nanog mailing list archives

Re: Managing IOS Configuration Snippets


From: Andrew Latham <lathama () gmail com>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 05:52:43 -0600

For a large install I set up a solution that might help. I utilized a
Mediawiki install and its API to create, update and pull the
configuration on many IOS devices. A wiki page for the host name was
dynamically created and the configuration was placed there daily or
hourly. This allowed support to review the configuration and advise
customers quicker. Additional hacks for updating the devices via the
wiki were used. The goal was transparency for the support team and the
side effect was wiki page history showing what day and what lines
changed.  As mentioned the answer to your question would likely make a
good article.

On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Ryan Shea <ryanshea () google com> wrote:
Howdy network operator cognoscenti,

I'd love to hear your creative and workable solutions for a way to track
in-line the configuration revisions you have on your cisco-like devices.
Let me clearify/frame:

You have a set of tested/approved configurations for your routers which use
IOS style configuration. These configurations of course are always refined
and updated. You break these pieces of configuration into logical sections,
for example a configuration file for NTP configuration, a file for control
plane filter and store these in some revision control system. Put aside for
the moment whether this is a reasonable way to comprehend deployed
configurations. What methods do some of you use to know which version of a
configuration you have deployed to a given router for auditing and update
purposes? Remarks are a convenient way to do this for ACLs - but I don't
have similar mechanics for top level configurations. About a decade ago I
thought I'd be super clever and encode versioning information into the snmp
location - but that is just awful and there is a much better way everyone
is using, right? Flexible commenting on other vendors/platforms make this a
bit easier.

Assume that this version encoding perfectly captures what is on the router
and that no person is monkeying with the config... version 77 of the
control plane filter is the same everywhere.



-- 
~ Andrew "lathama" Latham lathama () gmail com http://lathama.net ~


Current thread: