Documentation forNetwork Configuration Manager
Managing network configurations is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Advanced edition. Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is also available in a standalone module.

Manually compare two network configuration files

Use NCM to compare configuration files on two different nodes or to compare different versions of configs on the same node. You can:

  • Compare running and startup configs to detect changes that were made to the in-memory config but were not permanently saved to non-volatile memory (NVRAM). These changes will be lost if the device loses power or is rebooted.

  • In a multi-vendor environment, compare configs from different vendors for reference purposes.

  • Compare different versions of the same config to quickly see what changed.

  • Compare the configs on different nodes to ensure they match.

To avoid flagging inconsequential changes (such as the last updated date), specify lines or blocks to exclude from comparisons.

  • When you assign a baseline to a device, NCM automatically compares the device's configs to the baseline and reports any changes.
  • Policies that are pushed from a Panorama management server are not part of the main configuration file. Therefore, these elements are not included in the comparison.

Select configs to compare from the Configuration Management page

From the Configuration Management page, you can compare any two configs or any two versions of the same config.

  1. Click My Dashboards > Network Configuration > Configuration Management.
  2. Select the nodes:
    • To compare configs from two different nodes, select both nodes.
    • To compare two configs from the same node, select a single node.
  3. Click Compare Node(s) Configs, and then select Compare node(s) configs from the drop-down menu.

  4. Select the configs you want to compare.

  5. Review the differences.

Select configs to compare from the Node Details page

From the Node Details page, you can compare different versions of the same config.

  1. Click My Dashboards > Network Configuration > Config Summary.

  2. In the NCM node list, click a node.

    The Node Details page displays information about that node.

  3. Choose Configs from the menu on the left.

  4. In the Compare Configs widget, select the versions you want to compare.

    The drop-down menus list up to 10 recently downloaded versions of this node's config. If the version you want is not listed, click View All Configs.

  5. Click Compare and review the differences.

Review the differences

After you select the configs to compare, the Compare Configs Of Selected Nodes window displays the configs next to each other. To help you quickly identify changes, the page displays only the mismatched lines and the lines immediately surrounding them.

  • If the configs match, no lines are displayed.

  • Mismatched lines are highlighted in light yellow. The characters that changed are highlighted in darker yellow.

    To provide context, NCM displays up to five unchanged lines (by default) before and after each difference. You can change the number of lines in Config Settings.

  • A gray hash indicates that lines are missing from one of the configs.

  • Click the link before or after each change to display additional unchanged lines. Each time you click the link, the next five unchanged lines are shown.

  • Initially, the comparison shows a maximum of 500 changes. If there are more than 500 changes, a link to display additional changed lines is available. Each time you click the link, the next 100 changed lines are shown.