I am unsure what we as networkers have done in the past, but I am sure we've done our fair share of atonement and don't have to keep using RANCID.
Some people in this thread have been mentioning config generators. There is / was something called netomata. A web search brings up various references, but their main web site appears to be offline. Tweets stopped back in '10, freecode.com's last submission is Jan 2011, so I don't know if they are still alive. But seemed like an interesting tool then.
Some might say "it took ages to get rancid to do kinda what we want!", but not all software ages well. One might work in environments where archived configurations are needed to even start provisioning, one might desire a separation between actual config and transcient data.
As I am evaluating our path forward, I've compiled a small list of open source projects with some biased highlights. Your feedback is most welcome, maybe I missed some interesting projects or developments. I would also be very interested in what other operators seek in a network config/state archive tool.
RANCID - http://www.shrubbery.net/rancid/ * Support for a wild variery of devices and operating systems * complex perl code base [1] * no central developer team, the internet is littered with forks
Oxidized - https://github.com/ytti/oxidized * modern & sexy approach with queue & workers * RESTful API (example: can bump devices to the head of the queue) * small user & developer base * written in that ruby language
Gerty - https://github.com/ssinyagin/gerty * Seems easier to extend than RANCID * perl... * small user & developer base
punc - https://code.google.com/p/punc/ * written in python, based on notch [2] * no recent developments (although 2011 was a good wine year)
[1] - http://honestnetworker.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/adding-new- device-support-to-rancid/ [2] - https://code.google.com/p/notch/
Kind regards,
Job
-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.