How to Install RANCID on NetBSD

RANCID (Really Awesome New Cisco confIg Differ) is an open-source tool that allows network administrators to manage and track changes to their network devices' configurations. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps to install RANCID on NetBSD.

Prerequisites

  • A NetBSD server configured with an internet connection.
  • Root access to the server.

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Before we can install RANCID on NetBSD, we need to install the required dependencies. Use the following command to install them:

pkg_add -v cvs perl5 git p5-Authen-SASL p5-Expect

Step 2: Download and Extract RANCID

Next, we need to download and extract the RANCID source code. You can use the following command to download the latest version of RANCID:

cd /usr/local/src/
ftp http://www.shrubbery.net/pub/rancid/rancid.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded archive using the following command:

tar -zxvf rancid.tar.gz

Step 3: Configure and Install RANCID

Now we need to configure and install RANCID. Run the following commands to configure and install RANCID:

cd rancid-3.x.x/
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/rancid
make && make install

Replace 3.x.x with the version number of the RANCID source code that you have downloaded.

Once the installation is complete, update the PATH environment variable to include the RANCID binary directory:

echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/rancid/bin" >> ~/.bashrc

Step 4: Configure RANCID

Next, we need to configure RANCID to work with our network devices. We can do this by editing the router.db file located in the etc directory of the RANCID installation directory (/usr/local/rancid/etc/router.db). Add your network devices to this file in the following format:

device-name:type:ip-address:login:password:enable-password

The type field should be set to the type of the network device you are configuring, for example, cisco for Cisco devices.

Step 5: Test RANCID

Once you have configured RANCID, you can test it by running the following command:

rancid-run

This command will retrieve the configurations from the devices listed in the router.db file and store them in the /usr/local/rancid/var/ directory.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have gone through the steps to install RANCID on NetBSD. Now that you have RANCID installed, you can use it to manage and track the configurations of your network devices.