Using Service Commands in EOS

In Arista EOS, service commands act as global master switches. Unlike standard interface or routing commands that define what the network should do, service commands interact directly with the underlying Linux kernel and system manager (Sysdb) to dictate how the switch operates under the hood. They control daemon architecture, hardware resource allocation, and how the command-line parser interprets syntax. The commands control the following areas in EOS:

• Routing and Control Plane Architecture - The service routing commands dictate how the switch processes complex routing and handles control-plane memory.

  Command	Function
  service routing protocols model multi-agent	Shifts the switch from a legacy monolithic routing process (ribd) to Arista’s decoupled, high-scale "ArBGP" architecture.
  service routing configuration bgp no-equals-default	Scrubs default configuration commands from the running configuration to keep the CLI output clean.
  service routing configuration route-map no-set-community explicit members	Allows you to surgically remove a single BGP community from a list in a route-map, rather than forcing the rewrite of the entire line.

• Configuration Management and Change Control - The service configuration commands manage the interactions between an administrator and the switch as well as manage rolling back configurations.

  Command	Function
  service configuration terminal disabled	Disables standard live configuration. Forces all users and scripts to use configure session to stage and review changes before committing them.
  service configuration session max pending number	Limits how many uncommitted staging workspaces can be open concurrently.
  service configuration session max completed number	Defines how deep the historical archive goes for saving successfully committed sessions and their exact CLI diffs.
  service configuration checkpoint max number	Adjusts the retention limit for full-system configuration snapshots.

• Hardware and Interface Management - The service interface commands interact directly with the physical ASICs, port allocation, and optical transceivers on the switch.

  Command	Function
  service interface inactive port-id allocation disabled	Reclaims hardware resources on high-density modular chassis by preventing the switch from assigning internal Port IDs to physically down or unprovisioned interfaces.
  service interface shutdown default	Changes the factory default behavior so that all unconfigured ports are placed in an administratively down state.
  service interface shutdown delay seconds	Introduces a physical hardware buffer between typing shutdown and the port actually dropping, allowing routing protocols to gracefully reroute traffic.