Call to arms - non-Cisco SSH device users

Question

Is there anyone out there still having trouble with downloading configs via SSH from non-Cisco devices?  Specifically, Juniper routers (not firewalls, but routers like M-Series, J-Series, etc.) have problems when using SSH.  What happens is that Cirrus sends its commands such as "show configuration" or "set screen length 0" and those commands or part of those commands are interpreted as part of the configuration.  Using compare exclusions will not work to prevent them from showing up in the configs, since the commands sometimes come through in their entirety and sometimes come through as "ow configuration", "ation", "figuration", "ength 0", etc.

I've been emailing back and forth with SW support, but I'm getting nowhere.  I'm trying to get a feeling how many other people might be affected by this very annoying issue.  I currently have several routers that haven't had their configurations changed in days, but yet Cirrus believes their configs change multiple times per day because of this.

goofyzig · Answer

I just saw this post, and would like to add that similar behaviour occurrs with Cirrus on our network when using the Cirrus telnet client.  If you enable session tracing, and look at your SSH trace file  (typically found in \Program Files\SolarWinds\Configuration Management\Session-Trace) you will see that both telnet and SSH sessions use the Solarwinds.Net SWTelnet9 Version 9.0.27.

Long story short:   I think the common thread in all of this points to issues with the "expect" part of the  scripting  or programming language  that handles what it is seeing/receiving on the terminal window, whether you use Telnet or SSH to transfer the config.  Perhaps an issue with how the terminal behaviour interprets the responses, or when/if these characters match POSIX special characters and how these are handled by the SWTelnet 9.0.27.

I have a ticket 1178 or 1179 open for the issue of failing telnet. Trace files were sent.  I cant seem to get anyone to at least concede there might be a problem with the telnet client or the listener.  I have seen other posts related to this issue similarly in an unresolved status.

bleearg13 · Answer

I also receive this message quite often on non-Cisco SSH devices in my results emails:

ERROR: Cannot download Running config : Possible connectivity issues are stopping Cirrus from receiving a properly formatted device configuration file.

I know the problem is not network-related, or I would see it with my other configuration backup utility.  In addition, I'm pretty sure I would see it for many more devices than just a few consistent non-Cisco SSH devices.  I see it randomly on Juniper routers and see it pretty consistently on an Internap FCP500 that I'm backing up using Cirrus.

bleearg13 · Answer

Actually, I upgraded last week to 4.0.1, at the request of Chris Weiner in support.  I'm still seeing the same thing.