### Start Guardian Headless Mode

The Guardian Command Line Interface (CLI)—also referred to as Guardian Headless Mode—is a set of Guardian commands that can be issued directly from the operating system command prompt. There is a Guardian CLI command for almost every task available in the Guardian User Interface. For a complete description of these commands and their syntax, see Command Line Interface on page 134 in Reference.

To start the Guardian Command Line Interface, do the following:

Note: | Guardian Command Line Interface commands are case sensitive.

1. At the operating system command prompt, change directories to the Guardian installation directory.

`cd <`root`>\guardian\`

Where:

`<root>` is the parent directory for the Guardian installation directory.

2. Enter the Guardian Headless command.

- On Windows:

`guardianHeadless.cmd`

- On Linux:

`guardianHeadless.sh`

3. (Optional) To see a list of CLI commands and their syntax, enter the CLI Help command at the operating system prompt.

- On Windows:

`guardianHeadless.cmd -ghelp`

- On Linux:

`guardianHeadless.sh -ghelp`

The Command Line Interface uses your specified Guardian Workspace as the location for all CLI operations, unless you specify otherwise in each command. Identifying the Guardian Workspace location is essential for accessing the correct set of active domains, Domain Inventories, and Evaluation Summaries. For instructions on selecting a Guardian Workspace, see Select Workspace on page 41.

IMPORTANT: Each command must include the prefix `-g` with no trailing space, as shown in the following examples:

- `guardianHeadless.cmd -glistActiveDomains`
- `guardianHeadless.cmd -gactivateDomain -t http://localhost:9116 -u un -p pw -c true -data "D:\MyData\Guardian Data Directories\
  Installer-2079"`
- `guardianHeadless.cmd -gcreateShortcut -d Naxos_localhost_9116 -b 2`
- `guardianHeadless.cmd -gdeleteShortcut -s "Security Advisories in Naxos"`

The output of each command is sent to the following output file:

`headless_output.txt`

The output file is created in your current directory, and is overwritten each time you run a Guardian Headless Mode command.

For a complete list of Guardian Command Line Interface commands and syntax, see Command Line Interface on page 134 in Reference.