All_about_network

As on the AR 19-X boxes I had an opportunity to work on new VRP (which stands for Versatile Routing Platform and is equal to CISCO’s IOS) the version was 5.20 and 5.20 release 1618. I have to admit  that I was kind of disappointed. There are two major setbacks.

• The CLI is forcing you to use complete commands

This would be kind of acceptable if this was system-wide requirement bud no this behavior is purely random set on some places of the CLI tree. The mos irritating thing is usage of “sys” command as an abbreviation for system-view. This shortcut worked on all VRP I was working on (since 3.20 which was released about 5 years ago). Now when you enter “sys” in user view instead of entering the system vie you just receive the “command incomplete” message. One could thing that there is other command starting with “sys” characters, but one would be wrong. Even if there is no alternative the VRP is forcing you to write the whole command.

You can think this is a small inconvenience but if you take in account the bigger picture you got to the point you will realize that this will lead to only one solution – even the most complex commands will be now written in the whole. So instead “rul 5 ip per sou 10.0.0.1 0 de 10.0.0.2 0″ you definitely need to write “rule 5 permit ip source 10.0.0.1 0 destination 10.0.0.2 0″. This still seems as a minor change few tab keys will do the filling but… the problem is the length itself. As all VRPs (and 5.20 is no difference) have problem with breaking the long line commands you will stuck with re-writing every command you made mistake in anew.  In some routine work this is not a big issue but when you do a lot of configuring changes this becomes a real pain in the arse.

• Total lack of documentation

As usually the new major release of the software comes with little to no documentation and this is double more valid for English docs.  And as usual there are functions described in documents that does not exist and example configs that does not work (usually because there is some port of the config in other document but that document is not linked or mentioned anywhere). I think that the software was prepared and launched before  about 1/2 year so it is a shame that this basic documents needed by engineers and customers around globe are in such horrible shape.

• ssh/telnet servers

This is actually one thing I like but which caused me great deal of troubles. As till now telnet and ssh servers were running by default on every router, but since VRP 5.20 you have to issue telnet (or ssh) server enable in the system-view root to start it. This is actually good because it saves resources or the router and does not offer a possible security hole. But there is one major BUT. This is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation regarding creating the remote access!

So after my first touch of this CLI I have to say – it is as usual the software is working fine but there are many things to finish and polish. As for documents – unfortunately that is Huawei standard so I do not expect any change for better.