SWQL statement to display switches with config changes

Question

I have an estate of Extreme switches running EXOS and VOSS with NCM backing up the running config of a selected few. Config changes are picked up, but what I would like is an SWQL statement to display which ones have changed, purely for learning.

I know I can change the "Last XX Config changes" default widget but I would like to find out how this is done behind the scenes.

cnorborg · Answer

Yea, I think maybe this table might do it for you.   Haven't checked for sure, but here is a quick query…

SELECT TOP 25 N.SysName, ConfigTitleBefore, ConfigTitle

FROM Cirrus.CacheDiffResults CDR

JOIN NCM.Nodes N ON (N.NodeID = CDR.NodeID)

WHERE CDR.DiffFlag = 1

hebridean · Answer

Sorry, I should have made it clearer. All I want to display is a list of switches that have had a config changed, I don't want to list what the config changes are.

I'll have a look at the Cirrus section as you suggest and see what I can figure out.

Thanks for replying.

cnorborg · Answer

So, I don't really know what you're asking for sure.  Are you looking to manually figure out what changes have been made using SWQL, or are you just wanting a list of those that have changed?

The way configs are stored and how SWQL works isn't really all the conducive to figuring out whether changes have happened or not.   They're stored in NCM.ConfigArchive in the "Config" column.   You can do a simple compare to other configs to get a simple true/false if its changed, but I can't think of a way in SWQL to actually show you what the differences are?   NTM, NCM will ignore some lines when it compares, things like timestamps and such, because they might trigger a false change, no way to do that.   There are other tables that hold some snippets of data, such as the interfaces I think.

Some of the data is in the Cirrus section of the tree, what it was called when they first acquired it I think.  You might find some tables there that you don't in NCM, like Cirrus.CacheDiffResults.  That one does store when a change was made and what the previous config was before the change?     If you can figure these out and document them, I'm sure others would appreciate it.