Using NCM to Backup Files

Hello All,

I am fairly new to Solarwinds administration duties, especially so with NCM. I recently went live with NCM at my company, after upgrading to 7.0.2. Since going live, I have been adding devices into NCM and backing up startup and running configs. I have been working out any issues as I go (most of them credentials related), and have been able to backup quite a few devices at this time. The standard backup job works fine for this, and it is fairly easy right out of the box.

However, I recently had a request to add 2 devices to our monitoring environment, as well as NCM. Both of these devices are Cisco firewalls (Adaptive Security Devices), and the manager for our WAN team informed me that the configs are not traditional on these devices, and the regular nightly backup will not work. He provided a list of 17 files that I will need to backup to capture the configuration. And that is where my problem lies. From what I have been told and read, NCM will back up just about any type of config, included user created configs, but has to be set up to do so. What I am wondering right now is, how would I go about using NCM to back up a config in this manner?

My initial observations lead me to believe that the solution might be in the Execute Command Script job that can be run, but I am hoping for a bit more input on whether or not this is the case. I am thinking that I can kick off a script that would copy the files from the devices and deposit the copies to the same location where the regular configs are archived. Does this sound correct?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

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cvachovecj

Hi,

Yes, you are on the right way. Generally, you have to define your own config type and then modify the device template accordingly. An example can be found in .

If those 17 files are all text, NCM will be able to compare them etc. If some are binary then obviously not.

Does that help?

Regards,

Jiri

ssadlocha

Revisting this after quite some time, as it has become an issue again, and I never really got it resolved. I don't know a lot about NCM, and that is leading to many of the issues I am seeing. I want to back up the files located on the device, but I really don't know how to even begin. The linked thread mentions modifying a template, but I don't know where to do that. I thought that perhaps I would execute a command to copy the files, but it does not seem as simple as that.

I am also having issues with the user credentials that we have set up in NCM. When I try to validate those credentials, I get a failure on the device, yet I am able to telnet in. I am not sure if it has something to do with an enable level, something I am also not familiar with.

I think I may open a ticket on this, as I would like to get it resolved, and perhaps a tech can help me directly.

Thanks,

Scott

cvachovecj

Hi Scott,

The templates to modify are located in <SolarWinds Install Dir>\Orion\NCM\DeviceTypes. If you want the downloaded files to be managable in NCM, you'll have to create a new config type for each. However this makes sense for text files only.

The steps are described in the thread above. (The only difference is that now with NCM v7.1 all the steps will be taken in Web UI.)

If you don't know how to modify the template, please post here a command that copies a file from ASA to either TFTP or SCP server. I'll guide you further on.

Regards,

Jiri