# The Administrative Console

If you would consider BML pages to be the GUI of LiveJournal, then the administrative console would be the command line interface.

## Taking control of the Console

The administrative console (or console, for the sake of brevity) is a text only interface to LiveJournal that allows you to perform certain administrative tasks not accessibly anywhere else in your installation. The console, located at the URI `/admin/console/` of a working LiveJournal installation, works very similarly to a DOS or bash prompt, in that it reads commands and arguments seperated by whitespace.

### Inputting Comands

The first word inputted is the command you would like to perform. Every word after that is an argument to that command, and whitespace delimits multiple arguments. If an argument requires a space, such as writing suspension notes, it needs to be wrapped in quotation marks. If an argument requires spaces and quotation marks, then the quotation marks can be escaped with a leading backslash, like: `\"`. If an explicit backslash is required when writing an argument in quotation marks, it can be escaped with a leading backslash, like `\\`.

### Using the console to suspend a user

To cover all points, here is a typical input line that suspends username with a complex suspension note:

`suspend username "Indefinite suspension \\ might become \"permanent\" \\ harassment and libel"`

## Console Command Reference

Arguments are defined on a per command basis, and some arguments are required for the command to work. If you're ever stuck, you can simply type `help command` in the console for a short explanation of command.

Included with the installation is a live reference located at the URI `/admin/console/reference.bml`

&lj.admin.console.ref;