This is just a quick note that will hopefully save you a headache. I have made this mistake the last two times I have installed RANCID for clients.
As you are probably aware, RANCID uses CVS to maintain versions of your network device configuration files. With CVS, RANCID generates a diff that it emails you.
During the RANCID intallation, you have to run rancid-cvs to set up the CVS repository for your device groups. If CVS is not installed on your system and you run rancid-cvs, you’ll get a bunch of errors about cvs not being installed.
Take note: Simply installing CVS is not enough!
Running rancid-cvs without cvs created all the RANCID directory structure, but none of the cvs check-ins occurred. The easiest thing to do at this early stage is remove the directories from $BASEDIR and re-run rancid-cvs. Don’t forget $BASEDIR is defined in rancid.conf.
Photo by shyle zacharias.

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June 11th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Good tip!
June 15th, 2008 at 2:09 am
[...] Jobs afford a belt?Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Tags: iphone, development, appleQuick Tip: Install CVS Before RANCID | SlaptijackGood tip from Scott!Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Tags: network administration, [...]