Ubuntu Manpage: rancid.conf - rancid environment configuration file

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 configration 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):

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 comparsion 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, and for Subversion, it is used as an argument to
commands. It should not be necessary to alter it.

Default: $BASEDIR/CVS

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 and would produce erroneous diffs are always
filtered (e.g.: Alteon passwords).

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.

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

MAX_ROUNDS
Defines how many times rancid should retry collection of devices that fail. The
minimum is 1.

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).
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 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.

HISTORY