Method and apparatus for authorizing and reporting changes to device configurations
View Patent ↗A method and apparatus for tracking and reporting changes to configuration files as part of an overall system auditing function and as a measure of efficiency of change review board procedures. Changes in configuration of network devices made by submitters of such changes are recorded in a separate repository and, at appropriate intervals, forwarded to network administrators and subject matter experts both to verify the correctness of the literal change and to confirm that the changes have been previously approved.
1. A method for authorizing and reporting configuration changes to devices in a network, the method comprising the steps of:
accepting a change request specifying a device in the network and a proposed configuration change to the device;
receiving notification when configuration files for devices in the network have been edited;
writing configuration files to a version control repository;
determining the version differences engendered by the editing of the configuration files;
creating an HTML page visually depicting the version differences; and
sending an email message with a URL referencing the HTML page, the recipients of the email message determined by consulting a lookup table mapping the names of configuration files to email addresses.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:
restoring a prior configuration in response to a request denying approval for a change request thereby effecting a rollback.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:
certifying a change by tagging the change procedure as approved.
4. The method of claim 1 comprising the step of:
ascertaining that the email message containing version differences is sent to subject matter expert for the device configuration to be changed and to the system administrate.