First we need to install RANCID, Subversion (that will be used a VCS) and Apache 2 to have a WebSVN instance available.

apt-get update
apt-get install rancid subversion apache2 php5

In the /etc/rancid/rancid.conf file do the following things:

1. Modify

   CVSROOT=$BASEDIR/CVS; export CVSROOT

   by

   CVSROOT=$BASEDIR/SVN; export CVSROOT

2. Modify

   RCSSYS=cvs; export RCSSYS

   by

   RCSSYS=svn; export RCSSYS

3. Add

   LIST_OF_GROUPS="gravitons"

gravitons will be a directory where the devices configurations will be stored.

Initialize the SVN repository where the changes will be tracked:

su - rancid
./bin/rancid-cvs

The gravitons directory will be created.

RANCID does not support Cisco Small Business devices by default. It requires some hacks to be able to backup the changes of a SG series devices (for example). As root run the following commands:

cd /var/lib/rancid/bin
wget 'https://raw.github.com/chrpinedo/rancid-cisco-sb/master/src/csblogin' -O csblogin
wget 'https://raw.github.com/chrpinedo/rancid-cisco-sb/master/src/csbrancid' -O csbrancid
chmod a+x csb*

Also edit the rancid-fe in /var/lib/rancid/bin to add the following item in the %vendortable dictionary.

'cisco-sb'  =>  'csbrancid'

Using the rancid user, create the .cloginrc file in the home directory and add the following lines to backup a Small Business device:

add user       sw0.gravitons.in  noc
add password   sw0.gravitons.in  noc-password
add autoenable sw0.gravitons.in  1
add method     sw0.gravitons.in  ssh
add userprompt sw0.gravitons.in  {"User Name:"}

Also add the following line to the router.db file:

sw0.gravitons.in:cisco-sb:up

If the device was a more classic Cisco device we would have used something like this in the .clogin file:

add method   sw0.gravitons.in  ssh
add user     sw0.gravitons.in  noc
add password sw0.gravitons.in  noc-password enable-password

And this in the router.db file:

sw0.gravitons.in:cisco:up

With WebSVN it will be possible to have a user-friendly view of what RANCID backups and records.

cd /var/www
wget 'http://websvn.tigris.org/files/documents/1380/49056/websvn-2.3.3.tar.gz'
tar xf websvn-2.3.3.tar.gz
mv websvn-2.3.3 svn
cp /var/www/svn/include/distconfig.php /var/www/svn/include/config.php
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/svn

Now the following line needs to be added to the WebSVN configuration to see the repository.

$config->addRepository(‘RANCID Backup’, ‘file:///var/lib/rancid/SVN/’);

Eventually, Apache needs to be able to read the files in the SVN repository.

chown -R rancid:www-data /var/lib/rancid/SVN