How to Install Oxidized on Elementary OS

Oxidized is a network device configuration backup and restore system. It can be used to automatically backup the configurations of network devices, such as routers and switches, and store them in a Git repository for version control.

This tutorial will guide you through the process of installing Oxidized on Elementary OS.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation process, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

• A user account on the Elementary OS system with sudo privileges.
• Git installed on the system.

Step 1: Install Dependencies

The first step is to install the dependencies required by Oxidized. Open a terminal window and enter the following command to install the required packages:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ruby ruby-dev libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev pkg-config libssh2-1-dev libicu-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev make cmake git

Step 2: Install Oxidized

After installing the dependencies, you can proceed to install Oxidized. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Clone the Oxidized repository from GitHub using the following command:

   git clone https://github.com/ytti/oxidized.git
   

2. Change to the oxidized directory:

   cd oxidized
   

3. Install oxidized and its dependencies using the following command:

   gem install oxidized --no-document
   

4. Install the Oxidized web interface:

   gem install oxidized-web --no-document 
   

Step 3: Configure Oxidized

Now that Oxidized is installed on the system, you need to configure it to start automatically and backup network device configurations.

1. Create a configuration file for Oxidized by running the following command:

   oxidized --init
   

   This command will create a default configuration file at /etc/oxidized/config.

2. Edit the configuration file to reflect your network devices and Git repository settings. For example, add the following code to specify your network devices:

   groups:
     cisco:
       username: admin
       password: secret
       model: cisco
       vars:
         enable: secret
       input:
         default: ssh
       output:
         default: git
   

3. Create a Git repository for storing the configuration backup. You can do this by running the following command in the desired directory:

   git init
   

4. Add the Git repository to the Oxidized configuration file as follows:

   output:
     git:
       user: yourusername
       email: youremail@example.com
       repo: /path/to/git/repository
   

Step 4: Start Oxidized

After configuring Oxidized, start the oxidized service:

sudo systemctl start oxidized

To check the status of the Oxidized service, run the following command:

sudo systemctl status oxidized

If the service is running, you should see a message indicating that it is active and running.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to install Oxidized on Elementary OS and configure it to backup network device configurations. With Oxidized running, you can ensure that the configurations of your network devices are safely backed up and stored for future use.

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