NAME

ciscoconfd

SYNOPSIS

ciscoconfd [ -s facility ] [ -p pidfile ] [ -u user ] [ -g group ] [ -t seconds ] -r program logfile...

AVAILABILITY

This program has been compiled successfully on FreeBSD 2.2.6-RELEASE, Linux RedHat 4.2, Solaris 2.5.1, IRIX 5.3 and HP/UX 10.20. Feedback regarding other platforms is welcome.

DESCRIPTION

ciscoconfd will tail a number of specified log files, which contain lines in syslog format originating from a Cisco router. Whenever a line containing the magic token `%SYS-5-CONFIG_I' is found, an external process is spawned to retrieve the configuration.

ciscoconfd is very light on system resources, and spends the vast majority of its time sleeping. In between successive reads of log files, file descriptors are freed. Log rotation is dealt with in an elegant way.

This external process is passed two parameters: the first indicates the name of the router which logged the configuration change, and the second is the entire log message containing the magic token.

Options for ciscoconfd are as follows:

-s facility: Set the syslog facility to which ciscoconfd will send its own diagnostic messages. Default is "daemon". See "LOGGING" below.
-p pidfile: Instructs ciscoconfd to store the pid of the log-monitoring child process in decimal in the named file. If not specified, no pid file will be generated.
-u user: Causes ciscoconfd to set the uid of the log-monitoring child process to that of the specified username or decimal uid. If not specified, the uid when invoked will be preserved.
-g group: Causes ciscoconfd to set the gid, similarly to the option. If not specified, the gid when invoked will be preserved.
-t interval: Sets the interval between searches of the log files to the specified number of seconds. Defaults to 600 seconds (10 minutes).
-r program: Sets the retrieval program to the specified fully-qualified pathname. This program will be executed whenever a configuration change has been logged by a router. See ciscoconfr(8) for an example retrieval program. This parameter is mandatory.

LOGGING

ciscoconfd sends log messages to the specified syslog facility using the following levels:

debug: Too much detail; probably not worth storing unless there is a problem.
info: Informational messages relating to routine operation, such as noticing when a log file has rotated, or spotting a configuration change.
warning: Messages relating to non-fatal (but undesirable) conditions, such as a log file being mysteriously absent.
err: Messages relating to badly-phrased command-line options.
crit: Serious messages relating to fatal problems, e.g. an inability to allocate store or to fork.

EXAMPLES

ciscoconfd -s local6 -t 60 -r /usr/local/bin/ciscoconfr /var/log/cisco.log

ciscoconfd -s local3 -p /var/run/ciscoconfd.pid -t 60 -r /usr/local/bin/ciscoconfr /var/log/cisco*.log

VERSION

1.00 (6 Apr 1998)

More recent versions may be available; check for details at http://www.patho.gen.nz/~jabley/

BUGS

If a router configuration has changed several times within the specified interval, it will only be fetched once. The log message passed to the retrieval program corresponds to the first "%SYS-5-CONFIG_I" entry found for a particular router.

AUTHOR

Joe Abley <jabley@automagic.org>