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.

Specify config transfer, comparison, and archive settings

Use the Config Settings page to limit the number of simultaneous uploads or downloads, specify the location of the config archive, and set other options that determine how NCM manages your device configurations.

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as an administrator.
  2. Click Settings > All Settings.
  3. Under Product Specific Settings, click NCM Settings.
  4. Under Config Settings, click Config Settings.
  5. Adjust any of the values described below.
  6. Click Submit.

Config Transfer

Simultaneous Downloads/Uploads

A large number of config uploads or downloads could overwhelm resources on your NCM server. For example, a large number of downloads can occur when you configure real-time change detection. If you experience issues, use this setting to limit the number of simultaneous uploads or downloads.

By default, this value is set to 25 download/upload sessions.
SNMP Config Transfer Timeout Specify the maximum amount of time before an SNMP configuration file transfer times out.
Config Min Length

Specify the minimum number of lines that a configuration file must contain to be recognized by NCM as valid for download.

By default, NCM does not upload or download any configuration file with fewer than 11 lines. Change this default value if you plan to work with configuration files that have fewer lines.

Config Comparisons

Adjust these settings to change how the Compare Configs Of Selected Nodes displays comparisons when you manually compare configurations.

Comparison Output Width If a line in a configuration is longer than 250 characters, increase this value to prevent the line from being truncated on the Compare Configs page.
Display the full side-by-side comparison

Specify this option to display all config lines, both changed and unchanged.

Selecting this option increases load times for large configs.
Display the number of lines

Select this option to display only changed lines and the specified number of unchanged lines before and after each change. You can specify from 0 to 100 unchanged lines. The default is 5.

This option is selected by default. With this option, config changes are easier to identify and large configs load more quickly.

Config Archive

Network Configuration Manager stores downloaded configurations in the SolarWinds Platform database. It can also store a copy of them in the configuration archive directory. Specify the following archive settings:

  • To enable archiving, select Save a copy of each config into the archive directory.

  • If you are low on storage space and only need the last and current configs, select When configs are edited, only retain the last version.

  • By default, NCM sets the directory for your Config Archive as C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\NCM\Config-Archive. As preparation for a growing archive, SolarWinds recommends moving the config archive to a different location outside of the SolarWinds installation folder.

    To change the default config archive location, you must first specify credentials to give NCM write access to the config archive location. If valid credentials have not been entered in Advanced Settings, the config archive location is read-only.

    Credentials are necessary for both network storage locations and local directories.

  • Specify the template you want to use for naming the configuration files.

    You can use Date and Time, Node, and Global variables. You can also use the ${CONFIGTYPE} variable.