Questions[rancid](server)

I use RANCID to back up router and switch configurations.

I'd also like to be able to have it take automatic backups of configuration files on my servers so I can easily see when changes occur and if something breaks, revert to the last known config.

There are a number of approaches to this, but RANCID has everything I'm looking for in terms of features and I already use it, so it would be ideal if I could have it built in to that.

I see this question from 9 years ago asking the same thing and the top answer pretty much just says "build your own module" - I've had a look at the RANCID modules and I can't wrap my head around how to do that, so looking to see if in the past 9 years if anyone knows of a module that's now out there for this.

Edit: Not yet a complete solution, but I found this repository which seems to have the basics for what I'd need to be able to grab files by SCP and load them into RANCID: https://github.com/drewbeer/rancid-scp

I've set up Rancid on my Ubuntu 14.04 system for a couple of devices which all work fine except for all devices of type 'foundry' (Brocade). Every hour a cron job executes rancid-run as the rancid user. I tested both the flogin as the clogin binary login scripts.

flogin

This is what I see in every log:

<switch>: End of run not found 0 || 0
<switch> flogin error: Error: TIMEOUT reached
<switch>: missed cmd(s): show version,show flash,show module,write term,show running-config,show chassis
<switch>: End of run not found

My .clogin file seems to be fine:

[email protected]:~$ cat /home/rancid/.cloginrc 
add autoenable * 1
add method * ssh
add user * rancid
add password * Jg278edd.fisd%1y

SSH'ing to the switches the regular way works fine. But running the flogin script manually gives me this:

[email protected]:/var/lib/rancid/bin$ ./flogin -c 'show version' <switch>
s0.nikhef.nl
spawn ssh -c 3des -x -l rancid s0.nikhef.nl
[email protected]'s password: 
[email protected]>
Error: TIMEOUT reached

It takes about 10 seconds to login and after that it seems that it doesn't execute the command I specify after the -c flag. And after another 10-20 seconds it exits after it reached Rancid's TIMEOUT value.

clogin

This script works just fine... (but it doesn't go to exec mode, it ignores autoenable 1)..

[email protected]:/var/lib/rancid/bin$ ./clogin -c 'show version' <switch>
<switch>
spawn ssh -c 3des -x -l rancid <switch>
rancid@<switch>'s password: 
SSH@<switch>>
SSH@<switch>>terminal length 0
Invalid input -> terminal length 0
Type ? for a list
SSH@<switch>>terminal width 132
Invalid input -> terminal width 132
Type ? for a list
SSH@<switch>>show version
 SW: Version 04.2.00b Copyright (c) 1996-2010 Brocade Communications Systems, 
...

SSH@<switch>>exitConnection to <switch> closed by remote host.
Connection to <switch> closed.

So I figured, why not replace flogin's code with clogin's code and all be fine, right? Manual test confirmed that, but doing a rancid-run did not get the configs, but just shows this in the logs:

<switch>: End of run not found 0 || 0
<switch>: missed cmd(s): show chassis,show running-config,write term,show flash,show version,show module
<switch>: End of run not found

What is left to debug?

So I'm working with RANCID to monitor some switches and I'm using clogin now to test some modifications.

I'm working in two different computers but both of them from the office. Althought they are on different subnets, both can stablish telnet and ssh connections to the switch I'm working with right now (Alcatel Omni 6248). I've made the default installation of RANCID on both computers and added everything needed.

Don't bother thinking of a missconfiguration yet

So I managed to get the config for some of the switches but two of them failed so I tried to modified clogin so it gets every router configuration. After some changes, executing

./clogin -c "show running-config" alcatel-sw

would lead into the script loging in, executing

terminal datadump

and then waiting on the prompt untill it gets a TIMEOUT. While trying to fix it, I just decided to get the default clogin and start from zero again so I recovered the backup copy and tried to log into a CISCO switch (which perfectly works with the default clogin script). I executed

./clogin -c "show running-config" cisco-sw

and I got a TIMEOUT as if I were using the old script. I checked it and nope, I was using the default one. I even transfered the one I have on the other computer (which I tested before sending) and tried again getting same error.

Any idea on how can this be possible?

I'm on CentOS 7.2 on same machines, both on an almost fresh installation and clogin was working untill I modified it and then replaced it with the backup copy.