<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /></head><body style='font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif'>
<p>We use many different types.</p>
<p>The one I am trying to fix right now is "smc"</p>
<p>it doesn't seem like it sends 'term length 0' before looking at the configuration so there ends up being spaces in the configuration file in weird places as it paginates so it counts the exact same "configuration file" as having a diff in it..</p>
<p>It was this:</p>
<p>smc;script;rancid -t smc<br />smc;login;hlogin<br />smc;timeout;90<br />smc;module;smc<br />smc;inloop;smc::inloop<br />smc;command;rancid::RunCommand;terminal datadump<br />smc;command;smc::ShowSys;show system<br />smc;command;smc::ShowVer;show version<br />smc;command;smc::Dir;dir<br />smc;command;smc::ShowVlan;show vlan<br />smc;command;smc::WriteTerm;show running-config</p>
<p>I'm not sure what "terminal datadump" is supposed to do as that command doesn't exist on our dell switches.</p>
<p>So we'll end up seeing things like this in the configs and the configs are "updated" every time RANCID goes out to check the configuration file and I cannot figure out why since the configurations almost never actually change.</p>
<p>"!<br /> <return> interface vlan 1"</p>
<p>So I tried changing it to:</p>
<p>smc;script;rancid -t smc<br />smc;login;hlogin<br />smc;timeout;90<br />smc;module;smc<br />smc;inloop;smc::inloop<br />smc;command;rancid::RunCommand;terminal length 0<br />#smc;command;smc::ShowSys;show system<br />#smc;command;smc::ShowVer;show version<br />#smc;command;smc::Dir;dir<br />#smc;command;smc::ShowVlan;show vlan<br />smc;command;smc::WriteTerm;show running-config</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p>Is there any way to log what it's actually doing when it is running like as far as the commands and the responses? I'd like to get it to stop thinking that there is a configuration change every single time rancid-run is ran.</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p id="reply-intro">On 2026-05-14 05:43, Jethro Binks wrote:</p>
<blockquote type="cite" style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0">
<style type="text/css">#replybody1 P { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; }</style>
<div id="replybody1" dir="ltr">
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">What "devices" are you backing up? What rancid type are you using?</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Many of the rancid types have an exclusion for filenames that are known to be volatile and change and filter them out from processing, or else the time fields are filtered out.</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">(eg in ios.pm:</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">sub ShowFlash {</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">...</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> # Drop these files entirely.</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> /\s+(private-multiple-fs|multiple-fs|LISP-MapCache-IPv\S+|nv_hdr)$/ &&</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> Next;</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">)</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Jethro.</div>
<div id="v1Signature" class="v1elementToProof">
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<p class="v1elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </span></p>
<p class="v1elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">J</span><span style="font-family: 'segoe ui', 'helvetica neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">ethro R Binks, Network Manager, </span></p>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: 'segoe ui', 'helvetica neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Information Services Directorate, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK</span></div>
<p class="v1elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="font-family: 'segoe ui', 'helvetica neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, number SC015263.</span></p>
</div>
<div id="v1appendonsend"></div>
<hr style="display: inline-block; width: 98%;" />
<div id="v1divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><strong>From:</strong> Rancid-discuss <rancid-discuss-bounces@www.shrubbery.net> on behalf of Andrew Weaver <aweaver@ee.net><br /><strong>Sent:</strong> 13 May 2026 7:55 PM<br /><strong>To:</strong> rancid-discuss@www.shrubbery.net <rancid-discuss@www.shrubbery.net><br /><strong>Subject:</strong> Re: [rancid] Completely disable mail functionality in 3.14?</span>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">
<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I apologize for replying to myself but it seems like the reason it's trying to send that many emails is because it thinks that this is a change and so it's creating a diff for things like this:</p>
<p>38,39c38,39<br />< ! syslog1.sys r- 131072 -- 26-Apr-2016 15:15:24 <br />< ! syslog2.sys r- 131072 -- 26-Apr-2016 15:15:24 <br />---<br />> ! syslog1.sys r- 131072 -- 26-Apr-2016 15:26:39 <br />> ! syslog2.sys r- 131072 -- 26-Apr-2016 15:26:39 </p>
<p>We're solely using RANCID as a way to backup the configuration files on our devices. </p>
<p>Is there any way to globally disable it checking the file dates on the syslog files on network devices?</p>
<p>I noticed on other switches it appears to think that the wattage being used by the PSUs is a configuration change.</p>
<p>Do I need to make a custom version of whatever commands it's running to exclude things that change constantly?</p>
<p id="v1x_reply-intro">On 2026-05-13 14:37, Andrew Weaver wrote:</p>
<blockquote style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0;">
<div id="v1x_replybody1" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">
<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I noticed that the logs on our RANCID machine were growing quite large.</p>
<p>I determined that it is because it's writing 10MB of this half of the time rancid-run runs:</p>
<p>No configuration file found at /home/rancid/.esmtprc or /etc/esmtprc<br />No configuration file found at /home/rancid/.esmtprc or /etc/esmtprc<br />No configuration file found at /home/rancid/.esmtprc or /etc/esmtprc<br />No configuration file found at /home/rancid/.esmtprc or /etc/esmtprc<br />No configuration file found at /home/rancid/.esmtprc or /etc/esmtprc<br />No configuration file found at /home/rancid/.esmtprc or /etc/esmtprc</p>
<p>So then I created a blank .esmtprc file that caused it to start logging two lines for each thing that I don't want it doing in the first place. ;)</p>
<p>File /home/rancid/.esmtprc must have no more than -rwx--x--- (0710) permissions.<br />open: /home/rancid/.esmtprc: Success</p>
<p>OK fine, I fixed that.</p>
<p>How do I just disable every single thing to do with SMTP .esmtprc, etc?</p>
<p>Thank you so much if anyone can assist me.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p><br /></p>
</div>
<br />
<div class="v1x_pre" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: monospace;">_______________________________________________<br />Rancid-discuss mailing list<br /><a href="mailto:Rancid-discuss@www.shrubbery.net" rel="noreferrer">Rancid-discuss@www.shrubbery.net</a><br /><a href="https://www.shrubbery.net/mailman/listinfo/rancid-discuss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.shrubbery.net/mailman/listinfo/rancid-discuss</a></div>
</blockquote>
<p><br /></p>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="pre" style="margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: monospace">_______________________________________________<br />Rancid-discuss mailing list<br /><a href="mailto:Rancid-discuss@www.shrubbery.net">Rancid-discuss@www.shrubbery.net</a><br /><a href="https://www.shrubbery.net/mailman/listinfo/rancid-discuss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.shrubbery.net/mailman/listinfo/rancid-discuss</a></div>
</blockquote>
<p><br /></p>
</body></html>