Automate a configuration

[youssef.el-bourakkadi.1]

Hello, is there a solution to automate the configuration of a Cisco router?

I want to find a solution or a guide to help users who don't really know the basics of configuration to configure a router to add to the network.

For example, if I give a router to someone who doesn't really know the basics routeur configuration and ask him to configure that router to work in the network, is there any solution that will help him? help him to follow a personalized procedure to configure it in a simple and explanatory way.

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

difficult to answer. If you really do not know what you are doing, even the setup wizard (setup command) would probably not help much. The easiest way to configure the router is to copy a configuration file to the router's flash, and tell the user to copy that file to the running configuration.

So I guess it all depends on the knowledge level of the user.

[youssef.el-bourakkadi.1]

thank you for your answer, so cisco does not offer any solution that can help to configure a router easily, especially if the commands will be the same for all routers except that it has to change the ip addresses for example...

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

Cisco Configuration Professional used to be around, but I think it was discontinued when Adobe Flash was. Most routers these days have a Web GUI that can be used for configuration. The official Cisco Management and configuration tool is Prime (which is quite, very actually, expensive).

The there is Cisco Network Assistant, which is free:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/cloud-systems-management/network-assistant/index.html

[Richard Burts]

Perhaps we could give better advice if we had a better understanding of your environment and what you want to achieve. A fairly simplistic solution might be something like this: create a router configuration file which achieves what you want the router to do. In the config use symbolic references (x.x.x.x, y.y.y.y, z.z.z.z) in places where there are IP addresses that will be used (and perhaps values for which mask to use). Provide the user with the basic config file and instructions about what addresses/masks to use for the symbolic ones. The you also need to provide the user with instructions about how to connect to the console port, how to boot the router, how to respond to the prompt about using default configuration, and how to copy and paste the config into the router, and how to save the new config file. 

If all goes as expected this would work just fine. But there are multiple opportunities where something might not go as expected. And planning for how to manage those is quite challenging.

It seems to me that what you want to achieve is to take a fairly complex piece of equipment and present it to a novice user as a simple thing. And there is not any good way to accomplish that.

[youssef.el-bourakkadi]

Thanks Rich,  Yes in general it's a bit close to that. we want to set up lte routers in the different premises and instead do the installation myself each time. I want to leave the possibility to any technician to carry out the installation based on procedures and using a tool that facilitates the configuration of the router. Like a 'cisco configuration professional', but I see this one currently has quite a few problems, especially with adobe flash. Anyway, thanks for your reply, I think I'll just follow a basic method to create the necessary steps.

Thank you

[Richard Burts]

You are welcome. It is challenging to figure out how much training a technician needs to be able to deploy network equipment. Good luck in creating a basic method to create the necessary steps.