rConfig - Commands

1 mins V8 Pro V6 Core

Commands are the commands that are sent to each device in sequence and their outputs download during a device backup. You can add commands to a Command Group, and then download the configuration for that Command Group’s (previously known as Categories) devices. Commands can be single commands, or multiple commands with line breaks in between commands strings. rConfig will send each command in the set of commands if line breaks are present. Examples are:

#	Type	Command	Comment
1	Single Command	`show ip int brief`	Required field, must be unique, min 3 and max of 255 characters. Special characters such as pipes are allowed
2	Command Set	`show clock\nshow version`	This will work, is not best practice and will download all output to a single config file. There are valid use cases for this, and using this will depend on your needs and device types.

Adding/Editing Commands

When a command is added to the database, you will note the placement of three toggle switches on the table.

Commands Toggles

The CIC Enabled toggle switch, when enabled, ensures that a CIC check will be run on the command output at the end of the configuration download process. Disable this for less important commands or commands that are not expected to return a valid configuration output.

The Keep Unchanged Config toggle switch, when enabled, will only save the configuration file if the output has changed since the last time the command was run. This is useful for commands that are expected to return the same output each time they are executed, such as downloading the running configuration from a device. If the running configuration has not changed, there is no need to save the configuration file again. This feature helps save disk space and reduces the number of files in the rConfig database.

The Change notifications toggle switch enables or disables change notifications for the command. If enabled, rConfig will send an email notification to the user when the command output changes.

Bulk Assign Commands

You can also bulk assign commands to a Command Group. This is useful if you have a large number of commands, and you want to assign a category to a large number of commands at once.

Compare Options

You can configure the compare options for each command. This allows you to specify how rConfig should compare the output of the command. You can configure the following options: Compare exclusions Compare exclusions allow you to specify lines of text that should be excluded from the comparison. This is useful if you have commands that return dynamic information, such as timestamps, that you want to exclude from the comparison. You can specify multiple lines of text to exclude, and rConfig will exclude these lines from the comparison.

Compare Context: Compare context allows you to specify the number of lines of context that should be included in the comparison. This is useful if you want to see the lines of text that are different between the command output. You can specify the number of lines of context to include, and rConfig will include this number of lines before and after the lines that are different in the comparison.
Length Limit: Length limit allows you to specify the maximum number of lines of text that should be included in the comparison. This is useful if you have commands that return a large amount of text, and you only want to compare a subset of the text. You can specify the maximum number of lines to include, and rConfig will only compare this number of lines.
Ignore Case: Ignore case allows you to specify whether the comparison should be case sensitive or case insensitive. If you enable this option, rConfig will ignore the case of the text when comparing the output of the command.
Ignore Line Ending: Ignore line ending allows you to specify whether the comparison should ignore line endings. If you enable this option, rConfig will ignore line endings when comparing the output of the command.
Ignore Whitespace: Ignore whitespace allows you to specify whether the comparison should ignore whitespace. If you enable this option, rConfig will ignore whitespace when comparing the output of the command.

Click on the Compare Options button to configure the compare options for the command.

Compare Options Button

Compare Options - Configuring Diff exclusions

You can configure the comparison granular exclusions for each configuration diff. This allows you to specify lines of text that should be excluded from the comparison. This is useful if you have commands that return dynamic information, such as timestamps, that you want to exclude from the comparison. You can specify multiple lines of text to exclude, and rConfig will exclude these lines from the comparison.

Diff Exclusions

To configure exclusions, the format is similar to the Policy Definitions format. With some differences.

The description is required which is the line at the top of each block prefaced with double forward slashes // Some Description. The Method, while it follows the same format as POLICY, the content is different. The format is #[SomeContent], but the first method must be global. The global method is used to specify global exclusions that apply to the all commands output.

Then you can specify the command specific exclusions. The format is the same as the global exclusions, but the method must be the command name. The command name must nbe identical to the configured command in the database i.e. show run must equal #[show run].

The last line(s) in each block must be a full regex pattern that will be used to match the output of the command. This is the exclusion pattern that will be used to exclude the matched lines from the comparison. It must contain all regexp including the delimiters and any flags to be used.

// Some Description
#[global]
/some regex/
/some regex/

// Some Description
#[commandname]
/some regex/

Please check our YouTube channel for a video on how to configure the diff exclusions.

Multiline Pattern Support

rConfig supports multiline regex patterns for excluding content that spans multiple lines. This is particularly useful for excluding certificate blocks, large configuration sections, or any content that spans across multiple lines.

To create multiline exclusions, use the s (dotall) and/or m (multiline) flags in your regex pattern:

s flag (dotall): Allows the . metacharacter to match newline characters
m flag (multiline): Changes the behavior of ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line

Example: Excluding Certificate Blocks

// Description: Exclude certificate blocks that span multiple lines
#[global]
/^set private-key "-----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----.*?-----END ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----"$/ms

// Description: Show run specific exclusions
#[show run]
/^crypto pki certificate.*?-----END CERTIFICATE-----"$/ms

Example: Excluding Large Configuration Blocks

// Description: Exclude router configuration blocks
#[global]
/^router bgp \d+.*?^!/ms

// Description: Exclude interface configuration blocks
#[show run]
/^interface .*?^!/ms

Key Points for Multiline Patterns:

Use .*? for non-greedy matching to avoid capturing too much content
The s flag is essential for matching content that includes newlines
The m flag helps when using ^ and $ anchors with multiline content
Do not use the g flag: PHP handles global matching differently than JavaScript - rConfig automatically processes all matches without requiring the g flag
Multiline patterns are processed against the entire configuration text, not line-by-line

Note: Regular single-line patterns (without s or m flags) continue to work as before and are processed line-by-line for optimal performance.