control_rancid(1)

✨ control_rancid — the manual, but make it cute ✨

okay bestie, gather round 💖 this is control_rancid(1), a General Commands Manual page, and it's literally the little script that runs rancid for all the devices in one group. let's get into it 🫶

💅 NAME

control_rancid — run rancid for devices of a group

🌸 SYNOPSIS

control_rancid [-V]
[-c commit_msg] [-f config_file] [-m mail_rcpt] [-r device_name] group

🦋 DESCRIPTION

control_rancid is a sh(1) script, no cap. its whole job is to parse a group's router.db(5), run rancid for each and every one of the devices, and possibly re-run rancid for the devices that failed collection (we don't abandon our fallen soldiers 💀), e-mail the diffs, and e-mail the error reports. full service, honestly.

it also creates and/or re-creates the .cvsignore / .gitignore files for each group. and for the configs sub-directory specifically, it includes ".old" — which is where a user may keep files they'd like to be ignored 🙈.

⭐ the command-line options are as follows:

• -V — prints the package name and version strings. short, sweet, iconic.
• -c commit_msg — specify an alternative SCM commit message. you get to write the little commit note yourself 💌
• -f group_config_file — specify an alternative rancid.conf. here's the tea: the global rancid.conf file is read by rancid-run, which calls control_rancid for each group, and then control_rancid reads the group-specific rancid.conf — thereby overriding the global file. the group-specific rancid.conf may not exist, and that's fine, it's fine, everything's fine 😌

Default: <BASEDIR>/<group>/rancid.conf

• -m mail_rcpt — specify the recipient of the diff mail, which is normally rancid-<group>. the argument may be a single address, multiple comma separated addresses, or you can just say -m multiple times, we're flexible like that ✨
• -r device_name — specify the name, exactly as it appears in the router.db, of a particular device to collect and generate diffs for. the device must be marked "up" ⚠️ no sneaking in a down device, bestie.

the -r option alters the subject line of the diff mail. it will begin with <group name>/<device name> rather than just the group name alone. main character device energy 👑

control_rancid is normally (and best) run via rancid-run(1), which provides a locking mechanism on a group basis and saves output in a log file for each group. like, it just hits different when you let rancid-run drive 🚗✨

👀 SEE ALSO

• rancid-run(1)
• rancid.conf(5)
• router.db(5)

and that's the whole page, bestie — no notes, you ate this 💅 this version was served fresh from the General Commands Manual (source/version vibes), dated 22 December 2016. go forth and collect those configs 🎀✨🦋