This article describes the situations where one could receive the following error when running a Command Line Interface command.
"Failed to start a CLI session - Failed to get connect or error message"
Symptoms:
This error is usually received when running a CLI command that should perfom an action on a client of the NetVault Server or if there is need to authenticate the user running it.
This can be looked at in to steps:
1) "Failed to start a CLI session" usually tells us that the user running the CLI command doesn't have enough privileges to perform this command in the intended way. So before going any further we need to make sure that the user running this CLI command is allowed to. Only root and admin (or default user) can run CLI commands. So to make sure this is the case you need to set the
NetVault Environment Variables 'NETVAULTCLIACCOUNT': the user, and 'NETVAULTCLIPASSWORD': the user's password. The 'default' account can be used with no password.
If this is verified and you keep having the error, you need to turn your attention to the second part of the message:
2) "Failed to get connect or error message". This usually says that the server cannot connect to the specified machine to invoke the given command. This could be due to several problems.
- When the command needs to be performed on a device, servername value must be the name of the server that controls the device.
This is not always (and does not need to be) the server to which the drive is physically connected.
- When a command performs an action on a client, then the access to this client might be impaired by high network traffic, or high CPU or memory utilization at that moment on the client. The presence of a firewall in b
You need to be signed in and under a current maintenance contract to view premium knowledge articles.
© 2025 Quest Software Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Terms of Use Privacy Cookie Preference Center