Configure Cisco switches with Putty

[Sn3akyP3t3]

This project started as my internship so some of the early flaws in programming logic are being worked out from time to time. The idea of the project was I didn't want to locally manage switches for multiple reasons. One, too much time required to get in contact with the switch. Two, too many errors possible in typos. Three, Logging each and every switch encounter was frightening. I really didn't like the thought of manually parsing each log created to locate errors or backtrack for troubleshooting. And four, I needed to get some actual programming or scripting under my belt and this was a good enough reason to do so.

The loginSwitch() function needs some work for better error handling, but otherwise the script works in my environment quite smoothly.

ConfigureSwitchesGenericDualVersionWithGUI.au3

[ReFran]

Mmmh,

is that for the configuration of the "Cisco IP Phone"??

br, Reinhard

[Baraoic]

Well I only skimmed over it and it looks like its for what he says, which is Cisco Switches. I have not tested it, but personally for this kind of stuff I would think its better to use the terminal version of putty (plink.exe). It looks like you have it setup to log into the switch then run whatever tasks user has defined then exit. That would work great with plink. Also that would make it all hidden and it wouldn't have to worry about the winactivate.

[Sn3akyP3t3]

I wasn't aware at the time of beginning this project that plink was logging capable. Actually, at the beginning of this project I was not familiar at all with Cisco switch management so I left the project with the Putty.exe GUI interface so that I could easily test when an error was encountered to handle it. At some point in the script life I will rewrite it so that plink.exe is the management application instead of Putty.exe. Thanks for the suggestion!

[dot45]

I wasn't aware at the time of beginning this project that plink was logging capable. Actually, at the beginning of this project I was not familiar at all with Cisco switch management so I left the project with the Putty.exe GUI interface so that I could easily test when an error was encountered to handle it. At some point in the script life I will rewrite it so that plink.exe is the management application instead of Putty.exe. Thanks for the suggestion!

With cisco gear, its best to just write a config locally then you can upload it to the switch. Or look into CiscoWorks (a gui management app for all kinds of cisco gear)

[Sn3akyP3t3]

I wasn't told there was an app such as CiscoWorks for this sort of thing. Does CiscoWorks support IOS updating too? As for now, the app I've created does plenty for our environment. Most changes to switches I make are small and don't require a complete config rewrite. The last thing I changed on our switches was TACACS entries pointing to a new ACS box. Thanks for informing me of CiscoWorks. I'll ask my network admin about it.

[dot45]

I wasn't told there was an app such as CiscoWorks for this sort of thing. Does CiscoWorks support IOS updating too? As for now, the app I've created does plenty for our environment. Most changes to switches I make are small and don't require a complete config rewrite. The last thing I changed on our switches was TACACS entries pointing to a new ACS box. Thanks for informing me of CiscoWorks. I'll ask my network admin about it.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/cscowork/ps2425/index.html

[Baraoic]

Personally I have used autoit with plink to do small thing on switches and I think its the most convenient, quick and easy way of going about it. Also I used to have a massive network of over 350 devices and once we were having an IOS issue so I needed to find out all of our devices IOS version and it worked out great.