Configuration Automation with RANCID

One of the most tedious tasks any network admin faces is replicating changes across multiple devices. I recently stood up new RADIUS servers, and needed to tell all of my routers and switches about it. Rather than logging into each router by hand and pasting in the new configuration, I decided to try RANCID‘s ability to run arbitrary commands on your routers.

Using this method requires that the commands you run don’t generate interactive output. A reload command won’t work, because it prompts...