EXOS Backup via Netsight

[John_Daggett]

We are a long-time Enterasys shop migrating to Extreme/EXOS equipment. After a GREAT deal of effort I finally got Netsight Inventory Manager to do an acceptable automated backup of our new Summit EXOS switches, but I sincerely hope that there is an easier way than the one I used.

First, although a machine-readable binary config file is “nice” and the binary “CFG” file is necessary as the one that the switch will load from, the really critical component of any switch backup is an ASCII version that is human-readable in an editor. I figured out that in the EXOS environment this means a file-type of “.xsf”. In fact, Netsight seems to require that this ASCII version exist in the form of an “nms.xsf” file on the switch because my Netsight backup would simply not run until I had that exact file name there.

Unfortunately, it looks to me as though the only way to get this XSF file is by the “Save Config As-Script” command in the EXOS switch. What this seems to imply is that to do a valid “save” I must issue two separate commands each-and-every time; a “save config primary” and also a “save config as-script nms”. This is very awkward. Is there any way to generate both of these required files with a single command?

I suppose that an alternative that would make even more sense would be if Netsight were smart enough to “translate” the binary “cfg” file into an ASCII version automatically whenever it does a backup, since it will always be necessary anyway. Is this planned?

How do other folks handle this? Do we really need to remember to issue 2 different Save commands all the time?

[John_Daggett]

Just for the record – I finally figured this out thanks to the clue above.

At first I had no idea what was being referred to as “the script” until I found it in the “Image Information” area of the Netsight device definition. The thing is; our Enterasys B-series and S-series devices never needed such a command script in order to execute the backups properly, so we never used any script at all. When I added a reference to “ExtremeXOS – TFTP” as the script, which includes the save commands, it still didn’t work properly at first. This was because that while the ID that I was using had the authority to execute TFTP transfers, it didn’t have the authority to execute the save commands. Once I modified the backup login-ID to a SU level in the RADIUS definitions, then the save commands in the script worked and both the “save config” and “save config as-script” are now running prior to the TFTP and all is well.

Thank You.

[Ronald_Dvorak]

The script should use both save options as far as I unterstand the below information - here a copy/paste of the default Netsight script for a Extreme XOS switch...

-----BEGIN SCRIPT "Configuration Upload"-----
save configuration primary
Y

@receive 5
save configuration as-script nms
@key y
@key %0d
@RECEIVEUNTIL 30 ".*done!.*"
@receive 5
%EXTR_DYNAMIC_COMMANDS%
@receive 5
exit
-----END SCRIPT-----

Could you please provide a screenshot of the following two windows.
- in Inventory manager select one of the X-switches - I'd like to see the info in the right "general" tab
- then select the "image information" tab and post that also

[John_Daggett]

By the way – I have confirmed this goofy behavior.

1- I make an update to the Summit switch

2- I do a “save config” command

3- I do a backup via the Netsight Inventory Manager archive function, which runs successfully.

4- I use the “view configuration” function of Inventory Manager and my update is NOT displayed.

5- I go back to the switch and issue the command “save config as-script nms” and run another backup.

6- This time the update that I have made IS there in the “view config” display.



Therefore – it seems that if we do not always issue two separate save commands, then the configuration that we see in Inventory Manager will not be what is actually running on the switch. Sorry – but this seems pretty lame to me. Am I doing something wrong?

[John_Daggett]

This is using Netsight 6.3.0.182 and the Summit-450 switch is running 21.1.1.4, both of which I think are more-or-less current. I am running these backups via the Netsight Inventory Manager archive function.

The thing is – as long as any “nms.xsf” file exists at all on the switch, the backup will execute. The problem is that the XSF file seems to be updated ONLY with the “save config as-script” command (based on time-stamp). What this means is that if we are not very careful to run the two separate save commands every time, the ASCII XSF file (which is what the “display config” feature of Inventory Manager uses, unless I am mistaken) will be out-of-sync with the binary CFG file and the actual running-config on the switch. In other words, without a double save what you see with a display-config in Inventory Manager ain't what you got on the switch.

What should happen IMHO is the “save config” command ought to automatically write both the binary CFG file and the ASCII XSF file, but it doesn’t and this seems to force us to issue two different save commands to insure that our backups are accurate and current.

Am I wrong?