<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>Hi,</p>
<p>I figured out that the reason it was always using the "cisco" type is because that is what I told it to do originally in router.db and I didn't know I needed to delete the device from router.db, re-run rancid-run so that it "deletes it", and then re-add it with the "right" type before it would notice that the type had changed. </p>
<p>I quickly ran into an additional minor problem which is I noticed that the NXOS perl module breaks entirely if you remove this from the list of commands:</p>
<p>cisco-nx3;command;nxos::ShowVersion;show version</p>
<p>It stops polling updates entirely without that command.</p>
<p>So this will work:</p>
<p>cisco-nx3;script;rancid -t cisco-nx3<br />cisco-nx3;login;clogin<br />cisco-nx3;module;nxos<br />cisco-nx3;inloop;nxos::inloop<br />cisco-nx3;command;rancid::RunCommand;term no monitor-force<br />cisco-nx3;command;nxos::ShowVersion;show version</p>
<p>cisco-nx3;command;nxos::WriteTerm;show running-config</p>
<p>but this will not:</p>
<p>cisco-nx3;script;rancid -t cisco-nx3<br />cisco-nx3;login;clogin<br />cisco-nx3;module;nxos<br />cisco-nx3;inloop;nxos::inloop<br />cisco-nx3;command;rancid::RunCommand;term no monitor-force</p>
<p>Is there any way for the /user/ to know which commands can be missing and which cannot be or is that on like a perl module basis?</p>
<p>That is really confusing.</p>
<p>I still need to figure out how to get RANCID to stop trying to send email entirely but baby steps I guess.</p>
<p>but thanks at least this one problem is no longer a thing.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p id="reply-intro">On 2026-05-15 04:14, 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;"> </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;">Seems odd on the face of it, but a couple of suggestions:</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;">Verify which rancid.conf is in use; there are PATHs and PERL5LIB variables in there. Check ENVFILE in /opt/rancid/bin/rancid-run is pointing to where you think it is.</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;">Also perhaps:</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;">cisco-nx2;script;rancid -t cisco-nx</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;">Needs to be:</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;">cisco-nx2;script;rancid -t cisco-nx2</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;">(I recently did an "alt version" like this for testing a dev version of a module that others has the same package name etc, and it took a couple of goes to get it right, it now works ok with:</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: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">### dev version</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;script;rancid -t arubaoscx-dev</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;login;clogin</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;inloop;arubaoscx::inloop</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;module;arubaoscx-dev</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;command;rancid::RunCommand;no page</div>
<div class="v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;command;arubaoscx::CommentOutput;show ip pim rp-set</div>
<div style="font-family: Consolas, Courier, monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">arubaoscx-dev;command;arubaoscx::ShowConfiguration;show running-config</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web (West European)', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">)</div>
<div 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 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> Andrew Weaver <aweaver@ee.net><br /><strong>Sent:</strong> 14 May 2026 8:21 PM<br /><strong>To:</strong> Jethro Binks <jethro.binks@strath.ac.uk><br /><strong>Cc:</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>Okay,</p>
<p>Thank you very much for that debug command that was helpful in illustrating another problem I'm having.</p>
<p>Note: I specifically built version 3.14 with /opt/rancid (using these flags) because I have a 3.07 installed already in /usr/local/rancid...</p>
<p>./configure --prefix=/opt/rancid --localstatedir=/opt/rancid</p>
<p>I created this in /opt/rancid/etc/rancid.types.conf [for NXOS]</p>
<p>cisco-nx2;script;rancid -t cisco-nx<br />cisco-nx2;login;clogin<br />cisco-nx2;module;nxos<br />cisco-nx2;inloop;nxos::inloop<br />cisco-nx2;command;rancid::RunCommand;term no monitor-force<br />cisco-nx2;command;nxos::WriteTerm;show running-config</p>
<p>In router.db I have the device specified as this:</p>
<p>nxlab1;cisco-nx2;up</p>
<p>env NOPIPE=YES PATH=${PATH}:/opt/rancid/bin rancid -t cisco-nx2 -d nxlab1<br />loadtype: device type cisco-nx2<br />loadtype: found device type cisco-nx2 at /opt/rancid/etc/rancid.types.conf:21<br />executing clogin -t 90 -c"term no monitor-force;show running-config" nxlab1<br />PROMPT MATCH: NX65(\([^)#]+\))?\#<br />HIT COMMAND:NX65# term no monitor-force<br /> In RunCommand: NX65# term no monitor-force<br />HIT COMMAND:NX65# show running-config<br /> In WriteTerm: NX65# show running-config<br />nxlab1: found exit<br />nxlab1: End of run not found<br />nxlab1: found_end is false</p>
<p>The crazy part is that when rancid-run executes either in cron (using this rancid /opt/rancid/bin/rancid-run > /dev/null 2>&1)</p>
<p>or run manually on the CLI like this: /opt/rancid/bin/rancid-run -r nxlab1</p>
<p>It's not actually using the cisco-nx2 "command" at all.</p>
<p>I know this because I edited this line</p>
<p>ProcessHistory("","","","!RANCID-CONTENT-TYPE: $devtype\n!\n");</p>
<p>to be </p>
<p>ProcessHistory("","","","!RANCID-CONTENT-TYPE: QUICKLYLOSINGMYMIND\n!\n");</p>
<p>in /opt/rancid/lib/rancid/nxos.pm</p>
<p>In the config file rancid-run creates it says this:</p>
<p>!RANCID-CONTENT-TYPE: cisco</p>
<p>In the config file that this creates</p>
<p>env NOPIPE=YES PATH=${PATH}:/opt/rancid/bin rancid -t cisco-nx2 -d nxlab1</p>
<p>it says: !RANCID-CONTENT-TYPE: QUICKLYLOSINGMYMIND</p>
<p>Do you have any idea why /opt/rancid/bin/rancid-run is doing it totally differently than the debug command?</p>
<p>Also assuming I can even fix this issue is there some way to suppress the logging of "End of run not found" that you are aware of?</p>
<p>Since it is expected that there would be no "end of run" for NXOS that message probably doesn't need to be logged.</p>
<p>thank you very much.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p id="v1x_reply-intro">On 2026-05-14 14:38, Jethro Binks wrote:</p>
<blockquote style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0;">
<style type="text/css">#replybody1 #v1x_replybody1 p
{ margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; }</style>
<div id="v1x_replybody1" dir="ltr">
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">So rancid.types.base (from github repo) currently says:</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"># SMC and Dell PowerConnect N2048, 34xx (config is incomplete), 35xx (3524,</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"># 3524P, 3548, 3548P), N4032F, N4064, 62xxx, M6348, 64xx (6428), 7048,</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"># M8024(-k), and R1-2401.</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;script;rancid -t smc</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;login;hlogin</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;timeout;90</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;module;smc</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;inloop;smc::inloop</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;command;rancid::RunCommand;terminal datadump</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;command;smc::ShowSys;show system</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;command;smc::ShowVer;show version</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;command;smc::Dir;dir</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;command;smc::ShowVlan;show vlan</div>
<div style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">smc;command;smc::WriteTerm;show running-config</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Is your device one of the listed models? It might be poorly tested if not. (It might be poorly tested if it is 🙂 ).</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Anyway, it calls hlogin to log into the device and that was originally written for "hp" devices - but I guess it was functional enough to not need to write something specific. But it sends "no page" (directly in the script), which I guess isn't applicable for SMC. Google does suggest "terminal length 0" might work. On some systems there is no way to turn off paging (no idea about yours though), and so the parsing script has to handle finding and filtering out "--- more ---" lines and similar, which can often be painful.</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Smc.pm.in has several instances of: "# pager remnants like: ^H^H^H ^H^H^H content" so I guess there is some known paging imperfection here, and it might be a code versions have made changes.</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">If your only problem is the directory listing changes, then simplest thing to do is to comment out the dir line:</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">#smc;command;smc::Dir;dir</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">If you want to keep all but the volatile ones, then you might look in smc.pm (or smc.pm.in if you are building from source) in <span style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace;">sub Dir</span> and modify it in some suitable way to match ones you don't want, maybe:</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> next if (</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> /^aaafile\.prv/ ||</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> /^syslog\d+\.sys/</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> ); </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">(is 'aaafile.prv' a real SMC file, or just a placeholder filename in the code?)</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">It's very hard to keep on top of all the slight differences that appear even between different models in the same family or different code versions for a particular one from the same vendor, let alone between all vendors and their constantly shifting names, and the maintainer of rancid can only directly test a few of them and relies on reports or patches. Oxidized has similar issues, if their repo is anything to go by; I found the remark "I removed the "terminal datadump" from the porwerconnect.rb as these models doesn't have the command" in there at least.</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">A well-written script should catch when an invalid command is sent and just move on. It should also catch valid commands for which the current user doesn't have permissions neatly too.</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">For debugging, I'd do something like:</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: Consolas,Courier,monospace; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">env NOPIPE=YES PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/rancid/bin rancid -t smc -d devicename</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">And you will get a .new and a .raw file that you can see a bit more about what's going on.</div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Jethro.</div>
<div id="v1x_v1Signature" class="v1x_v1elementToProof">
<p class="v1x_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="v1x_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="v1x_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="v1x_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="v1x_v1appendonsend"></div>
<hr style="display: inline-block; width: 98%;" />
<div id="v1x_v1divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><strong>From:</strong> Andrew Weaver <aweaver@ee.net><br /><strong>Sent:</strong> 14 May 2026 6:27 PM<br /><strong>To:</strong> Jethro Binks <jethro.binks@strath.ac.uk><br /><strong>Cc:</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>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="v1x_v1x_reply-intro">On 2026-05-14 05:43, Jethro Binks wrote:</p>
<blockquote style="padding: 0 0.4em; border-left: #1010ff 2px solid; margin: 0;">
<style type="text/css">#replybody1 #v1x_replybody1 #v1x_v1x_replybody1 p
{ margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; }</style>
<div id="v1x_v1x_replybody1" dir="ltr">
<div class="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">...</div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> Next;</div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">)</div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<div class="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;">Jethro.</div>
<div id="v1x_v1x_v1Signature" class="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof">
<div class="v1x_v1x_v1elementToProof" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Web (West European)','Helvetica Neue',sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000;"> </div>
<p class="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_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="v1x_v1x_v1appendonsend"></div>
<hr style="display: inline-block; width: 98%;" />
<div id="v1x_v1x_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_v1x_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_v1x_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_v1x_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="v1x_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="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>