This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.
What this hour is for
A golden config is the stanza you intend: the banner, the AAA method, the NTP source, the management ACL. The checker reads a config you paste and shows a section. It does not push a fix.
Paste a config you are allowed to hold, redacted. A gap is a ticket. An automatic remediation that pushes the golden file at midnight will also push the mistake in the golden file. This page does not turn that on.
One section, one device class. A golden file that contains a password is a golden file you rebuild with prompt-for-this.
Compliance here is your own standard. It is not a certification and not an auditor's signature.
The change you can finish
Apply nothing during the writing of the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the device named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the device, then decide.
Rollback is the file or the revision you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.
- Name the stanza.
- Paste one redacted config you may hold.
- Read the gap.
- Write a ticket.
- Do not enable auto-remediation.
- Do not call the result a certification.
Mistakes that outlive the command
Golden Config and Compliance Checking goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- A password in the golden file.
- Auto-remediation enabled from this reading.
- A config you do not administer.
- A certification claimed.
- Every section in one pass with no owner.
Decisions to write down
One decision for Golden Config and Compliance Checking: The config is yours. The stanza is one section. The gap is a ticket. Remediation is not automatic. And this is not a certification.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: The section is named. The gap is written. The golden file has no secret. Nothing was pushed. And no certification was claimed. If one of those fails, stop.
Before you leave the device
Golden Config and Compliance Checking ends when the hostname on the device matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong box. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong box is not progress.
The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the device and does not know which interface is the uplink. You delete a line that names a device, a zone, or a prefix you did not write down.
0.0.0.0/0 is not kept because a sample included it. A source you can say is the source you keep. 192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. They belong in the note. They are not prefixes you type onto a production device because they appeared in a draft.
prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, a community string, or a pre-shared key you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the store.
One change is the window. A VLAN and a routing protocol and a VPN do not share it. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next feature waits for its own page.
If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied config produces a device nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.
A second person reads the device name and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the device alone.
This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not a permission to touch a network you do not administer. The pillar guide owns the wider design. This page owns one lab proof.
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