3.4. Using IPA help topics

The following procedure describes how to use the IPA help on the command line.

Procedure

Open a terminal and connect to the IdM server.
Enter ipa help topics to display a list of topics covered by help.
```
$ ipa help topics
```
Select one of the topics and create a command according to the following pattern: ipa help [topic_name]. Instead of the topic_name string, add one of the topics you listed in the previous step.
In the example, we use the following topic: user
```
$ ipa help user
```
Optional: If the IPA help output is too long and you cannot see the whole text, use the following syntax:
```
$ ipa help user | less
```
You can then scroll down and read the whole help.
The IPA CLI displays a help page for the user topic. After reading the overview, you can see many examples with patterns for working with topic commands.