Troubleshooting Credentials¶

Credentials are an important aspect of the Golden Config application. In order to capture backup configs the application must have credentials to login to network devices. Golden Config simply utilizes another library to generate the inventory and to populate the credentials to use.

At the time of writing this there are three main credentials types that Golden Config can utilize.

Environment Variables
Configuration Settings Variables
Nautobot Integrated Secrets Group Functionality

These are documented in the Nautobot Plugin Nornir documentation.

No Username/Password Preemptively Failed¶

This will cover some things to check for each of the credentials classes supported.

Environment Variables
- Make sure the PLUGIN_CONFIG is correct and the credentials class do not have a typo.
```
PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
"nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
    "nornir_settings": {
       "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.env_vars.CredentialsEnvVars"
        },
    }
}
```
- Make sure the three environment variables are defined and accessible in the worker node. Please refer here for details:
  - NAPALM_USERNAME
  - NAPALM_PASSWORD
  - DEVICE_SECRET
Configuration Settings Variables
- Make sure the PLUGIN_CONFIG is correct and the credentials class do not have a typo.
- Make sure the username, password, and secret is nested under nautobot_plugin_nornir and not under nornir_settings.
```
PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
        "nornir_settings": {
            "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.settings_vars.CredentialsSettingsVars",
        },
        "username": "ntc",
        "password": "password123",
        "secret": "password123",
    }
}
```
Info

A common pattern is to have these username/password/secrets reference "other" environment variables using the os.getenv() python function. This pattern works well, but the environment variables MUST be resolvable from within the workers environment.
Nautobot Integrated Secrets Group Functionality

This credentials class uses the Nautobot core functionality for secrets/secret_groups. There is some caveats to this feature and some troubleshooting tips are provided below.
- Make sure the PLUGIN_CONFIG is correct and the credentials class do not have a typo.
```
PLUGINS_CONFIG = {
    "nautobot_plugin_nornir": {
        "nornir_settings": {
            "credentials": "nautobot_plugin_nornir.plugins.credentials.nautobot_secrets.CredentialsNautobotSecrets",
        }
    }
}
```
- Make sure you have the secrets defined and properly linked to environment variables or text file(s).
- Make sure the secrets are assigned to a secret_group and that the proper "types" are used.
  
  Warn
  
  This credentials class is expecting some defaults to be used to auto load the credentials. The below "types" must be used if the default PLUGIN_CONFIG from above is used. If the Access Type needs to be changed see Nautobot Secrets Nornir Docs.
  - Access Type = "Generic" and Secret_Type = "Username" and linked to the secret objects that links to the username.
  - Access Type = "Generic" and Secret_Type = "Password" and linked to the secret objects that links to the password.
  - Access Type = "Generic" and Secret_Type = "Secret" and linked to the secret objects that links to the secret.
- Make sure the secret_group is applied to the device.
  - Edit device object and save it with a secret_group that identifies the credentials for that device.