Profiles and Profile Commands

What is Profile?

Every vendor of network devices has his own style of getting configuration backup out. Not only command structure can be different, but even technology of connection. Profile is a list of commands, which are executed throught technology defined in profile too. Profile can be shared among devices, which use the same technology and command structure. It is not neccessary to write a new profile for each device, if it has same profile style.

Writing Profile commands

Profile command is one row in Profile and it corresponds to one row in telnet/ssh session, submited using Enter key (confirmation is default, but can be unset for every command).

In command you can use clear text and Keyword macros, which can work as variables. It’s useful for making Profiles available for several devices. There are also project defined Keyword macros, which have special meaning. The most important Keyword macro is {backup}, which flags Profile command to save its output as configuration backup.

Examples of Profile commands are below in Profile types.

Profile types

Telnet

This connection type uses unencrypted Telnet protocol. All authetication credentials have to be send insecurely as one of commands. Some devices requires only password and no username.

Example of Telnet profile:

Command	Confirm?	Order	Comment
{blank}	True	1	Confirm welcome banner using Enter key.
{username}	True	2	Enter user name.
{password}	True	3	Enter password.
enable	True	4	Go to Enable mode.
terminal length 0	True	5	Set infinite terminal lenght to disable paging of displayed text.
{backup}show startup-config	True	6	Show device startup config and save it to ConfiBack.
exit	True	7	End Enable mode.
exit	True	8	Close connection.
y	False	9	Confirm exit by typing Y key only.

Note

Keywords enclosed in braces are Keyword macros.

SSH2

Secured Shell v2 connection is encrypted connection. However it is not implemented very well on several devices. If SSH2 doesn’t work for your device, try to use another type of connection.

username and password are required for connection establishment, so they aren’t in connection profile commands.

Example of SSH2 profile:

Command	Confirm?	Order	Comment
terminal length 0	True	1	Set infinite terminal lenght to disable paging of displayed text.
{backup}show startup-config	True	2	Show device startup config and save it to ConfiBack.
exit	True	3	Close connection.

Works well at Cisco enterprise routers.

FTP

Unsecured File Transfer Protocol. Some network devices can export its configuration only through FTP as downloading configuration file. Using FTP you can manually upload any backup, you made, into ConfiBack.

FTP profile commands uses raw FTP commands. You need only one command called RETR.

Command	Confirm?	Order	Comment
{backup}RETR boot.cfg	False	1	Get device startup config and save it to ConfiBack.

FTP with TLS

FTP connection secured with TLS.

Note

Not tested.

Telnet+TFTP+FTP

Complicated way to get configuration file. Connection via Telnet, configuration file is uploaded to TFTP server and downloaded from same place, but via FTP.

Command	Confirm?	Order	Comment
{blank}	True	1	Confirm welcome banner using Enter key.
{username}	True	2	Enter user name.
{password}	True	3	Enter password.
enable	True	4	Go to Enable mode.
copy startup-config tftp 172.16.0.55 configrepo/{devicename}-startup.cfg	True	5	Copy configuration file to TFTP server repository.
{backup}{ftp>172.16.0.55}RETR tftpboot/configrepo/{devicename}-startup.cfg	True	6	Download startup config from FTP repository and save it to ConfiBack.
exit	True	7	End Enable mode.
exit	True	8	Close connection.
y	False	9	Confirm exit by typing Y key only.

Good for HP ProCurve or Nortel switches.