3.9 - Smart Change
Smart Change feature is similar to Command Runner Tool (Sec. 3.6.1, p.80) but allows for
the more flexibility. It instead runs a command template, on which you can customize
the unique value of each device.
For example, the IP Address of the devices in a same network is always unique, and the
Command Runner fails in this case.
It is because they just run a static sequence of commands and do not send the right
command with the right IP address.
In a command template, you can enter the required commands in a template and
set the right value for the corresponding device.
In the following sections, we pro- vide a screen-to-screen instruction for making
a command template for the Smart Change jobs.
The instruction makes a template for changing the access-list of Cisco devices.
3.9.1 Creating a Smart Change Job
Smart Change jobs are created in Jobs tab → Job Management sub tab → New Job
→ Smart Change. Since the major parts of the procedure are common in any job,
we do not describe the details not specific to the Smart Change feature. (they are
already described in Sec. 3.7, p.92.)
Navigate to the above menu and create a job.
Follow the dialog (process 1). Select either Use the same replacement values for all
devices in the job or Use unique replacement values for each device in the job.
Enter a sequence of ordinary commands in Commands field in the Template sub-tab.
In the figure below, the commands for changing the access-list settings are entered.
However, the commands are for one specific device only, since some values
(IP address etc.)are specific to one device. We then change these commands into a
template.
After entering the commands, select a portion of the text that should be replaced
with each device-specific value.
Then click on the 
to make them into a Replacement. Enter the name of the
replacement and select its type. In the example below, we selected ”lvi-filter”,
entered ”access-list name” as the name and selected Text type from the
Type drop down list.
Click on the OK button.
Once the part is set as a replacement, it is highlighted in yellow in the
Commands field. We next select an IP address to make it into a template.
Add a replacement of type IP address with a name ”Source IP” in the same manner.
The IP Address type requires the replacement value
(specified later) to be a valid IP address.
Now the replacement have two possible values, each corresponds to the IP address
of the different web server which needs a logging. This can be later selected for
each device in Replacement Values section. This feature is convenient when the
number of choices are limited.
Adding another conditional type replacement with a name ”logging?”
for the log entry.
Setting the Conditional Type replacement for the log entry.
When you reuse the same replacement several times in the different parts
of the text, select each portion of the text and drag-and-drop the replacements
in the list directly onto the Commands field.
If the number of replacements get larger, click on 
to add a Replacement Group.
Add some groups and manage the replacements with the arrow buttons.
The navigation would be intuitive enough.
In each dialog, enabling Use selection as default value sets the selected value
in the configuration text area as the default value of the replacement to be made.
In Type dropdown list, you can specify the expected type of the input value.
When you make a Smart Change template, this will not only ease the
tasks to edit each device values, but also ensures that only the correct
configurations are sent to the devices.
Below, we show the available types of the replacements:
Text Any text.
Hostname Hostname.
IP address An IP address. It accepts only those texts which
conform to the correct IPv4 and IPv6 format.
IP or Hostname IP address or hostname.
Choice It makes a dropdown list for selection, which means
that only the prede- fined value is accepted.
Conditional It makes a checkbox to enable or disable it.
If the checkbox is disabled on a device, the replacement is simply an empty string.
Now let’s run the Smart Change. In order to add the devices to run the Smart
Change (process 3 in Sec. 3.7, p.92), we use the tab-switching technique, which
we do not describe here (refer to Sec. 3.7, p.92).
Open the Replacement Values sub tab in the status pane and assign the
replacement value to each device. The interface is dynamically generated
according to which kind of replacements are included in this Smart Change.
On Schedule tab, add the trigger by clicking 
. For more details, see Sec. 3.7.
Finally,do not forget to click on the 
button to save the job. Now the Smart
Change jobs are fully setup. Once you click on the Jobs tab → Run Now button, netLD runs the job immediately.
You can import/export the replacement values of IP address for devices in a spreadsheet.
Click on the 
(export) and 
(import) in the top-right corner of the status pane.
You can also run the job from the Devices Tab. Tools menu → Smart Change shows
the list of Smart Change jobs currently available. Click on the one you would like to execute.