ios management - what is best practice

[carl_townshend]

Hi all

Im looking into ios management for all my cisco devices.

can anyone suggest the best practice for this? is there any software that can easily scan and report back on all software versions nd then tell me which ones arent the same ?

what is the best method for IOS management?

also I hear about safe harbour software releases, what is this? most of the ones on the Cisco download are Interim releases, are these the ones to use?

Is there anything that I can get from Cisco to alert me about the latest updates etc, ie e-mail subscriptions to Cisco ?

Cheers

Carl

[Javier Portuguez]

Hi Carl,

Please check this out:

CISCO IOS Management – Best Practices

Cisco Guide to Harden Cisco IOS Devices

Information about Safe Harbor images:

Safe Harbor Testing

Hope to help.

Portu.

If you do not have any further questions please mark this post as answered

[shillings]

There is also a 'one step lockdown' option within Cisco 'Configuration Assistant' that will apply many, but not all, SAFE best practice recommendations. You can view the config before it's applied to the router.

'Configuation Assistant' is free to download, but only configures routers, not switches. You need 'Network Assistant' for switches, also free to download.

[carl_townshend]

is there any decent software which is recommended for IOS management and compliance ?

[shillings]

Cisco 'Prime' is their management suite. You pay per appliance that you wish to manage - i.e. total number of routers and switches etc. It can run on a dedicated 1RU appliance or just install the software.

As mentioned above, 'Configuration Assistant' and 'Network Assistant' are free. There is also 'Configuration Professional' for routers which has more options than the Assistant.

I think there is another chargeable product, but it's aimed at the Small Business market, but can't recall the details. I think it is cloud based and limited in the number of users, not appliances.

If you count ASAs as running IOS, then the ASDM is really quite good now.

[Tagir Temirgaliyev]

I do use

Cisco IOS Software Checker

Cisco IOS Software Checker