SHREC: a SRE Behaviour Knowledge Graph Model for Shell Command Recommendations

Abstract: In IT system operations, shell commands are common command line tools used by site reliability engineers (SREs) for daily tasks, such as system configuration, package deployment, and performance optimization. The efficiency in their execution has a crucial business impact since shell commands very often aim to execute critical operations, such as the resolution of system faults. However, many shell commands involve long parameters that make them hard to remember and type. Additionally, the experience and knowledge of SREs using these commands are almost always not preserved. In this work, we propose SHREC, a SRE behaviour knowledge graph model for shell command recommendations. We model the SRE shell behaviour knowledge as a knowledge graph and propose a strategy to directly extract such a knowledge from SRE historical shell operations. The knowledge graph is then used to provide shell command recommendations in real-time to improve the SRE operation efficiency. Our empirical study based on real shell commands executed in our company demonstrates that SHREC can improve the SRE operation efficiency, allowing to share and re-utilize the SRE knowledge.