rConfig - Configuration Changes
New in V7 is the ability to track configuration changes on your devices. This is a powerful feature that allows you to see what has changed on your devices over time. This is useful for auditing, and troubleshooting purposes. This guide will take you through how it works, and the options available to you. Please note, this feature will change as we develop it further. Please review this guide regularly for updates, as well as the release notes for changes.
Configuration Changes & Compare Flow
The configuration changes feature is a powerful tool that allows you to track changes on your devices. It is a simple process to get started. It is enabled by default for all commands.
When a command is run, the output is stored on disk, and a reference to it is stored in the database. This is the baseline and a version ID of 1 will be applied to the config. When the command is run again, the output is stored on disk, and a reference to it is stored in the database. This is the new output, and the version ID will increment by 1. The new output is compared to the baseline, and the differences are stored in the database. This is the change, that is recorded. The change is then displayed in the UI. If there are no changes, the new file is downloaded and stored on disk, but no change is recorded in the database, and the version ID stays the same.
Configuration Changes & Compare UI
To view changes, simply navigate to the device, and click on the command. You will see a new tab called “Config History”. This will display the changes for that command. You will see all changes for that command, and you can compare the changes side by side. This is useful for troubleshooting, and auditing purposes. You will see the Config Version ID, in the “Config Details” view and “Config History”.
You can stop the configs from downloading by setting the option below in the commands menu. This will stop the configs from being downloaded, and stored on disk if the config has not changed. This is useful for saving disk space, and reducing the amount of data stored on disk. Toggle the “Save config if not changed” option to “off” to stop the configs from being downloaded.
When a config is not downloaded, you will see a the config in the View All Configs table, but the config will not be downloaded. You will see a message in place of its filename saying “Not Downloaded” in the table to indicate that the config has not been downloaded. And opening this will result in an error. You can delete these records, but they might be useful for auditing purposes.
