Cisco config checker

Alex P. Rudnev alex at Relcom.EU.net
Mon Jan 4 15:10:20 UTC 1999


It's amazing but I know noone who use CiscoWork in real ISP's life. A lot 
of people arpund tried it, no one use it.

On the other hand, a lot of people does use 'ciscotalk' + 'load from the 
file', with autho-generated configs.

What's about NetSys - if it was the constructor (library) and was not so 
expansive - it was an excellent product, just now it's useless fro the 
ISP. What does I need is something like grammar skeleton (on yacc or on 
perl+some special lib) and some up-to-date keeping mechanism. I (and no 
other ISP) need to build graphs by their IOS configs, but we need to load 
config from the router into the file, divide it to the structured form 
(by the objects and by the customers), name access lists and other 
objects, store this objects in the universal format, collect all objects 
you need if you add something new, know how to delete subintarface or how 
to change the number of slots in Serial0/1:22 at the CE1 card (try to do 
it _directly_ and you got _PANIC_ message), etc etc... Tools, not the 
product from some company who do not work with ISP directly.

It's amazing - how do you think CISCO solved the problem _how to support 
TELCO_? (It's my personal opinion, never confidential). If I am correct, 
they are talking a lot about new _total database, LDAP, etc etc_ tools, 
then show something like (ALPHA(ALPHA(BETA(revision))) system, then ask 
TELCOM _do you want support? Pay as and we'll connect Cisco engeneer to 
you and he do everything himself_... And it's really the best they should 
do - really, TELCOM need the result, no important will it be _engeneer_ 
or the program...

What do I mean as _STRUCTURE_? First, config consists of the objects - 
base part and the set of the customers, every customer refer to the 
INTERFACE and ROUTING_, any object can refer to _ACCESS-LIST 
GLOBAL::SNMP_RESTRICT_ for example, etc etc... Moreover, BGP description 
(for example) which is the single obkject in CISCO consist of a lot of 
objects (everything concerning distinct peer is distinct object_. And so 
on. You should build data base by IOS config, and then you should change 
any _data base_ (-> config -> load_config_into_IOS_) and config 
(load_config_into_DBA and re-link new objects to teh old names). And 
where does this tools exist?



On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Randy Bush wrote:

> Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 06:20:19 -0800 (PST)
> From: Randy Bush <randy at psg.com>
> To: Thomas Novak <kavon at apk.net>
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: RE: Cisco config checker
> 
> > What you maybe looking for is Cisco's NetSys Connectivity product
> > (Baseliner).
> 
> of all these cute GUI products, which understands configs used by real ISPs
> on real routers with current ISP images?  when last i looked, the answer was
> the null set.
> 
> randy
> 

Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow
(+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 239-10-10, N 13729 (pager)
(+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)




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