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Configuration Management

Overview

eNMS can be used as a device configuration backup utility, like Oxidized/RANCID, with the following features:

  • Poll network devices and store the latest configuration in the database.
  • Store any operational data that can be retrieved from the device CLI (e.g show version, get facts etc.).
  • Search for any text or regular-expression in all configurations.
  • Download device configuration to a local text file.
  • Use the REST API support to return a specified device's configuration.
  • Export all configurations to a remote Git repository (e.g. Gitlab).
  • View git-style differences between various revisions of a configuration.

Search and display the configuration

From the Inventory -> Configurations tab, the user can search for a specific word, a string that is included in a pattern or a regular expression in the current configuration of all devices, using the Configuration column. eNMS will filter the list of devices based on whether the current configuration of the device contains the search criteria. Select the "Lines of Context" slider at the top of the UI to see up to 5 lines, before and after the specified word that was searched.

Viewing configuration

Click on the Network Data button on the right of the screen to display the device Configuration (or select Operational Data).

Configuration Search.

Historical comparison

Click on the Historic button on the right of the screen to view the differences between various revisions of the device configuration.

Configuration Comparison.

Data Backup Services - Overview

Configurations are retrieved by Data Backup services which:

  • Fetch the device configuration or operational data (or other configuration property) using Netmiko, NAPALM, or Scrapli.
  • Updates the device Configuration, Operational Data, or Specialized Data property, depending on which one is selected in the service.

For some devices, the configuration cannot be retrieved with only a single Netmiko command. In this case, one can either use:

  • the NAPALM Data Backup Service to substitute a napalm getter, such as get_config, in place of retrieving the configuration via a single CLI command.
  • the Scrapli Data Backup Service with multiple commands.

Please refer to Builtin Services Types for more information about the specifics of each Data Backup service.

Custom Data Backup Services

As an alternative to the existing Data Backup Services, one can create a custom configuration backup service(s) if required. See Customization for more information.

Additional configuration properties

Additional configuration-style properties can be defined in the setup/properties.json. Defining extra configuration properties allows the Data Backup services (e.g., Netmiko, NAPALM, Scrapli) to be able to collect and store additional data sets.

Collecting and Updating Configuration Data

Pull configurations from git

Collected configurations and operational data are written to local text files, located in network_data/, which are mapped in the settings.json to a git repository.

Git is used for storing historical revisions of the data, and each additional instance of eNMS can retrieve the Git history using the Admin Button -> Fetch Git Configurations Button. Git fetch can also be configured in cron to periodically get triggered through the CLI to update the Configurations that were pushed into Git by another instance of eNMS.

Note

Each of the Data Backup services has an option, Local Path, that provides the ability to store text files in a directory other than network_data.

Updating configurations

Upon retrieving the current configuration from a device using a Data Backup Service, the config is added to the database, as well to the local text file.

After data is collected and updated, this data can be pushed from the local Git repository folder to a remote (if one is configured).

Attention

Multiple instances of eNMS pushing to the same network_data/ repository may result in merge conflicts on some or all instances which will halt further updates.

To prevent this, the user can install a custom merge driver in the network_data/ repo that allows git to automatically merge based on the most recent commit, as detailed in the Installation docs.

Git command support

The Git Action Service provides support for running Git commands (pull, push, etc.) inside a Workflow. A typical configuration collection Workflow will include Git Action services as well as Data Backup services.