A simple perl script to convert Cisco IOS configuration to HTML with internal links for easier comprehension

[Jesse McGraw <jlmcgraw () gmail com>]

All,

    (This is me scratching an itch of my own and hoping that it might 
be useful to others on this list.  Apologies if it isn't)

  When trying to comprehend a new or complicated Cisco router 
configuration an old pet-peeve of mine is how needlessly difficult it is 
to search for a list referenced by a command, figure out what it does, 
then find my way back to the original command (by which time I’ve 
forgotten the details of the list) and figure out what it's doing with 
that list.

So I’ve been working on a small perl script to add links within IOS 
configuration files, e.g. link to an access-list from the interface 
where it’s applied, making it easier to to follow the chain of logic 
with stuff like route maps or nested service policies via clicking links 
and using the forward and back buttons in your browser to go back and 
forth between command and referenced list.

I know there is a lot of stuff I could add in to this (e.g. more 
VRF-related commands, PIX/ASA, Juniper etc).  Let me know if you think 
of anything new or notice something I’ve done wrong , there's plenty of 
room for improvement and expansion to other configuration formats.



Notes:
    Anything referenced (or potentially referenced) by something else 
is in bold.  It makes it very easy to see where ACLs etc. start and end

    There's also an option in there to reformat some numbers that are 
hard to read (e.g. traffic shaping criteria) into more human-readable 
ones.  Pure fluff.

    Surely this has been done before but I couldn't find anything in a 
few brief moments of searching so here we are.



Files are here: https://github.com/jlmcgraw/networkUtilities

At the very least you'll need iosToHtml.pl, pointers.pl, pointees.pl, 
and human_readable.pl and several CPAN modules (see setup.sh for easy 
ways to install them under Debian-derived Linux. I haven't tested this 
at all under Windows or OS X)

-Jesse