The package editor

Opening a package from Packages (or Edit on its catalogue page) opens the editor. Its sidebar replaces the one of the application:

• My packages to go back, the Package picker (choosing another package opens the same section of it), and the save status: Saved, Saving…, Offline: changes are kept or Not saved yet: retrying;
• the sections, organised like the tenant menu of the platform: Overview, Node management (Manufacturers, Models, Profiles with SNMP and CLI; the entries marked Soon come in a later version), then Versions;
• Settings at the bottom.

Editing together, live

There is no Save button in the editor: every change is saved as you type. Several editors can work on the same package at once; their changes appear as they type, the sidebar shows who is editing, and a field someone else is editing is outlined in their colour. If your connection drops, your changes are kept and sent when it comes back.

Your changes do not reach platforms until you publish a version: the head of every section shows Unpublished changes when the content differs from the last version.

Lists and item pages

Each part of the content is a table with a search box: Manufacturers, Models, SNMP profiles, CLI profiles and Profiles. Select rows to remove several items at once. The New … button at the top asks for a name (and a few essentials), then opens the new item’s page, where everything else is filled in, tab by tab.

Manufacturers

A manufacturer is a vendor of network equipment, such as MikroTik. New manufacturer asks for its name. Its page has two tabs, General and Models.

Field	Content
Name	Required.
Logo	PNG, SVG, JPEG or WebP, 512 KB at most. Also shown for its models.
Website	https://www.example.com
Support site	https://support.example.com
Support contact	Email address or phone number: support@example.com
Description	Shown on the platform with the manufacturer.

A manufacturer used by models cannot be removed: give them another manufacturer or remove them first.

Models

A model is a kind of equipment of a manufacturer of the package, such as CRS326-24G-2S+. New model asks for its Name and Manufacturer (add a manufacturer first: Every model belongs to a manufacturer). Its page has two tabs:

• General: Name, Manufacturer (its logo is the logo of the model), Description.
• Connection: how the platform behaves once it has opened a CLI session on the equipment.

Field	Content
Control key	None, or a control character from Ctrl-A to Ctrl-Z, sent right after the connection is opened, before the script. Some switches wait for Ctrl-Y at their banner.
Connection script	Lines typed one by one once connected, after the control key: typically commands that turn paging off. 200 lines and 10 000 characters at most.

Example of a connection script for a switch that needs the privileged mode and no paging:

enable
terminal more disable

For another vendor it could be a single terminal length 0.

SNMP profiles

How platforms talk SNMP to the equipment. New SNMP profile asks for its name and Version (SNMPv1, SNMPv2c or SNMPv3). Its page has two tabs:

• General: Name, Version, Port (empty: 161), Description.
• Credentials: depends on the version. Fields that do not apply are hidden and cleared.

SNMPv1 / SNMPv2c

Field	Example
Community	public (sent in clear text by SNMPv1 and v2c)

SNMPv3

Field	Example
User name	snmpadmin (the SNMPv3 user)
Security level	Authentication and privacy (authPriv); also noAuthNoPriv and authNoPriv
Authentication protocol	SHA-256 (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-384, SHA-512 also offered; the platform shows MD5 and SHA-1 as MD-5 and SHA)
Authentication password	s3cr3t-example, 8 characters at least
Privacy protocol	AES-128 (DES, AES-192, AES-256 also offered)
Privacy password	s3cr3t-example, 8 characters at least
Context name	Optional

CLI profiles

How platforms open a command line session. New CLI profile asks for its name and Protocol (SSH or Telnet). Tabs:

• General: Name, Protocol, Port (empty: 22 for SSH, 23 for Telnet), Description.
• Credentials: User name (optional: Telnet may log in with a password only), Authentication method (Password or Private key), Password, Enable password (optional, for the privileged mode).

A private key is never part of a package: with Private key, the key and its passphrase are supplied on each platform.

An SNMP or CLI profile used by profiles cannot be removed: give them another one or remove them first.

Profiles

A profile is a ready-made way to reach a kind of equipment, under one name: an SNMP profile, a CLI profile or both, plus any other logins and values the equipment needs. On the platform it appears in Node management › Profiles.

New profile asks for its Name (such as Campus access switch), its SNMP profile and its CLI profile (choose at least one; add them in SNMP and CLI first). Its page has three tabs: General, Additional credentials and Custom variables.

Additional credentials

Other logins of the equipment besides its SNMP and CLI profiles: its web interface, its API… New credentials opens a dialog with Name (such as Web UI or REST API), User name and Password. Up to 20 per profile, each with a unique name. The table shows Stored instead of a password.

Custom variables

Free values for anything else: addresses, ports, API paths, tokens. New variable opens a dialog:

Field	Rule
Name	Letters, digits and _, not starting with a digit, unique in the profile: api_url
Value	Free text, may be empty: https://192.0.2.10:8443/rest
Secret	When on, the value is masked here and encrypted on the platforms.
Description	Optional, one line.

Up to 50 per profile. The value is used as written, and each tenant of a platform can set its own value: see Additional credentials & custom variables.

Example: a ready-to-use profile

The package Campus switching profiles used in these pages ships two profiles. The first one, Campus access switch, combines:

Part	Content
SNMP profile	Campus SNMPv3 (authPriv): SNMPv3, port 161, user campus-monitor, SHA-256 and AES-128
CLI profile	Campus SSH: SSH, port 22, user netops, a password and an enable password
Additional credentials	Web UI: admin / s3cr3t-example
Custom variables	syslog_server = 192.0.2.10 (the syslog collector of the campus)

The second, Campus legacy switch, pairs Campus SNMP v2c (community public) with Campus Telnet console. A platform that installs the package gets these profiles ready to use; each tenant then replaces the example values with its own.

Secrets in packages

Values in a package are readable by anyone who downloads it

Communities, passwords, additional credentials and secret variables are masked in the editor (use the eye button to show a value), but they travel in clear inside the package file. Anyone who can download the package can read them. The editor says so on every Credentials tab: Anyone who can download this package can read these values. Keep to the vendor defaults (such as public or rwa): each platform can set its own.

Only ever put vendor defaults in a package: the factory community or account documented by the manufacturer. Never put the real credentials of your network.

On the platforms, these values are stored encrypted, and each tenant can set its own values over them. The catalogue page of a package names credentials and variables but never shows their values.

Errors in the content

When something cannot be kept (a model without a manufacturer, a port outside 1–65535, an SNMPv3 password under 8 characters, a duplicate name…), the field is marked with the reason and the tab or row shows a warning icon. Fix it before publishing.