Add user on many switches

[gabbar]

we have close to 100 switch in our environment. All of them are brocade with mix of 3800, 4100, 4900, 12k, 24k and 48k switches. We basically use webtools to manage them. There is no Fabric Manager.

I need to add couple of users on all of the switches but it will take a long time to access there webtool and add them there. Any suggestion on how to add the users in one go by either using to some kind of script or tool would be helpful

[Stephen Kebbell · Accepted solution]

Hi,

you can use the CLI to create a user.

userConfig --add -r
You have to type in the password for this user (twice).

There is also the "distribute" command on the CLI to distribute the user database to other switches in the fabric. But it requires FOS 5.2.0 or higher, which can't be used on your 3800 or 12k switches, so you would still have to configure those separately.
(Disclaimer: I have never tried this command out for real)

You could also set the switches to use RADIUS authentication, then set user access via the RADIUS Server.

For detailed info on the commands, have a look in the Fabric OS Command Reference Guide
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual〈=en&cc=us&docIndexId=64179&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=1143936

Regards,
Stephen

[Bill Rothanburg]

I've used the distribute command to copy the password database from one switch to the others in the fabric with good results. The catch for the distribute command is that the switches must be within the same fabric.

As Stephen mentioned, it will only work with switches running FOS 5.2.0 or later.

You will still have to manually add the account to each of the 3800 and 12k switches.

[gabbar]

Thanks for your input. Any ways to distribute just those two users?

[Bill Rothanburg]

The distribute command will replace the entire password database. If you don't want to affect the rest of the accounts, you will need to log into each switch and add the accounts manually.

Keep in mind, if the user has fabric admin rights or higher, then they will be able to issue fabric-wide commands from any switch they log into, even if they don't have an account on all of the switches.