Provided by: rancid_3.7-1_amd64 
NAME
rancid.conf - rancid environment configuration file
DESCRIPTION
rancid.conf contains environment configuration information for rancid-run(1) and rancid-cvs(1), including shell PATH, list of rancid groups, etc. It is read by several scripts at run-time and others inherit the configuration from a parent process which has read it. The syntax of rancid.conf is that of sh(1). rancid.conf is used to set environment variables used by other rancid scripts to effect their run-time behavior or to enable them to find their resources.
VARIABLES
The following variables are used (listed alphabetically):
ACLFILTERSEQ
Disables filtering of prefix-list/access-list sequence numbers. This option implies ACLSORT=NO
for lists with sequence numbers.
Default: YES
ACLSORT
Permits disabling of access-list sorting, which could alter statement order that had been cleverly
crafted by the administrator for optimal performance, thus making recovery and comparison more
difficult.
Default: YES
BASEDIR
BASEDIR is the directory where rancid-run's log directory, the revision control system's
repository, and rancid group directories will be placed.
Its value is configure's localstatedir and should be modified if rancid is moved to a new location
in the file system without re-installing from the distribution.
Default: /var/lib/rancid
CVSROOT
cvs(1) and rancid-cvs(1) use this environment variable to locate the CVS repository. In some
cases, particularly for Subversion and git, it is used as an argument to commands. In general, it
should not be necessary to alter it, but it could be set to a remote location if the the RCS
system supports it. If it is a remote location, any necessary authentication must be handled
separately from RANCiD, which provides no means of interacting with the remote.
Default: $BASEDIR/CVS
DIFFSCRIPT
Defines an alternate filter for the output of the RCS diff. The filter should read from stdin and
write to stdout. The default is defined in control_rancid and only improves readability.
Example: DIFFSCRIPT="sed -e '/^=/d' | expand"; export DIFFSCRIPT
FILTER_OSC
Determines if oscillating data such as keys, passwords, etc are filtered from configs. The value
may be "NO", "YES" or "ALL". YES is less aggressive than ALL. The FILTER_PWDS variable may
override this.
Default: YES
Note: a value of "NO" will most likely produce large repositories and frequent diff e-mail. A
value of "YES" is encouraged.
Note: FILTER_OSC does not currently affect the handling of SNMP community strings. see NOCOMMSTR
below.
FILTER_PWDS
Determines which passwords will be filtered from configs. The value may be "NO", "YES", or "ALL"
to filter none of the passwords, only those which are reversable or plain-text, or all (plus ssh
keys, etc), respectively.
Default: YES
Note: a value of "NO" could be a security issue since diffs are sent via e-mail. A value of "ALL"
is encouraged.
Note: FILTER_PWDS does not affect the handling of SNMP community strings. see NOCOMMSTR below.
Note: passwords whose value cycles (oscillates) and would produce erroneous diffs may be filtered
(e.g.: Alteon passwords). See the FILTER_OSC variable.
LIST_OF_GROUPS
Defines a list of group names of routers separated by white-space. These names become the
directory names in $BASEDIR which contain the data for that set of devices. rancid-run(1) also
uses this variable to determine which device groups it should collect. Choose these names to be
descriptive of the set of devices and do not use spaces, unprintable characters, etc.
Example: LIST_OF_GROUPS="UofO USFS"
Two groups are defined; UofO (University of Oregon) and USFS (US Forest Service). Each will have
a directory created (see rancid-cvs(1)) $BASEDIR/UofO and $BASEDIR/USFS respectively, which will
contain their data.
Each group must also have aliases for the administrative and diff recipients set-up in
/etc/aliases. For example:
rancid-uofo: frank
rancid-admin-uofo: joe,bob
rancid-usfs: frank
rancid-admin-usfs: joe,bob
LOCKTIME
Defines the number of hours a group's lock file may age before rancid starts to complain about a
hung collection. The default is 4 hours.
LOGDIR Directory where rancid-run places log files. This can not be set or altered effectively in a
group-specific rancid.conf.
Default: $BASEDIR/logs
MAILDOMAIN
Define the domain part of addresses for administrative and diff e-mail. The value of this
variable is simply appended to the normal mail addresses. For example rancid-usfs@example.com, if
MAILDOMAIN had been set to "@example.com".
MAILHEADERS
Define additional mail headers to be added to rancid mail, such as Precedence or X- style headers.
Individual headers must be separated by a \n (new line).
Default: Precedence: bulk
Example: Precedence: bulk\nX-clamation: beef cake
MAILOPTS
Define additional options used to invoke sendmail(8). By default, this is not set.
Example: MAILOPTS="-f bounces.go.here@example.com"
MAILSPLIT
Defines the maximum BODY size of diffs in kilobytes, such that diffs are split into clunks no
larger than N kbytes. The minimum is 0, which disables splitting.
Default: 0.
MAX_ROUNDS
Defines how many times rancid should retry collection of devices that fail. The minimum is 0.
Default: 4.
NOCOMMSTR
If set, rancid(1) will filter SNMP community strings from configs. Otherwise, they will be
retained and may appear in clear-text in e-mail diffs. By default, this is not set.
NOPIPE If set, rancid(1) will use temporary files to save the output from the router and then read these
to build the file which will be saved in CVS (or Subversion or git). Otherwise, an IPC pipe will
be used. We have found that the buffering mechanisms used in perl and expect are heinous. Using
temporary files may result in a noticeable improvement in speed. By default, this is not set.
OLDTIME
Specified as a number of hours, OLDTIME defines how many hours should pass since a successful
collection of a device's configuration and when control_rancid(1) should start complaining about
failures. The value should be greater than the number of hours between rancid-run cron runs.
Default: 24
PAR_COUNT
Defines the number of rancid processes that rancid_par(1) will start simultaneously as
control_rancid(1) attempts to perform collections. Raising this value will decrease the amount of
time necessary for a complete collection of a (or all) rancid groups at the expense of system
load. The default is relatively cautious. If collections are not completing quickly enough for
users, use trial and error of speed versus system load to find a suitable value.
Default: 5
PATH Is a colon separate list of directory pathnames in the the file system where rancid's sh(1) and
perl(1) scripts should look for the programs that it needs, such as telnet(1). Its value is set
by configure. Should it be necessary to modify PATH, note that it must include
/usr/lib/rancid/bin.
RCSSYS Sets which revision control system is in use. Valid values are cvs for CVS, git for Git or svn
for Subversion.
Default: cvs
TERM Some Unix utilities require TERM, the terminal type, to be set to a sane value. Some clients,
such as telnet(1) and ssh(1), communicate this to the server (i.e.: the remote device), thus this
can affect the behavior of login sessions on a device. The default should suffice.
Default: network
TMPDIR Some Unix utilities recognize TMPDIR as a directory where temporary files can be stored. In some
cases, rancid utilizes this directory for lock files and other temporary files.
Default: /tmp
Each of these are simply environment variables. In order for them to be present in the environment of
child processes, each must be exported. See sh(1) for more information on the built-in command export.
ERRORS
rancid.conf is interpreted directly by sh(1), so its syntax follows that of the bourne shell. Errors may produce quite unexpected results.
FILES
/etc/rancid/rancid.conf
Configuration file described here.
<group>/rancid.conf
Group-specific configuration file described here.
SEE ALSO
control_rancid(1), rancid(1), rancid-cvs(1), rancid-run(1)
HISTORY
In RANCID releases prior to 2.3, rancid.conf was named env and located in the bin directory. This was
changed to be more consistent with common file location practices.
19 December 2016 rancid.conf(5)