Community Strings

Creating a Community String File

Community Strings

When you start VlanDirector, you need to provide information on the community strings for your network. Enter this information in the Communities field in the VlanDirector startup window, the VlanDirector Open Network window, or on the command line.

This appendix provides guidance and options on how to complete the Communities field and provides information and examples on how to create a community string file.

Community strings restrict access to a device by requiring users to know what the strings are. All switches have two community strings. The read-only string allows you to display information on a device, and the read-write community string allows you to modify information on a device. The default read-only community string for all switches is "public," and the default read-write community string for all switches is "private." The VlanDirector application has a default read-only community string of public and no default read-write community string.

In the Communities field in the VlanDirector Startup window, enter the name of the communities file or the community strings for the known network as described below:

If you have not changed the community strings for your switches (the default values are "public" for read-only, and "private" for read-write), complete the Communities field as follows:


-wr private

If you have changed the default values of the read-only or read-write community strings, and the changed community strings are the same for all devices on the network, enter the following in the Communites field:


-rd light -wr day

In this example, light is the read-only community string for all devices on the network and day is the read-write community string for all devices on the network.

If you have changed the default values of the community strings, and the strings are not the same for all devices on the network, enter the name of the community string file for the network. If you do not have a file, create one using the format and examples provided in Appendix A.
If you want read-only access to the switches, and if you have not changed the default values of private for the read-only string or public for read-write community string on any of your switches, leave the Communities field blank, and continue to the next step. With read-only access, you will not be able to perform configuration changes, such as adding ports to a VLAN.

Creating a Community String File

The community string file contains one or more lines indicating the community strings for the devices on your network.

Each entry in the file can contain community strings for one or more devices, and must use the following format:

If you want the file to apply to all switches on your known network, replace the value <switch name of IP address> with one or more spaces as follows:

If a file includes multiple entries for the same switch, VlanDirector uses the last entry in the file.

The following are examples of community string files.

Example 1

In this example, all devices on the network have the read-only string "jane" and the read-write string "joe." White space must precede the word "jane" and the word "joe.". These values are used for all devices for which no other entry is provided.

jane joe

Example 2

In this example, the read-only and read-write string for all devices on the network is "jane." The second line is a comment string, which is ignored. A line consisting of only white space is a comment and is also ignored.

jane

# this is a comment string

Example 3

In this example, for the switch named "jewel," "ruby" is the read-only community string, and "jade" is the read-write community string. For all other switches, "jane" is the read community string, and "joe" is the write community string.

jewel ruby jade

jane joe

The community string file can contain a line for each device, if necessary.

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