NAME

MakeRancidConf - Generate rancid Configuration

INTRODUCTION

This worker will generate a rancid configuration for all devices in Netdisco.

Optionally you can provide configuration to control the output, however the defaults are sane for rancid versions 3.x and will create one rancid group called "default" which contains all devices. Those devices not discovered successfully within the past day will be marked as "down" for rancid to skip. Configuration is saved to the ~/rancid subdirectory of Netdisco's home folder.

Note that this only generates the router.db files, you will still need to configure rancid's .cloginrc and schedule "rancid-run" to run.

You could run this worker at 09:05 each day using the following configuration:

 schedule:
   makerancidconf:
     when: '5 9 * * *'

Since MakeRancidConf is a worker module it can also be run via "netdisco-do":

 ~/bin/netdisco-do makerancidconf

Skipped devices and the reason for skipping them can be seen by using "-D":

 ~/bin/netdisco-do makerancidconf -D

CONFIGURATION

Here is a complete example of the configuration, which must be called "rancid". All keys are optional:

 rancid:
   rancid_cvsroot:  '$ENV{NETDISCO_HOME}/rancid' # default
   rancid_conf:     '/etc/rancid'                # default
   down_age:        '1 day'                      # default
   delimiter:       ';'                          # default
   default_group:   'default'                    # default 
   groups:
     groupname1:    'host_group1_acl'
     groupname2:    'host_group2_acl'
   vendormap:
     vname1:        'host_group3_acl'
     vname2:        'host_group4_acl'
   excluded:
     - 'host_group5_acl'
     - 'another.host.example.com'
   by_ip:           'host_group6_acl'
   by_hostname:     'host_group7_acl'

Note that the default directory for writing files is not /var/lib/rancid so you may wish to set this in "rancid_cvsroot", (especially if migrating from the old "netdisco-rancid-export" script).

Any values above that are a host group ACL will take either a single item or a list of network identifiers or device properties. See the ACL documentation <https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco/wiki/Configuration#access-control-lists> wiki page for full details. We advise you to use the "host_groups" setting and then refer to named entries in that, for example:

 host_groups:
   coredevices: '192.0.2.0/24'
   edgedevices: '172.16.0.0/16'
   grp-nxos:    'os:nx-os'

 rancid:
   groups:
     core_devices: 'group:coredevices'
     edge_devices: 'group:edgedevices'
   vendormap:
     cisco-nx:     'group:grp-nxos'
   by_ip:          'any'

Do not forget that rancid also needs configuring when adding a new group, such as scheduling the group to run, adding it to rancid.conf, setting up the email config and creating the repository with "rancid-cvs".

"rancid_conf"

The location where the rancid configuration (rancid.types.base and rancid.types.conf) is installed. It will be used to check the existence of device types before exporting the devices to the rancid configuration. If no match is found the device will not be added to rancid.

"rancid_cvsroot"

The location to write rancid group configuration files (router.db) into. A subdirectory for each group will be created.

"down_age"

This should be the same or greater than the interval between regular discover jobs on your network. Devices which have not been discovered within this time will be marked as "down" to rancid.

The format is any time interval known and understood by PostgreSQL, such as at <https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/functions-datetime.html>.

"delimiter"

Set this to the delimiter character for your router.db entries if needed to be different from the default, the default is ";".

"default_group"

Put devices into this group if they do not match any other groups defined.

"groups"

This dictionary maps rancid group names with configuration which will match devices in the Netdisco database.

The left hand side (key) should be the rancid group name, the right hand side (value) should be a Netdisco ACL <https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco/wiki/Configuration#access-control-lists> to select devices in the Netdisco database.

"vendormap"

If the device vendor in Netdisco is not the same as the rancid vendor script or device type, configure a mapping here.

The left hand side (key) should be the rancid device type, the right hand side (value) should be a Netdisco ACL <https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco/wiki/Configuration#access-control-lists> to select devices in the Netdisco database.

Note that vendors might have a large array of operating systems which require different rancid modules. Mapping operating systems to rancid device types is a good solution to use the correct device type. Example:

 host_groups:
   grp-ciscosb:   'os:ros'

 rancid:
   vendormap:
     cisco-sb:    'group:grp-ciscosb'

"excluded"

Netdisco ACL <https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco/wiki/Configuration#access-control-lists> to identify devices that will be excluded from the rancid configuration.

"by_ip"

Netdisco ACL <https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco/wiki/Configuration#access-control-lists> to select devices which will be written to the rancid config as an IP address, instead of the DNS FQDN or SNMP hostname.

"by_hostname"

Netdisco ACL <https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco/wiki/Configuration#access-control-lists> to select devices which will have the unqualified hostname written to the rancid config. This is done simply by stripping the "domain_suffix" configuration setting from the device FQDN.