2007 Feb 16 - Fri

Rancid / CVSWeb

RANCID provides two types of functions. One of its foundations is that it provides a structure for logging into network devices for the purpose of obtaining configuration files. The second is that it stores versions of the configuration files in CVS.

CVSWeb is a web based tool for reviewing and comparing the files under CVS version control.

Obtain the latest version of Rancid, place it in /usr/src, and expand it:

wget ftp://ftp.shrubbery.net/pub/rancid/rancid-2.3.2a4.tar.gz
tar -zxvf  rancid-2.3.2a4.tar.gz
cd rancid-2.3.2a4 

Build it:

./configure \
	--prefix=/usr/local/rancid \
 	--localstatedir=/var/local/rancid \
	--sysconfdir=/etc/rancid \
	--bindir=/usr/local/bin \
	--sbindir=/usr/local/sbin
make install

In /etc/rancid/rancid.conf, create group based upon the company name:

LIST_OF_GROUPS="example"

in /etc/aliases, add two aliases to the file based upon the group name created in the previous step:

rancid-example: root
rancid-admin-example: root

Run the command 'newaliases' to update the aliases.

Run the command 'rancid-cvs' to create the cvs archives. This creates a repository based upon the group name... /var/local/rancid/CVS/example/configs.

Update the device list file /var/local/rancid/example/router.db. Each line has three items, with the three items being separated with colons ':'. Use the device names as defined in the dns files.

device01:cisco:up

To login to devices via the command line, which is also needed by the crontab jobs following, you need a .cloginrc file in your home directory. Use the sample provided in the source and update it based upon the examples shown in the file.

cp cloginrc /root/.cloginrc
chmod 600 /root/.cloginrc

Turn on the hourly configuration update service by using the 'crontab -e' command and updating the configuration with:

# run config differ hourly
1 * * * * /usr/local/bin/rancid-run
# clean out config differ logs
50 23 * * * /usr/bin/find /var/local/rancid/logs -type f -mtime +2 -exec rm {} \;

Login to a device is now automated through commands similar to:

clogin device01

CVSWeb Installation

Install the package:

apt-get install cvsweb

Add the following line to '/etc/apache2/sites-available/default':

Alias /cvsweb "/usr/share/cvsweb/"

and restart apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

In /etc/cvsweb.conf, just after @CVSrepositories and before the 'local' line, insert the following:

'rancid'  => ['Rancid',           '/var/local/rancid/CVS'],

Later in the same file, update with the following line:

$cvstreedefault = 'rancid';

View the repository via:

http://localhost/cgi-bin/cvsweb