New Feature Idea

[Chad.Shipman]

Lets see if I can explain this right.. I work with alot of Cisco's, and embeded system that has a) shells in them b) firmware or IOS images.

Right now to upgrade most of them either I have to find my tftp server, start it up and such then login to the box and download / upload the image, etc. Cisco equipment has the ability to use either tftp or FTP (which you can have setup for username and password, I just don't like the idea of having my IOS images sitting around on a ftp server).

The idea is to have a small tftp/ftp server inside of secureCRT/secureFX (maybe a feature for buying the combo pack) that would give me the ability to turn on a ftp server in the software so that I could download / upload the images to the machines. Since it would be only for connecting to the IP that your currently logged into it could be locked to only allow that IP to access the ftp portion.

That could then be tied to some custom scripts so that all you would need to do is place your IOS images in a ftproot dir on your machine and login to the router, etc and have a dialog box that asks Image install Location and Image File name. then it would upload ,etc.

Hope this makes since, it does to me atleast and so far I haven't really come across anything else (atleast in 1 package) that would give me this ability.

Chad Shipman

[adudek]

Chad,
Since you have the same vendor I do, I hope you agree that Y-modem support would be helpful especially if you have do DL IOS over the console.

Aaron

[Chad.Shipman]

Well.. Actually I guess I'm luckly but I have never had to do a x or y modem via console, I mainly work with gear that has rmon, boot ios, then running ios. I make sure that the boot IOS runs, then upgrade the running version so that if it fails it will drop back to the boot ios and atleast bring up the FA intefaces.

The biggest thing I want to be able to do is use FTP to upload new IOS as it screams compared to tftp, but I hate typing the username/password and such into the copy command becasue it will get long enough to where it wraps around the screen and you forget what you had already typed.

[tnygren]

Hi Chad,

I just want to make certain that I understand completely.

You would like to see a small FTP server built into SecureFX so that the Cisco FTP client could connect and download the image.

Is this correct?

Would the FTP server need to be integrated in SecureFX or could it be separate?

[Chad.Shipman]

Well that is the basic idea. ftp and tftp both would be nice since some embeded things only support tftp. One of the main objectives here is that the ftp server can be "locked" via ip address to the client router that you are connecting to. Between that locking and the ftp / tftp server not being active unless specified would provide security for any of your firmware, IOS images, etc.

Here is a example. say your workstation is (I will use internal ip's for example only) 192.168.1.100 and your router is 192.168.1.2.

The idea of this feature would allow you to login to the router and do this:

copy ftp://192.168.1.100/IOS-of-the-month.bin slot0:IOS-of-the-month

Which could then be taken a step futher since we already know a) the IP address of the ftp server b) the ftp server dosn't need a login since it is IP locked. so you could login to the router and bring up a upgrade dialog box that asks. Image to upload (click to select) and a dropdown box or so that list the locations you can upload to (slot0 / slot1 / disk0 / disk1 / nvram / rom / etc). Click ok and it builds the cmd line and inputs it into the router and off we go with a ios upgrade.

Granted this can mostly already be done between somebody writting a Script addon and having a tftp sever on your machine that you can start, etc. The idea behind this is intergration, simplicity, and just plain lets get it done and over.

Does it have to be part of SecureFX... well, I wouldn't think so, could be a full seperate product I would think.. SecureFS (Secure Firmware Server) or so. I was just thinking of having it with the SecureFX and having it "unlock" when you intergrated SecureCRT and SecureFX together, would be some more value add to the total package.

[tnygren]

Hi Chad,

Thank you for the great clarification!

I have added a request for a FTP/TFTP server that could be integrated with SecureFX to our features request database.

If this is added, we will make a post here.

If you would prefer an email notification, please send me a message at support@vandyke.com with a subject of ATTN: Teresa Forum Thread 1649.

[gan]

Originally Posted by Chad.Shipman

Image to upload (click to select) and a dropdown box or so that list the locations you can upload to (slot0 / slot1 / disk0 / disk1 / nvram / rom / etc). Click ok and it builds the cmd line and inputs it into the router and off we go with a ios upgrade.

The list mention above should be a list were it's possible to easy add new flash location names using the gui since there are so many options in addition to the list above like sup-bootflash, bootflash and several others.
Also for some Cisco equipment you would normally use another syntax instead of the "copy tftp flash....etc" like "archive tar /x....etc" and "archive download-sw tftp://test.bin" with several differenet parameters that some users use and some don't. Unless it's easy to customize i don't think it would be very useful. The list of flash devices and several different syntax might give so many options that it's easier to just type what you want though.
It should be a optional feature as well i think for those that prefer to use another tftp/ftp server if it will be integrated.