Bypass SNMP backup on Cisco devices

[PerezEmmanuel]

Hello eveyrone,

I'm working on HP iMC for about two months. My first job was to integrate the auto config backup of Gigamon devices, which wasn't initially planned in HP iMC. After few weeks, the job is done !

Now, we're experiencing an issue on Cisco Nexus 7K :

By default, HP iMC backup their configuration file easily. But ! Our Nexus 7K are configured with 2 VDCs. We'd like to backup a file in iMC wich contains the configuration of each one of device VDCs.

A solution that I've found is to make/modify TCL scripts and xml files of NexusIOSGeneric adapter folder, and add the appropriate option "vdc-all" to the backup command sent by script. Then it's necessary to move them into CiscoNX7K adapter folder, and remove the "<uses-adapter>" balise in its adapter.xml, which points out to NexusIOSGeneric adapter folder.

But, when SNMP Write is correctly configured, iMC is forcing a backup throught it instead of using my TCL scripts... The only way I've found is to remove the Write Community Field of the device in iMC, but I'd like to know if there's another way to force the use of scripts before SNMP instead of this tricky one way...

Thanks for your attention, hope someone will help me figure it out !

[LindsayHill · Accepted solution]

 I can't 100% remember if this works, but assuming your adapter supports SCP, then make sure login type is SSH, and file transfer type is SCP. Then it should go straight to the script-based backup.

If you *must* use CLI for your backups, then the only other option is to remove the SNMP write string. Is there a specific reason you need to enter the write string for those devices? I would not have thought you would be doing anything with SNMP write with them anyway?

[PerezEmmanuel]

Hi @LindsayHill, thanks for your reply.

Well, by now, the login type to the device is SSH, but file tranfer is TFTP. I could try to make a SCP transfer version of scripts and see what happens.

Indeed, we must use these scripts to backup configuration through CLI, because I don't see any other solution to backup both of device VDCs configuration . Except maybe by creating an @Ip for the second one, and let iMC consedering its a standalone equipment.

 Today, I don't believe that write strings are necessary on these devices. But, even if it's the easiest method to solve the problem, I don't consider that as a clean way to do it... I was wondering a solution in iMC to tell our preferences about SNMP backup.

Do you know why iMC is forcing a SNMP backup with Cisco devices ? That's not the case for F5, for example...

[LindsayHill]

Start by changing the file transfer type then.

You shouldn't be using tftp anywhere anyway. It is 2017, not 1997.

[PerezEmmanuel]

I'm in apprenticeship, and I'm working on a sandbox environment. I'm trying to solve a specific problem that doesn't matter if I use one specific protocol or another. I was asking "Why is iMC forcing a SNMP backup on Cisco devices ?" not "What protocol should I use to backup my configuration files please ?", but thanks for the advise. That could be usefull in case of a timestamp problem in my head ;)

[LindsayHill]

> I'm in apprenticeship, and I'm working on a sandbox environment. I'm trying to solve a specific problem that doesn't matter if I use one specific protocol or another

If you're starting out in your career, then why start with outdated protocols? Why not do things the right way, from the start? 

[PerezEmmanuel]

I'm not really starting by now, I just said that to explain that i'm working on a sandbow environment. I think it's easier to understand why they're outdated protocols by using them ;) And, once again, it wasn't an initial problem.

Anyway, thank you for all your support, I'm going back to school time for few months, so iMC will wait for a moment haha !