When to use the Device.CLI.Modify Config activity in Kiwi CatTools

This activity is a useful network management tool for several reasons:

• Allows precise timing control over your network.
• Enables automation of these controls, yet still use exactly the same commands as you would enter if you did the task manually.

The benefit is that you learn and use the same command line instructions in both cases, and the CatTools program itself is very simple to learn to use in quite sophisticated ways because it simply applies those commands on your behalf, just as you would via telnet.

Task scheduling

The time controls are perhaps the most useful aspect of this activity. With different combinations of scheduled activities you can tune your network to the changing needs of your organization over the course of a typical business day or week.

CatTools is designed to manage the repetitive scheduled configuration tasks on your behalf. It removes the possibility of human error from such tasks. It provides you with a much greater confidence in the currency of your backup processes, and in your ability to roll back to a previous state using your historical backups. It provides for active management of your network and its condition, by enabling the remote execution of command line instructions across your network, at times determined by you.

Scheduled config changes can also be used to add or remove access-list entries at specified times, such as allowing access to the payroll system during business hours only.

Example

If you have some switch ports that are wired to a shared conference room that is only in use during the day, you could schedule a config change to shutdown the specific interfaces at 6 p.m. and then another activity to enable the interfaces at 7 a.m. This will ensure that unauthorized staff can not hack into the network from the shared conference room after hours.