Installing RANCID on nixOS Latest

RANCID (Really Awesome New Cisco confIg Differ) is a tool used to monitor network device configurations. It can be used to backup and manage the configurations of different types of network devices. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps to install RANCID on nixOS Latest.

1. Update nixOS

Before installing RANCID, it is important to ensure that your system is up-to-date. To do this, run the following commands:

sudo nix-channel --update
sudo nixos-rebuild switch

These commands update your nixOS repositories and rebuild your system with the latest updates.

2. Install RANCID

To install RANCID on your nixOS Latest, run the following command:

sudo nix-env -i rancid

This command installs RANCID on your system.

3. Configure RANCID

After installing RANCID, the next step is to configure it. The RANCID configuration file is located in /etc/rancid/rancid.conf.

Open the RANCID configuration file using your preferred text editor and set the following parameters:

  • LIST_OF_GROUPS: define the list of groups which contain the devices to backup
  • LIST_OF_DEVICES: define the list of devices to backup
  • MAILTO: email address of the person who will receive the backup reports
  • RCSSYS: location of the RCS repository where the device configurations will be stored

4. Start RANCID

Now that you have configured RANCID, the next step is to start the service. Run the following command to start the RANCID service:

sudo systemctl start rancid

5. Verify RANCID installation

To verify that RANCID has been installed correctly on your system, run the following command:

sudo rancid-cvs

This should initiate a connection to the devices in the configuration file and backup their running configurations.

6. Automate RANCID backups

To automate regular backups of your network device configurations with RANCID, add the following line to your crontab file:

0 0 * * * /usr/local/bin/rancid-run

This will run the RANCID backup process every day at midnight.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured RANCID on your nixOS Latest.