The action cli commands used in EEM applets as well as the cli* Tcl functions used in EEM Tcl policies open a virtual Telnet session to a VTY line to execute the CLI commands. The first command you have to execute in the EEM applet is thus the enable command to ensure the next commands will be executed with privilege level 15.

You don't have to specify the enable password.

Likewise, if you want to configure the router, the next command to execute is the configure terminal command, followed by the configuration commands.

The actual execution of the EEM CLI commands can be debugged with the debug event manager action cli command. For example, when the following EEM applet is executed …

event manager applet TEST
 event none
 action 1.0 cli command "enable"
 action 1.1 cli command "configure terminal"
 action 2.0 cli command "interface loopback 3"
 action 2.1 cli command "no shutdown"

… it produces this debugging output:

%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : CTL : cli_open called.
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT :
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT : GW>
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : IN : GW>enable
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT :
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT : GW#
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : IN : GW#configure terminal
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT :
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT : Enter configuration commands, one per line.
 End with CNTL/Z.
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT : GW(config)#
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : IN : GW(config)#interface loopback 3
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT :
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT : GW(config-if)#
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : IN : GW(config-if)#no shutdown
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT :
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : OUT : GW(config-if)#
%HA_EM-6-LOG: TEST : DEBUG(cli_lib) : : CTL : cli_close called.