Chapter 3. IdM API and IdM CLI commands comparison

You can use the IdM API commands in the Python interactive console. The IdM API commands are different from the ipa tool commands.

IdM CLI and IdM API commands difference

Command naming structure
The ipa CLI commands use the hyphen, as in user-add, but IdM API commands use the underscore instead, as in user_add.
Parameter naming
The parameters are different for IdM CLI commands and IdM API commands. For example, the IdM CLI user-add command has a parameter first but the IdM API user_add command has a parameter givenname.
Date format

The following date formats are available for IdM CLI:

  • %Y%m%d%H%M%SZ
  • %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ
  • %Y-%m-%dT%H:%MZ
  • %Y-%m-%dZ
  • %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%SZ

  • %Y-%m-%d %H:%MZ

    Additionally, the IdM API can use the Python built-in class datetime.

Useful CLI tools

  • The console starts an interactive Python console, which you can use to run IdM API commands.
  • The help command shows description of the topics and the commands and includes various examples.
  • The show-mapping command shows the mapping between CLI parameter names and LDAP attributes.