Network Configuration Backup Reports - rConfig V8

Configuration Reports: Monitoring Backup Operations

Configuration Reports provide comprehensive visibility into automated backup operations, enabling network teams to monitor task execution success, identify failing devices, and troubleshoot connectivity or authentication issues. Every scheduled configuration download task automatically generates reports documenting execution results, giving operations teams immediate insight into backup health without manually checking individual device logs.

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Report Types and Purpose

rConfig generates two distinct report types for configuration download tasks, each serving different operational monitoring requirements. Understanding when to use each report type helps teams efficiently identify and resolve backup issues.

Verbose Reports

Verbose reports provide complete execution details for all devices included in a configuration download task, regardless of whether individual device backups succeeded or failed. These comprehensive reports document every device’s backup attempt, connection status, commands executed, and output captured. Verbose reports serve as complete operational records for scheduled backup tasks, supporting audit requirements and providing full traceability for compliance documentation.

Organizations typically use verbose reports for scheduled backup verification, ensuring all expected devices were contacted and all backup operations completed as intended. When troubleshooting intermittent issues or validating new task configurations, verbose reports provide the complete picture—not just failures, but successful operations that establish baseline behavior for comparison.

Failure Reports

Failure reports focus exclusively on devices where backup operations failed, filtering out successful operations to highlight problems requiring immediate attention. These targeted reports reduce noise when monitoring large-scale backup operations, allowing network teams to quickly identify which devices need remediation without scrolling through hundreds of successful backup entries.

Failure reports are particularly valuable in stable production environments where the vast majority of backups succeed consistently. Rather than reviewing comprehensive verbose reports daily, operations teams can monitor failure reports—if empty, all backups succeeded; if populated, specific devices require investigation. This exception-based monitoring approach scales efficiently as device counts grow.

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Accessing Configuration Reports

Configuration reports are accessible through the rConfig web interface and are automatically distributed via email to system users, ensuring visibility into backup operations without requiring manual log review.

Web Interface Access

Navigate to Config Tools → Reports to access the reports interface. The main reports view displays all generated reports organized by task, showing report type (verbose or failure), generation timestamp, and task name. Reports are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent reports appearing first.

Main Reports View - Configuration backup reports organized by task and type

Click any report link to view the full report details, including per-device execution status, output captured during backup operations, error messages for failed operations, and execution timing information.

Email Distribution

All configuration reports are automatically emailed to system users upon task completion, providing proactive notification of backup operations without requiring users to check the rConfig interface. Users can opt out of receiving report emails through their profile settings—navigate to My Profile and adjust report notification preferences to disable automatic email delivery.

Email reports include direct links to the full report in the rConfig interface, allowing recipients to quickly access detailed information without manually navigating through the UI.

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Report Contents and Interpretation

Understanding what information appears in each report type and how to interpret the data enables effective operational monitoring and efficient troubleshooting of backup issues.

Verbose Report Structure

Verbose reports document every device included in the task execution, presenting information in a structured format that facilitates quick scanning for issues while providing complete operational details.

Report header information:

• Task name and description
• Execution timestamp
• Total device count
• Success count
• Failure count
• Execution duration

Per-device information:

• Device name and IP address
• Connection status (successful/failed)
• Commands executed
• Output captured from device
• Execution time per device
• Error messages (if applicable)

Verbose Report: All Successful

When all devices in a task complete backup operations successfully, the verbose report provides confirmation of successful execution across the entire device population. This scenario represents ideal operational state—all devices were reachable, credentials authenticated successfully, commands executed without errors, and configurations were captured and stored.

Verbose Report - All devices backed up successfully

Operational interpretation: No action required. Task configuration is correct, device connectivity is stable, and credentials are valid. This report serves as documentation that scheduled backups executed as intended.

Verbose Report: Some Failed

When some devices fail while others succeed, the verbose report provides comparative context—successful devices demonstrate that task configuration, credentials, and connectivity are generally correct, while failed devices indicate device-specific issues requiring investigation.

Verbose Report - Mixed success and failure status

Operational interpretation: Investigate failed devices specifically. Common causes include device unavailability (network issues, device powered off), device-specific credential problems (password changed on specific devices), or device-specific connection issues (SSH disabled, management interface down). Successful devices in the same task prove that task-level configuration is correct.

Failure Report Structure

Failure reports contain only devices where backup operations failed, omitting successful operations entirely. This focused view allows rapid identification of problem devices without scrolling through successful operations.

Report header information:

• Task name
• Execution timestamp
• Total failure count
• Link to full verbose report (for complete context)

Per-failed-device information:

• Device name and IP address
• Failure reason (connection timeout, authentication failure, command error)
• Error message details
• Attempted connection protocol
• Execution timestamp

Failure Report - Only failed devices displayed for focused troubleshooting

Operational interpretation: Each listed device requires remediation. Failure reports are designed for exception-based monitoring—if the report is empty (zero failures), all backups succeeded. If populated, investigate each failed device to restore backup capability.

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Accessing Reports via API

For automation scenarios, programmatic monitoring, or integration with external systems, configuration reports are accessible through rConfig’s REST API. API access enables automated report retrieval, parsing, and analysis without manual UI interaction.

API Endpoints

List all reports:

GET /api/v1/reports

Returns a list of all generated reports with metadata including report type, task name, generation timestamp, and report ID.

Retrieve specific report:

GET /api/v1/reports/{report_id}

Returns the complete report data for a specific report, including all device execution details, success/failure status, and captured output.

Filter reports by task:

GET /api/v1/reports?task_id={task_id}

Returns all reports generated for a specific task, useful for monitoring specific backup operations over time.

Filter reports by date range:

GET /api/v1/reports?start_date={date}&end_date={date}

Returns reports generated within a specified date range, supporting historical analysis and trend identification.

Example API Usage

Python example (retrieve latest failure report):

import requests

url = "https://rconfig.example.com/api/v1/reports?type=failure&limit=1"
headers = {"apitoken": "YOUR_API_TOKEN"}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
latest_failure_report = response.json()

if latest_failure_report['failure_count'] > 0:
    print(f"Backup failures detected: {latest_failure_report['failure_count']} devices")
    # Trigger alert or remediation workflow

cURL example (retrieve report data):

curl -X GET \
  "https://rconfig.example.com/api/v1/reports/12345" \
  -H "apitoken: YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Accept: application/json"

Integration Use Cases

Monitoring System Integration: Automated scripts query the API for failure reports every hour, parsing results and creating tickets in external systems (ServiceNow, Jira) for devices requiring remediation. Use SNMP traps for real-time alerting.

Dashboard Visualization: Custom dashboards pull report data via API to visualize backup success rates, failure trends, and device-level backup health over time.

Alerting Workflows: Monitoring platforms query failure report endpoints and trigger notifications (PagerDuty, Slack, email) when failure thresholds are exceeded.

Compliance Reporting: Automated scripts extract verbose reports via API for specified date ranges, generating compliance documentation showing backup execution history.

[See in-app API documentation for complete endpoint reference and parameter details]

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Manual Report Access

Web Interface Access

Reports are accessible through Config Tools → Reports, displaying all generated reports organized by task with generation timestamps and report types.

Main Reports View - Configuration backup reports organized by task and type

File System Access

Reports are also stored directly on the file system at:

/storage/app/rconfig/reports/

Reports are stored as formatted files organized by task and timestamp. Direct file system access is useful for:

• Backup and archival purposes
• Integration with external log management systems
• Custom parsing and analysis scripts
• Long-term retention in separate storage systems

File system access requires appropriate server-level permissions and is typically used by administrators for bulk operations or integration with external systems rather than daily operational monitoring.

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Report Generation Technical Details

Understanding how and when reports generate helps operations teams anticipate report availability and troubleshoot report generation issues.

Automatic Generation

Reports generate automatically upon task completion for all configuration download tasks. Generation occurs regardless of whether all devices succeeded, some devices failed, or all devices failed—every task execution produces both verbose and failure reports.

Report generation timing:

• Task completes execution (all device jobs finish)
• rConfig aggregates results from all device jobs
• Verbose report generated (includes all devices)
• Failure report generated (includes only failed devices)
• Reports stored in database and file system
• Email notifications sent to configured recipients

Report Storage

Reports are stored both in the rConfig database (for web UI access) and as formatted files for email distribution. Report storage requirements grow linearly with task execution frequency and device count—larger environments with frequent scheduled backups generate more reports requiring more storage capacity.

Manual Report Access

While reports generate automatically, users can access historical reports any time through the reports interface. Reports remain accessible indefinitely unless purged according to configured retention policies. This enables retrospective analysis of backup failures, trend identification, and audit trail documentation for compliance purposes.

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Troubleshooting Report Issues

Occasionally, report generation or distribution may encounter issues requiring investigation.

Reports Not Appearing

Symptoms: Task completes but report not visible in reports interface

Possible causes:

• Report generation job failed
• Database error during report storage
• Permissions issue preventing report access

Resolution:

• Check Horizon queue for failed report generation jobs
• Review application logs for errors during report generation
• Verify user has appropriate permissions to view reports
• Contact rConfig support if issue persists

Email Notifications Not Received

Symptoms: Reports visible in UI but email not received

Possible causes:

• Email server connectivity issues
• SMTP configuration incorrect
• User email address incorrect or missing
• Email filtered to spam/junk folder

Resolution:

• Verify SMTP configuration in system settings
• Test email connectivity using rConfig email test feature
• Check user profile for correct email address
• Review spam/junk folders for rConfig emails
• Check email server logs for delivery issues

Incomplete Report Data

Symptoms: Report missing devices or showing incorrect status

Possible causes:

• Task execution still in progress when report accessed
• Database consistency issue
• Report generation interrupted

Resolution:

• Wait for task to fully complete before accessing report
• Refresh report view to ensure latest data
• Re-run task if report data appears corrupted
• Review Horizon queue to confirm task completion

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Related Documentation

• Scheduled Tasks - Configuring automated backup tasks that generate reports
• Configuration Backup Implementation - Understanding backup operations
• Horizon Queue Manager - Real-time monitoring of backup job execution
• Activity Logs - Detailed device-level troubleshooting information
• Email Notifications - Configuring email distribution and SMTP settings