Configuring the SSH client for the Perl CLI module

The Perl CLI module requires an SSH client that is comparable to the SSH client in OpenSSH 2.0 or higher. The OpenSSH application is bundled with most UNIX-based operating systems.

Because SSH command-line options take precedence over user-specified or system-wide SSH configuration files, the Perl CLI module includes certain options in its SSH command-line invocations to ensure that the following configurations are not overridden:

• Try SSH version 2, and fall back to version 1 if version 2 is not available.

• Use password authentication only.

• Connect to the standard SSH port number, port 22, on the remote host.

• Add a new host to the user’s database of known hosts without prompting the user for confirmation.

  After installing the SSH client software, you, as the administrator, perform the following additional configuration tasks:

• Specify the path to the SSH client executable (mandatory).

• Enable the Perl CLI module to create log files (optional).

  You edit the appropriate perl-cli.conf file, BASEDIR/smarts/conf/eigrp/perl-cli.conf or BASEDIR/smarts/conf/isis/perl-cli.conf, to perform these tasks. The name/value entries to be edited are:

  debug=0
  # ssh_client=/usr/bin/ssh
  

  To specify the path to the SSH client executable and to enable the creation of log files:

  1. Go to the BASEDIR/smarts/bin directory in the Network Protocol Manager installation area and type the following command to open the perl-cli.conf file:

                          sm_edit 
                          conf/eigrp/perl-cli.conf
     -or-
     sm_edit 
                          conf/isis/perl-cli.conf
                       

  2. Find the following entries:

     debug=0,
     # ssh_client=/usr/bin/ssh
     

  3. Uncomment the ssh_client entry and set its value to the full path of the SSH client executable.

     For example:

     ssh_client=/usr/local/openssh/bin/ssh
     

  4. Optional: Set the debug flag to 1 to enable the creation of log files:

     debug=1
     

  5. Save and close the file. The modified version of the perl-cli.conf file is saved to the BASEDIR/smarts/local/conf/eigrp|isis directory.

  6. If Network Protocol Manager for EIGRP/ Network Protocol Manager for IS-IS was running before you edited the perl-cli.conf file, restart the manager.