RANCID (Really Awesome New Cisco confIg Differ) is a network management application. RANCID monitors a router's (or more generally a device's) configuration, including software and hardware (cards, serial numbers, etc) and uses Concurrent Version System (CVS) or Subversion (SVN) to maintain history of changes.

RANCID does this by the very simple process summarized here:

• login to each device in the router table (router.db) using Expect for automation,
• run various commands to get the information that will be saved,
• cook the output; re-format, remove oscillating or incrementing data,
• commit those changes to the revision control system,
• and finally email any differences from the previous collection to a mailing list.

See also

• Network management system (NMS)
• Console Server
• Router
• Switch

References

• Shrubbery Networks, Inc. RANCID

Similar Software

• Network Device Change Control NDCC

External links

• Joe Abley and Stephen Stuart: IP Networks with Free Software Internet Software Consortium presentation
• Peter Harrison: Network Device Backups with Rancid at linuxhomenetworking.com