[rancid] Extreme false changes caused by corruption in config

[Paul Thornton]

Hi list

I have an annoying problem with using rancid with Extreme kit. I have
recently upgraded an ancient FreeBSD 6 and RANCID install to a fresh
FreeBSD 9.1 and RANCID 2.3.8 setup (using expect 5.44.1.15) which now
gives me a problem.

The issue shows itself as the text 'quit' appearing throughout the
freshly downloaded config - see example diff at end of mail - presumably
caused by clogin sending the "quit" string to the switch during the
"show conf" output which is then echoed back by the switch.

Naturally this is a pain as it triggers lots of change E-mails which
aren't changes at all.

Running xrancid with NOPIPE set gives an interesting bit of .raw file
which suggests that this is exactly what happens:

...
^Mtempswitch.7 #show configuration
^Mqu#
# Module devmgr configuration.
#
configure snmp sysName "tempswitch"
configure timezone name UTC 0 noautodst
configure sys-recovery-level switch reset
i
#
# Module vlan configuration.
#
...

Surely that 'qu' immediately after the 'show configuration' (and the 'i'
six lines later) should not be sent until clogin sees the prompt?

The prompt matching code (especially for Extreme) has always been a bit
troublesome and I recall in the past having to hand-hack parts of clogin
and xrancid to make this work properly. I can't remember what I did in
the past though.

Has anyone else suffered from this? Any suggestions for a fix?

I thought it may just be a FreeBSD/RANCID strangeness, but I see the
same thing using CentOS as well.

Many thanks,

Paul.



- -- configs/tempswitch (revision 2334)
@@ -10,13 +10,13 @@
#
#
#
- qu#
+ q#
# Module devmgr configuration.
#
configure snmp sysName "tempswitch"
configure timezone name UTC 0 noautodst
configure sys-recovery-level switch reset
- i
+ u
#
# Module vlan configuration.
#
@@ -145,8 +145,6 @@
#
# Module elrp configuration.
#
- t
- #
# Module ems configuration.
#
configure log filter DefaultFilter add exclude events
exsshd.RejctConnAccessDeny
@@ -274,6 +272,8 @@
#
# Module thttpd configuration.
#
+ it
+ #
# Module vmt configuration.
#
# Module vrrp configuration.