Connecting to multiple network devices to collect configuration files and validate if the running configuration has been saved (startup configuration), it is a common manual task that can be automated to reduce many work hours. More if you consider that saving locally configurations is a common task often forgotten for many network operators, causing outages, because the network is operating differently as it used to be.
Purpose of workflow: Facilitate the tedious process of connecting to network devices and check if the current configuration has been properly saved locally or find what are the lines missing to be saved; and repeat the task on as many devices as you want.
Description: This workflow is designed to connect to network devices in a simple way using NAPALM (Network Automation and Programmability Abstraction Layer with Multivendor support) and its set of functions. Once there, it collects the device’s running and startup configuration and makes a comparison line by line to find out if the latest configuration has been saved or if not, what is different.
This workflow has a lot of potential for more use cases: starting with NAPALM and its predefined functions. And secondly going deeper into network devices configuration validation, where I will bring more collaborations later.
List of requirements:
RNA Version: 1.1.3 or later
Integrations required: NAPALM (already included on RNA)
Authentication(s) needed: NAPALM or network devices CLI (username/password)
Setup:
- Workflow: Napalm_Config (attachment).
- Create Authentication for NAPALM (IP, port, username, password, enable)
- Recommended to test first on one network device.
Expected results:
RNA will collect the configurations from the Network device and will validate line by line. If it is the same, this means the device doesn't need to write locally the configuration, if not, it will provide a list of lines that are different.
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