Network configuration backup

[OP Walid W. 134]

Hi guys,

 

I was wondering and curious, how you guys do when you take backups of your devices? Automated or manually?

 

I am tasked to find a solution to take automated backups of our network devices and I can't decided what to do as there are some ways to do this. Rancid which I have heard ALOT of and I think it is one of the best ways to take backups as it send mails as soon as you change configuration it will notify you with the change. BUT since I have no Linux experience and the guides I have seen is difficult to follow, so I somehow have to look for another solution.

 

Cisco switches and routers have something called "archive" which sends the configuraion to a tftp, scp, ftp, etc and this is good as well, but it doesn't work with ASA. :/ ... I have tried this and it works perfect with Windows (tftp64 server) but again since we have an ssh server and want to store these there, I faced some problems, don't really know why.

 

I have done the following but none of them works when I try to send it to a tftp server in Linux. If you have done it or can assists I'd be thankful and your help will be very appreciated.

xxx-r1(config)#archive
xxx-r1(config-archive)#path tftp://10.1.1.1/$h
xxx-r1(config-archive)#exit
xxx-r1(config)#exit


xxx-r1(config)#archive
xxx-r1(config-archive)#path tftp://10.1.1.1/backup/$h
xxx-r1(config-archive)#exit
xxx-r1(config)#exit

Note: /backup/ = is the folder I have created in the tftpboot directory.

touch /tftpboot/backup

chmod 777 /tftpboot/backup AND chmod 666 /tftpboot/backup didn't really work for me. :(
 

[+BudMan 2,429]

rancid is better choice, then doing it on each device.

Here is a really easy to follow guide

https://www.edge-cloud.net/2013/05/rancidtrac-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts/

I could prob setup a vm for you.. Where you would just have to edit a couple of things like your email server and addresses and your login creds and devices.

Not FREE - but pretty reasonable pricing starting at $750

http://www.solarwinds.com/kiwi-cattools.aspx

Any monkey could set it up ;)

BTW: "BUT since I have no Linux experience"

But you list Ubuntu, Debian and Backtrack right under your avatar -- btw backtrack is depreciated.. kali is the new version http://www.kali.org/

[OP Walid W. 134]

rancid is better choice, then doing it on each device.

Here is a really easy to follow guide

https://www.edge-cloud.net/2013/05/rancidtrac-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts/

I could prob setup a vm for you.. Where you would just have to edit a couple of things like your email server and addresses and your login creds and devices.

Not FREE - but pretty reasonable pricing starting at $750

http://www.solarwinds.com/kiwi-cattools.aspx

Any monkey could set it up ;)

BTW: "BUT since I have no Linux experience"

But you list Ubuntu, Debian and Backtrack right under your avatar -- btw backtrack is depreciated.. kali is the new version http://www.kali.org/

LOL! This monkey couldn't do it. Yes, I do have worked with them and I find it VERY hard to understand and work with. Debian, Ubuntu and BT has a GUI and can't be used not a text based like Rancid. I used BT almost daily at my previous job, but not here. Here we use Nesus instead. :p .. I use both Debian and Ubuntu at home and never had problem with since I don't do advanced stuff, only nomal user stuff.

 

That would  be great if you could assist me with Rancid.

 

CatTools is not an option as it is expensive and since there are free options, I don't think my boss would like to pay for it. The other day I made him buy PRTG. lol

[+BudMan 2,429]

So I was walking through the guide - and looks good, but something must of changed between the 12 and version of trac he was using when the guide was written for

The rancid part is working great. even got it working with my home sg300, which not really supported out the box because its not a true cisco ios.. quick google found this https://github.com/chrpinedo/rancid-cisco-sb

But I had to add

[components]

tracopt.versioncontrol.svn.* = enabled

to the trac ini.

So looking good - had to deploy my clean linux vm, and doing this while real work keeps bugging me ;) and remotely to my home network - and still under couple hours from nothing to running system. Would of been real quick if didn't have to look up how to add my sg300 line - spent time troubleshooting why I was getting timeouts in the rancid logs when I know for a fact the login was working. Once I started manually running through the commands rancid does did I figure out why the problem and had to google for how to add the sg line to rancid.

You should really take a shot at the guide I linked too - just walked through it and other than the [components] part I posted above its still right on for a ubuntu 14.04 install.

But sure if you want I could create a working vm for you with info of what to edit to have it talk to your boxes.

Again - walk through that guide its really spot on, you really don't have to understand anything about linux to copy and paste, etc.

[OP Walid W. 134]

Thanks BudMan. I just finished with a new VM and now I am going to walk through the guide you linked and if I have some question, believe me I am going to bug you. lol

 

Edit: Already stuck at "Device login credentials via cloginrc"

That file doesn't exists and they didn't mention how to create it.

[+BudMan 2,429]

come on??? use nano or your fav gui editor..

change to the dir, touch .cloginrc will create the file

or just

nano .cloginrc

or vi, as a user of linux you never created a file?

[Haggis 944]

yeah dude just do

 

vi .cloginrc

 

I use vim i just prefer it but nano is also good :)

 

this might help with commands :) takes a bit of getting used to

 

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/sect_06_02.html

[+BudMan 2,429]

Just noticed you even list the touch command in your OP, and chmod.. And you don't know how to create a file? Well now that I reread that - touch backup would create a file called backup, not a dir. But you use /backup/$h which would say backup is a dir to me and would need to be created with mkdir not touch.

If you want I can clean up my VM I created yesterday and get it to you. It vanilla, bare min install of ubuntu server 14.04 - rancid and trac running on it. I didn't bother to setup email - but could do that before I make it a rancid appliance.. Wonder if others would have use of that - never really figured as much since there are so many guides on setup of rancid and it really only takes a couple of seconds to get it going. And you don't really need a web interface to look at the configs if your just wanting to have backups. You can view them right in the rancid dir.

The nice thing with using something like trac is the easy clean way to view what actually changed.. Here I just admin downed a port not using - turned off snmp and set the port to protected.. And that is clear as day when looking at diffs between revisions.

[OP Walid W. 134]

Ah, I thought that it should be there and I don't need to create it myself. Since it had .cloginrc I thought I can't create it with touch (i don't even know what that means). Anyway, I am going to work with it now and see if I can go anywhere, otherwise I will post again. :D

 

I'd like to try it myself, but I get stuck I am going to ask you to send me yours. I like the GUI so I want it too.

[OP Walid W. 134]

Nah, this is pissing me off more and more.

BudMan, how about doing some TV instead of doing it in your own VM of course if you have time and willing to do so. :)

[+BudMan 2,429]

Yeah we could do that - lets setup a time.. My wife is gone all weekend (girls weekend), but I am going to the track tmrw! My son knows the owner of horse in the 8th race at Arlington tmrw.. Going to go watch it run.. Stopping for beers on way home tonight, but sure we can find a time.

Prob got an hour left here, no much going on -- send me a pm with the details if now is good.

[OP Walid W. 134]

Thanks buddy. Now is good, my gf went to sleep and I am sitting watching TV so now is perfect. You want some beers? :D

[OP Walid W. 134]

Thank you BudMan, that was huge help and I really appreciate it. :)

 

Here is what I got: see my logo, i love it lol