When Ciscos boot up out of the box, the first thing they do is request an IP address via DHCP. In the response you can send a next server message, which instructs it a place where it can download a config. I believe you can also specify the name of the file to pull.
This config could be a full blown config, or it could just point it at some kind of provisioning system like Cisco's config engine http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/cloud-systems-management/configuration-engine/index.html(EOL I believe) or something home grown. Now obviously this only works on tail circuits that are untagged. If they are tagged, the router will have no clue what VLAN to use. I would imagine this only works on CPE routers also. Alternatively you could pay someone like Netlynk to preconfigure your CPE's for you. Regards, Dave On 14 April 2014 06:19, James Bensley <[email protected]> wrote: > So what is everyone doing with regards to auto configuration of devices > such as Cisco routers? > > I'm going to roll my own probably coding something from the ground up if > its possible. Its for mostly Cisco kit. I want to avoid having routers and > switches sent to the office, configuring them, then shipping them to their > destination. Its a big waist of money just to paste a config on. > > I have two questions really, is anyone doing this already (what > software/system are you using to do this, is it open source, paid for?) and > how does it work? Often blank Cisco devices say something like "press any > key to tftp boot" then they drop into rommon mode. How are these > systems/your systems kicking the routers to download an image and > configuration? > > Once the config is on in fact I can upload a new image remotely so its > just the config that is really important. I'm talking about shipping > routers to on-net locations, CPEs and PEs. > > The only idea I've had so far is to try and reverse engineer an IOS image > to change the default TFTP location to an internal system. Also different > devices act differently with regards to that initial configuration process > so the system shall have to allow you to choose from a variety of method > per device etc. > > Cheers, > James. > > P.s. I have read up on autonomic networking but that seems some time away > as yet, please correct if I'm wrong. >
