[rancid] Extra spaces being randomly added - and seen as config changes

[heasley]

Fri, Jan 04, 2013 at 03:39:24PM +0000, Kerry Cox:
> Aaron,
> Yes, this is the exact same issue I am experiencing with our Cisco ASAs.  I get about 8-10 emails a day when they bounce back and forth between the BOOT Variable being populated and then being not populated.
> 
> Index: configs/216.51.xx.xx
> ===================================================================
> retrieving revision 1.303
> diff -U 4 -r1.303 216.51.xx.xx
> @@ -18,9 +18,9 @@
>   !BootFlash: Current BOOT variable = disk0:/asa911-k8.bin;disk0:/asa901-k8.bin
>   !BootFlash: CONFIG_FILE variable = 
>   !BootFlash: Current CONFIG_FILE variable = 
>   !
> - !BootFlash: BOOT variable = disk0:/asa911-k8.bin;disk0:/asa901-k8.bin
> + !BootFlash: BOOT variable = 
>   !BootFlash: Current BOOT variable = disk0:/asa911-k8.bin;disk0:/asa901-k8.bin
>   !BootFlash: CONFIG_FILE variable = 
>   !BootFlash: Current CONFIG_FILE variable = 
>   !
> 
> I agree it is definitely NOT the device, contrary to what everyone says.  And, this is the latest IOS.  I am not calling Cisco TAC to let them know that their firmware is causing rancid to detect changes in the BOOT variable.
> I also agree it is probably the terminal window settings or cron or something inherent in rancid that is causing it to get changing variables when queried.
> If anyone else have any ideas or the rancid developers could shed some light on editing the default settings, that would be most useful.

i dont see anything in the code that might cause this.  if you can use clogin
to run the command repeatedly in cron to try to reproduce it, or use
NOPIPE=YES and run rancid with -d for the device from cron, saving the .raw
file after each run, we might confirm that its the device or find the cause.

i still suspect its an o/s bug or intermittent hardward failure.