Re: Templating/automating configuration

[James Bensley <jwbensley () gmail com>]

On 7 June 2017 at 19:52, Brian Knight <ml () knight-networks com> wrote:
> The import process to the database runs directly on our rancid server, reading the downloaded configs out of the 
> appropriate directory within rancid. Most of our gear is Cisco, so the ciscoconfparse module for Python helps a lot 
> with organizing and querying the config.  From there, the config is parsed for key items like interface name, 
> description, configured bandwidth, etc., and that info is then added or updated as necessary in the database.
>
>
>
> Because it's dependent on rancid, there is some lag time between when a change is made and when the database gets 
> updated, so we still strongly encourage running the pre-config checks for new circuits.  But with PyEZ, it looks like 
> you easily could, after grabbing that lock, validate the existing config before pushing down new config.  Lots of 
> possibilities there.  I'm envious that you have a vendor-written Python module as a choice!
...
> Or, at least, rebuild the existing configs based on the new source of truth, so that subsequent config parsing 
> conforms to a single standard.

Cisco IOS and IOS-XE have config locks on the CLI, as well as
automatic configuration rollbacks and the ability to generate a config
diff on deice. For some reason lots of people seem to forget/ignore
this.

If you are using NAPALM then I believe you can also implement this
through NAPALM.

Cheers,
James.