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
The sanitizer drafts a removal of keys, communities, and passwords from a config you paste. You paste a file you are allowed to hold. You read the output, because a sanitizer misses formats it was not shown.
If a secret survived, treat it as exposed: rotate it, then share the cleaned file. Do not share the original. A hostname that identifies a production edge may also be more than a vendor forum needs. Generalize it.
One file. A forum, a ticket, and a git repo are different audiences. Write which one. None of them get the raw export from a firewall you do not administer.
This checklist is not permission to post someone else's configuration.
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.
- Confirm the file is yours to share.
- Run the sanitizer.
- Read for a leftover secret.
- Rotate anything that remained.
- Generalize hostnames if the audience is public.
- Share the cleaned copy only.
Mistakes that outlive the command
How to Safely Share Device Configs goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- The raw file posted.
- A leftover key ignored.
- Someone else's config.
- A public repo used as the secret store.
- Hostnames of a live edge in a forum.
Decisions to write down
One decision for How to Safely Share Device Configs: The file is yours. The shared copy was read. Leftover secrets were rotated. The audience is named. And the raw file was not the one you sent.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: One file is named. The cleaned copy exists. Rotation, if needed, is written. The audience is written. And the raw export was not posted. If one of those fails, stop.
Before you leave the device
How to Safely Share Device Configs 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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