RANCID is a popular tool for automating the collection and tracking of network device configurations. Here's how to install it on macOS:
Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that makes it easy to install and manage software packages. You can install Homebrew by running the following command in Terminal:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
RANCID has a few dependencies that need to be installed before it can be used. You can install them using Homebrew with the following commands:
brew install cvs
brew install expect
brew install gnu-sed
brew install perl
brew install wget
Download the latest version of RANCID from the official website and extract the archives. You can do this by running the following commands in Terminal:
cd ~/Downloads
curl -O http://www.shrubbery.net/pub/rancid/rancid-3.11.tar.gz
tar -xf rancid-3.11.tar.gz
cd rancid-3.11
Once inside the extracted directory, run the following command to configure and install RANCID:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/rancid
make
sudo make install
Now that RANCID is installed, you need to configure it to work with your network devices. The main configuration file is ~/rancid/var/maillist. You can create it by copying the example configuration file and editing it to fit your needs:
cd ~/rancid/var
cp maillist.sample maillist
After that, you can add your network devices to the configuration file. For example, if you want to add a Cisco router with the IP address 192.168.1.1, you would add the following line to the maillist file:
routername:routeruser@192.168.1.1:cisco
Replace routername and routeruser with the name and username for your router, and cisco with the vendor name for your device.
To run RANCID, simply run the following command in Terminal:
rancid-run
RANCID will automatically connect to your network devices, collect their configurations, and store them in the ~/rancid/var/ directory.
That's it! You now have RANCID installed on your macOS system and running smoothly. With RANCID, you can easily manage the configurations of your network devices and keep track of changes over time.
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