In source file org.jboss.as.cli.impl.Console, method Factory.getConsole:
if the constructor call "new org.jboss.aesh.console.Console()" leads to an IOException, it is only logged and then ignored, always yielding a NullPointerException just a few lines later (console.addCompletion(new Completion() ...)

I think the IOException should rather be rethrown wrapped in a CliInitializationException, so the resulting exception will not lose track of why this happened. Allowing a NPE go out of the internals is a wrong approach.

(We hit this issue with IOException happening intermittently on HP-UX when ~/.aesh_history is read over NFS. I am not sure if that can be fixed, needs some more investigation.)