---
title: 'Tutorial: An Intro to the sacli Command-Line Utility'
canonical: https://openvpn.net/as-docs/tutorials/tutorial--sacli-command-line-tool/
product: Access Server Docs
description: Learn about Access Server's command-line utility, sacli. Use it to configure your VPN server and clients from the CLI.
---

# Tutorial: An Intro to the sacli Command-Line Utility

## Overview

Access Server provides you with an easy way to manage your VPN server and clients through the Admin Web UI, but you can also use the command-line interface (CLI) if you prefer. Access Server includes extensive command-line tools for working from the command line. You can manage every aspect of the VPN server operation with these.

This tutorial introduces you to the most-used tool, **sacli**.

> **Tip**
>
> Access Server's command-line tools are in your server's scripts directory:
>
> `/usr/local/openvpn_as/scripts`

## What is sacli?

The OpenVPN tool, **sacli** is for the Access Server commercial product. You can use **sacli** to manage users and permissions, server configuration, and other tasks. It requires root access on the command-line interface (CLI).

The name is short for "server agent command line interface," referring to the server agent, which is Access Server's main process that handles data storage, VPN certificates, authentication, and other related tasks.

All of the configuration options in the Admin Web UI are available through **sacli** commands, and you can use it for advanced options that aren't included in the UI at this time.

Using the **sacli** tool requires that you're connected to your console. You execute commands with the tool and include the options necessary for your desired output.

> **Important**
>
> The **sacli** tool is available for Access Server, OpenVPN's commercial VPN product. It is not available for OpenVPN Community Edition, the free, open-source OpenVPN software.

## Prerequisites

- An installed Access Server.
- The appropriate permissions to run the tool (discussed in the next section).
- Familiarity working from the Linux CLI.

## Step 1: Authenticate for sacli access

The **sacli** tool requires the appropriate permissions. In our documentation here, we provide commands based on a user on the console with root access:

1. Sign on to the Access Server console or start an SSH session.
2. Gain root privileges.
3. Run **sacli** from the scripts directory:

   ```
   cd /usr/local/openvpn_as/scripts/
   ```

## Step 2: Display sacli options and documentation

1. Sign on to the Access Server console and get root privileges.
2. Run this command to display options and documentation:

   ```
   ./sacli --help
   ```

   - The output details the available options for the **sacli** tools and documents those options.

> **Tip**
>
> Run **sacli** commands from the scripts directory: **/usr/local/openvpn\_as/scripts/**.

## Step 3: Run sacli commands

Now that you're familiar with using the **sacli** tool, you can use it to manage Access Server from the CLI. You can run commands using options from the `--help` output and commands we provide throughout our documentation.

**Example sacli commands:**

- Generate a standard connection profile for a user:

  ```
  ./sacli --user <USER> GetUserlogin >client.ovpn
  ```
- Show the number of users currently connected to the VPN:

  ```
  ./sacli VPNSummary
  ```
- Show the status of the internal Access Server service:

  ```
  ./sacli status
  ```

The tutorials under **See also** below all use the **sacli** tool in their steps.

---

Prev: [sacli Utility](https://openvpn.net/as-docs/tutorials/sacli-utility.md)
Next: [Service Management](https://openvpn.net/as-docs/tutorials/service-management.md)
Index: https://openvpn.net/as-docs/llms.txt