Configuring Poderosa and connecting to the pods
Poderosa is a scriptable tabbed terminal emulator written using Microsoft’s .NET Framework. For the version of Poderosa we use, you will need the .NET Framework 1.1. In order for our scripts to work, we are using the older version of Poderosa, 3.0.0.
Go to http://en.poderosa.org/download/binary.html. Download and run the installer for Poderosa 3.0.0
Several different scripts have been written for Poderosa for our lab. These include scripts for connecting to a pod, saving your configs on the devices, saving your configs to a text file, and clearing a pod for use.
Go to http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~kotfid/poderosa/ and download the file poderosa3-scripts.zip. Extract the files to a suitable location such as C:\Poderosa\Scripts\.
We must verify some path locations that the scripts will save the device configurations to. The saveconfigs.js script grabs the configuration from each device and saves it to a text file corresponding to that device, ex. R1.txt, R2.txt, CAT1.txt, ect. The saveconfigs-onefile.js script grabs the configuration from each device and saves it to a single text file with the format MM-DD-YYYY HH.MM (AM/MP).txt. The single file method is the preferred method to submit labs. Be sure to name it something meaningful when submitting the lab.
Open saveconfigs.js in a text editor and find the line marked “//dest directory.” Replace the path with the location where you want to save your device configurations. Be sure to use double slashes (\\) in the path.
Open saveconfigs-onefile.js in a text editor and find the line marked “//dest directory.” Replace the path with the location where you want to save your device configurations. Be sure to use double slashes (\\) in the path.
Now we have to add the scripts to Poderosa.
Start Poderosa. You can uncheck the “Show this dialog in next launch” box, as we will be using a script to connect to the devices. Press OK, and then close the New Connection form. From the menu, select Tools > Macro > Configure Environment. There will be three macros listed. You can select these and press remove. Add a new macro by clicking the New button. On the Macro Property form, add the first script in the File field. Give the script an appropriate name, or leave the default. Do this for each of the files in the script directory. After adding all of the scripts, close the Macro form by pressing the OK button. It is strongly recommended that you close Poderosa after changing the macros, as any changes are only saved upon exit, and are lost if Poderosa crashes.
At the beginning of each lab, each person will sign out a pod.
Connect to your pod by selecting the macro that corresponds to your pod from the Tools > Macro menu.
If you have any problems connecting to the pod, please ask a TA.
In order to test the scripts, each device must be in what is called ‘Privileged Mode.’ Privileged mode is denoted by a pound (#) sign in the device prompt. The following is an example of privileged mode.
Router#
When a device is first booted, it is in what is called ‘User Mode.’ User mode is denoted by a greater than sign (>) in the device prompt. The following is an example of user mode.
Router>
To get from user mode to privileged mode, use the enable command.
Router>enable
Router#
If someone has previously used the device and did not erase their configs, it may be in a config mode. The following is an example of the interface configuration mode.
Router(config-if)#
To get from any of the configuration modes, use the end command.
Router(config-route)#end
Router#
Always make sure your devices are in privileged mode before running a script.
If the device has just been erased and rebooted, it will ask if you want to enter the initial configuration wizard. Type no and press enter. If it asks if you want to terminate the auto install process, type yes, and press enter.
Get all of your devices into privileged mode. Run the saveconfigs-onefile.js script. After the script has saved the configs of each of the devices, a message box will pop up stating that it is done. Verify that it has completed successfully by opening the text file and verifying that it contains configuration information.
After verifying the file, use the erase all script to clear the configuration, and reload the devices.