. not specified? then an empty path is used. since Kea servers listen at the empty path, this one's only really useful with a reverse proxy. 🛣️
  • --ca — the file or directory name of the Certification Authority. if you don't specify it, HTTPS is just… not used. no TLS for you 😭
  • --cert — the file name of the user end-entity public key certificate. heads up: if you specify this, you also have to specify the user key file name. they're a package deal, fr fr 🎀
  • --key — the file name of the user key file. same deal, bestie: if you specify this, you also have to specify the user certificate file name. and ngl, encrypted key files are not supported 💀
  • --auth-user — the user ID for basic HTTP authentication. if you don't specify it, or you specify it as the empty string, authentication just isn't used. 🙅‍♀️
  • --auth-password — the password for basic HTTP authentication. if you don't specify it but you did specify a user ID, an empty password gets used. and if you use it together with --auth-password-file, this one gets disregarded — it's giving ignored, actually 😌
  • --auth-password-file — a text file whose first line holds the password for basic HTTP authentication. this flag takes precedence over the --auth-password flag. she's the main character, she wins 👑
  • --timeout — the connection timeout, in seconds. default is 10. ⏰
  • --service — (Obsolete) okay so the Kea kea-dhcp4, kea-dhcp6 and kea-dhcp-ddns servers ignore this argument entirely, it was meant for talking to the deprecated Control Agent daemon. if you're on Kea version < 2.7.2 though: it specifies the service that's the target of a command. if you don't specify it, the Control Agent itself is the target. you can use it more than once to hit multiple targets at the same time 🎯
  • command — the command to send to the server. if you don't specify one, list-commands is used. the default, the classic, the icon 💖

📚 DOCUMENTATION 📚

Kea ships with an extensive Kea Administrator Reference Manual that covers literally every aspect of running the Kea software — compilation, installation, configuration, configuration examples, and so much more, no cap 📖✨

Kea also has a Kea Messages Manual, which lists all the possible messages Kea can print, each with a brief description. both documents come in various formats (.txt, .html, .pdf) with the Kea distribution. the Kea documentation lives at https://kea.readthedocs.io 🌈

Kea source code is documented in the Kea Developer's Guide, available at https://reports.kea.isc.org/dev_guide/ 🧚

and the Kea project website is at https://kea.isc.org 🏡

🫶 MAILING LISTS AND SUPPORT 🫶

there are two public mailing lists for the Kea project, bestie:

  • kea-users (kea-users at lists.isc.org) — for Kea users 💜
  • kea-dev (kea-dev at lists.isc.org) — for Kea developers, prospective contributors, and other advanced users 🔥

both lists are available at https://lists.isc.org. and the community provides best-effort support on both of those lists — so be nice, be patient, be grateful 🥺

ISC also provides professional support for Kea services. see https://www.isc.org/kea/ for the details 👑

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the kea-shell was first coded in March 2017 by Tomek Mrugalski. a legend, honestly, we stan 🌟

💫 SEE ALSO 💫

kea-dhcp4(8), kea-dhcp6(8), kea-dhcp-ddns(8), kea-ctrl-agent(8), kea-admin(8), keactrl(8), perfdhcp(8), kea-lfc(8), Kea Administrator Reference Manual 📚

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Internet Systems Consortium

2019-2025, Internet Systems Consortium

okay that's the whole page, bestie!! this was Kea version 3.0.4, dated Oct 05, 2026, and yes the footer said KEA-SHELL(8) too because she's consistent like that 💅✨ go forth and list-commands, mwah 😘💖

📦 where this page comes from