rConfig - Snippets

1 mins V8 Pro

Snippets are short configurations that can be used to configure your devices either individually or in bulk. They are a great way to save time and ensure that your configurations are consistent across your devices.

Adding/ Editing Snippets

The snippet configuration is a free text field. Add lines as if you were manually typing in the configuration i.e. include ‘conf t’ to start a new configuration section, if on Cisco devices.

The system admin role has access to all snippets. This is hardcoded and cannot be changed.

Parameterized Snippets

You can now add arbitrary variables to your snippets, making them more flexible. For example, you can add a variable for the hostname of a device and use that variable in your configuration. To add a variable, simply include the variable name in the format {variable_name} within your snippet. When you send the snippet to a device, you will be prompted to enter the value for the variable, which will then be used in your configuration.

Note

You can reuse parameter values in your snippets. This allows for greater flexibility and efficiency. For example, here is a default interface snippet example with a parameter in the code output:

interface {interface_name}
 description Default configuration for {interface_name}
 no shutdown

In this example, the {interface_name} parameter is reused to define the interface and its description. When you send the snippet to a device, you will be prompted to enter the value for {interface_name}, and it will be applied in both places within the configuration.

Parameterized snippets

Sending Snippets to Individual Devices

Sending Snippets in Bulk

Snippets Instructions

You can add instructions to snippets. This means, you can alter the order of operations in your snippet configuration. This is useful if you need to slow down, or speed up certain steps in your configuration.

The first supported instructions are sleep and config_prompt. Instructions must be entered in the format of #[instruction_name instruction_value].

Note

Please note, when setting sleep, your connection template timeout value must be set to a value higher than the sleep value(s). The configuration snippet may fail if the sleep value is higher than the connection template timeout.

Sleep

The sleep instruction allows you to pause the snippet for a specified number of seconds, and multiple times if required. Example:

Snippet Instructions

Config Prompt

The config_prompt instruction allows you to change the prompt of the device when in config mode. This will help speed up your configuration deployment as the devices main prompt as configured in device settings is not always correct when entering config mode on network devices. This instruction gives you more flexibility. The instruction must be entered in the format of #[config_prompt new_prompt].

Please note some special characters are escaped in the prompt automatically. Those are (, ), and single and double quotes. Regexp wildcards are allowed in the prompt, such as .*.

Troubleshooting Snippets

If any issues are encountered with sending snippets to devices, similar to device debugging, you can run the following command to view snippet delivery updates in real time. This bypassess the queue, and gives us far greater insight into what is happening with the snippet delivery.

php artisan rconfig:send-snippet snippet_id device_id

The output from this command is similar to the output from the device debugging command, and should be used to troubleshoot issues with sending snippets to devices. Any advanced or complex issues should be raised on the rConfig support center as a ticket.