Adding or editing a realm

This topic provides instructions on creating a realm, assigning devices to the realm, and granting access to the realm by using roles. You can also assign realms by using the Device Import function.

On the Network > Spans > Realms page, do the following:

1. Do one of the following:
   • To define a new realm, click Add on the menu bar.
   • To create a new realm by duplicating and editing an existing realm, click Copy  in the Actions icons.
   • To edit attributes for an existing realm, click Edit in the Actions icons.
2. Specify or edit a realm name.
3. In the Purging section, define the following device-related purging parameters:
   
   1. Purge Offline Devices After (Optional): Select to specify when TrueSight Network Automation should delete a device belonging to this realm that has been in Offline state for the selected number of days. Range is 30 to 1827 days.
   2. Purge Historical Hardware Inventories After (Optional): Select to specify how many days to keep historical hardware inventory of a device belonging to this realm. Inventories older than the specified time are automatically purged. The current hardware inventory is never purged. Range is 7 to 366 days.

   3. Purge Historical Hardware Inventories After the Count Exceeds (Optional): Select to specify how many historical hardware inventories of a device belonging to this realm to store before purging the oldest. Range is 1 to 100.
      
      

      Notes

      • At least one purge option, Purge Historical Hardware Inventories After or Purge Historical Hardware Inventories After the Count Exceeds must be selected for a realm. Both the purge options cannot be disabled.
      • If you select Purge Historical Hardware Inventories After and Purge Historical Hardware Inventories After the Count Exceeds, purging is done when a hardware inventory complies with either option (too many or too old).
   4. In the Fallback Purge Criteria section, define the configuration purge criteria for devices in this realm that should be applied to those configurations that do not fall into either the Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails or Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types settings:
      
      1. Purge Historical Configurations After (Optional): Select to specify how many days to keep historical configuration files. Configuration files older than the specified time are automatically purged. The trusted configuration is never purged. Range is 30 to 1827 days.

      2. Purge Historical Configurations After the Count Exceeds (Optional): Select to specify how many historical configuration files to store before purging the oldest configuration file. Range is 1 to 100.
         
         

         Note

         At least one purge option, Purge Historical Configurations After or Purge Historical Configurations After the Count Exceeds must be selected for a realm. Both the purge options cannot be disabled.

   5. Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails: (Optional) Select to specify how to purge historical configuration files of devices in this realm on a per configuration trail basis. After selecting Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails, perform one of the following actions:
      
      

      Icon	Action	Description
      	Add	Add a new configuration trail purge criteria.
      	Edit	Edit a selected configuration trail purge criteria.
      	Delete	Delete a selected configuration trail purge criteria.

   6. Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types (Optional): Select to specify how to purge historical configuration files of devices in this realm on a per device type basis. After selecting Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types, perform one of the following actions:
      
      

      Icon	Action	Description
      	Add	Add a new device type purge criteria.
      	Edit	Edit a selected device type trail purge criteria.
      	Delete	Delete a selected device type purge criteria.

      Notes

      • Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails and Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types can be specified only for enabled configuration trails or device types.
      • At least one purge option, Purge Historical Configurations After or Purge Historical Configurations After the Count Exceeds must be selected for an individual configuration trail or device type purge criteria. Both the purge options cannot be disabled.
      • When you specify overlapping purge criteria by selecting Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types and Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails, the historical configurations for the configuration trail are purged by matching the purge criteria specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails or Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types, whichever matches first. For specific examples, see the section at the end of the procedure.
      • If a given configuration trail or device type is disabled, the purge criteria specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails and Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types are deleted automatically.
      • Purge Historical Configurations After a set number of days and Purge Historical Configurations After Count Exceeds a set number of configurations differ in performance. Purging historical configurations by a set number of days is much faster than purging by a set number of configurations.
      • On Mozilla Firefox, when you delete several individual purge criteria for configuration trail or device type in quick succession, the pop-up dialog box with the message, Prevent this page from creating additional dialogs is displayed. If you select this option, you cannot perform any further delete action until you refresh the page.
4. Fill in any dynamic fields, such as Description.

5. Click Save.
   The system ensures that you subsequently are able to edit or delete any newly-added realm. If you have full network rights, you have such access by default; if you do not have full network rights, the system automatically adds a new role that allows you to edit and delete the new realm only. 
   
   

   Note

   However, the Network Automation system does not automatically grant you privileges to create other things related to a new realm; you must obtain those rights from your system administrator.

6. Open the Devices page by navigating to Network > Spans > Devices in the GUI.
7. Add devices to the realm as follows:
   1. Use the Device Filter to select devices to include in the realm (for example, filter by Type=Default).
   2. Set the Show items per page to 1000 to display as many devices as possible.
   3. Select all devices by using the check box in the upper left hand corner.
   4. Use the Device Edit option to set the realm on the selected devices.
      
      
      The Edit Multiple Device dialog box appears.
   5. From the Realm list, select the realm to which you want to assign the selected devices. For example, Aspen Reserved Equipment.
      
      
   6. Select Save to place all the selected devices into the realm. 
      
      
8. Open the Roles page by navigating to Admin > User Admin > Roles.
9. Create a User role as follows:
   1. On the Details tab, specify the role name and description.
   2. On the System Rights tab, assign system rights for this role, as shown in the following figure:
      
      
   3. On the Network Rights tab, select one of the following options:
      • Full Rights: Grant all rights in all realms.

      • Selected Rights: Grant selected rights in selected realms.
        
        For Selected Rights, select a realm, if more than one realm exists, and select specific rights from the tree, as shown in the following figure. You can grant different rights in different realms.
        
        
        
        

        Note

        When you change the realm in a group that includes custom rights, the Access Control List (ACL) is cleared back to all default rights (instead of allowing illegal rights to cross realms).

   4. Click Save to create the user role.
      
      The role is added to the list of roles.
10. Repeat the previous steps for each restricted device group or tenant.

Example of purging when "Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails" and "Purge Historical Configurations By Device Type" are selected

The Cisco IOS Switch/Router device type has three supported configuration trails: Running, Startup, and IOS vlan.dat.

Consider a scenario with the following "purge after days" conditions:

• Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails for the Running configuration trail after 30 days.
• Purge Historical Configurations By Device Type for the Cisco IOS Switch/Router after 90 days.
  
  

The historical configurations for the Running configuration trail that are older than 30 days are purged by the purge criteria specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails.
The historical configurations for the remaining configurations trails, Startup and IOS vlan.dat that are older than 90 days are purged by the purge criteria specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types.

Consider the reverse scenario with the following "purge after days" conditions:

• Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails for the Running configuration trail after 90 days.
• Purge Historical Configurations By Device Type for the Cisco IOS Switch/Router after 30 days.
  
  

In this scenario, the historical configurations for the Running, Startup, and IOS vlan.dat. configuration trails that are older than 30 days are purged by the purge criteria specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types.
The historical configurations for the Running configuration trail specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Configuration Trails are overridden by the purge criteria specified in Purge Historical Configurations By Device Types. The more aggressive purging criteria is applied.

The above scenarios, which are applicable to "purge after days" conditions, are also applicable to "purge after the count exceeds" conditions.