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Commands

André Borchert edited this page Aug 11, 2026 · 8 revisions

Commands

XAIOS provides a bounded FreeBSD-style command surface for authenticated local and SSH PTY sessions. These commands are implemented by the XAIOS shell/SSH subsystem; they are not standalone ELF applications. Executable applications are listed in Applications.

Navigation and files

Command Supported core behavior
pwd Print the session working directory.
cd [DIR] Change directory; no argument selects /; relative, absolute, . and .. paths are normalized.
ls [-a] [-l] [PATH] List a directory; options may be combined. l, la, and ll are aliases.
mkdir [-p] DIR... Create one or more directories; -p creates missing parents.
touch FILE Create or truncate a regular file.
`cp [-R -r] SOURCE... DEST`
mv SOURCE DEST Rename or move within MutableFS.
rm [-r] [-f] PATH... Delete files; recursive mode removes trees.
rmdir DIR... Remove empty directories.
stat PATH Show type, size, block count, generation, and content hash.

Text and search

Command Supported core behavior
cat [-n] FILE... Concatenate files, optionally numbering lines.
head [-n N] FILE Print the first N lines; default 10.
tail [-n N] FILE Print the last N lines; default 10.
less [-N] FILE Alternate-screen pager with scrolling, search, and line numbers for regular files up to 128 KiB.
grep [-incvFHh] PATTERN FILE... Bounded basic search with anchors, ., *, escaping, inversion, case, numbering, count, fixed-string, and filename controls.
find [PATH] [-name PATTERN] Recursively list entries; -name supports the shell's bounded filename pattern matcher.
sed 's/OLD/NEW/[g]' FILE Replace the first or all matching literal spans per line, write the result back, and print it. This is intentionally smaller than full sed.
echo [TEXT...] Print text. > and >> redirect output to a file.
write FILE TEXT... Write text directly to a file.
`COMMAND COMMAND`

Archives and transfer formats

Command Supported core behavior
tar -cf ARCHIVE PATH... Create a POSIX ustar archive; recursive directory content is included.
tar -tf ARCHIVE List an archive.
tar -xf ARCHIVE [-C DIR] Extract ustar/PAX paths and GNU long-name inputs; one gzip member is accepted for extraction.
cpio -o ... -O ARCHIVE Create the bounded XAIOS cpio exchange form.
cpio -it -I ARCHIVE List entries.
cpio -i -I ARCHIVE [-D DIR] Extract entries.
zip [-r] ARCHIVE PATH... Create a standards-readable stored ZIP archive.
unzip [-l] ARCHIVE [-d DIR] List or extract stored/Deflate ZIP entries.

Archive extraction rejects absolute/traversal paths, corrupt checksums, unknown required features, encrypted ZIP, ZIP64, links, and device nodes. MutableFS limits regular files to 128 KiB, so these tools target configuration and small exchange archives, not model packages.

System and interactive tools

Command Supported core behavior
df Show mounted MutableFS/ModelFS usage known to the guest.
du [-s] [PATH] Report bounded recursive usage; -s prints a summary.
ps Show the kernel process snapshot, state, CPU assignment, memory, runtime, and syscall counters.
status Render the bounded administrative status view; detailed operations use the xaiosctl application family.
nano FILE Full-screen editor with cursor movement, insertion/deletion, save, search, and exit; editing buffer is 32 KiB.
htop Full-screen sampled process monitor. Defaults to color, alternate-screen in-place refresh, up to 60 refreshes/second, CPU meters sized from runtime CPU count, process sorting/filtering/tree controls, and keyboard navigation. Options remain available for test automation.
pong 60 FPS terminal Pong: W/S control the left paddle, the computer controls the right, and persistent-session win/loss counts adjust ball speed by one percent per round.

Outbound network clients

Command Supported core behavior
ssh [-p PORT] user@host [command] IPv4/DNS-A SSH client with password authentication, Ed25519 host-key TOFU, persistent known-host verification, PTY or one command.
scp [-r] [-P PORT] SOURCE DESTINATION Copy files or bounded directory trees between XAIOS and compatible XAIOS, FreeBSD, or OpenSSH servers. Exactly one endpoint may be remote.

The clients do not implement public-key client authentication, IPv6 active opens, forwarding, agents, jump hosts, or hybrid post-quantum key exchange.

Session control and errors

help prints the available surface. exit, quit, and logout end the session. Unknown commands return command not found; invalid options, missing paths, unsupported archive features, authentication failures, and application exit failures return a nonzero status with command-specific text. Per-session working directories are isolated across concurrent SSH connections.

Commands that are executable diagnostics (hello, sysinfo, systest, and others) are intentionally documented on Applications, not duplicated here. Interoperability coverage is in Test Suite.

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