Managing remote file servers
A remote file server is used to define where device OS images might be stored outside of the BMC Network Automation local database. Normally, OS image snapshot and deploy actions use the local database to store the OS image files. The file is transferred between the BMC Network Automation server and the device agent, and between the device agent and the device. Because image files can be large, transferring them might increase the traffic load on your network in an undesirable way. You can choose to store your image files on a remote host instead, where this host is remote from the BMC Network Automation server and agent systems, but is local to, or physically co-located with the device.
Note
If a device is configured to use a remote file server and the device is using a device agent which is configured to use a proxy file server, and while performing Deploy OS Image and Snapshot OS Image actions you choose the From Remote File Server option, the remote file server is used to perform the actions.
A remote file server defines the host name or IP address of the host system, and the file transfer servers available on that system, with credentials for using FTP and SCP. Once one or more such servers are defined, you can then associate each device with its remote file server, run OS image snapshot actions to copy OS image files from the device to the remote file server, and run OS image deploy actions to copy OS image files from the remote file server to the device.
Note
BMC Network Automation cannot determine the files you have stored on a remote file server. Thus, for an Deploy OS Image action, you must know the exact file name for the image file, its size (in bytes), and MD5 checksum. Because BMC Network Automation does not store the image file in its image library, you cannot later redeploy from the library. The same is true for image snapshot; BMC Network Automation does not add the file to the OS image library and thus you cannot later deploy the image from the library.
The following topics describe how to add and edit remote file servers, and view the list of remote file servers:
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