{"id":4825,"date":"2025-09-23T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nl1g1e2381-staging.onrocket.site\/?p=4825"},"modified":"2025-09-22T11:15:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T18:15:03","slug":"prevent-network-outages-from-uncommitted-configs-using-nqe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/23\/prevent-network-outages-from-uncommitted-configs-using-nqe\/","title":{"rendered":"Prevent Network Outages from Uncommitted Configs Using NQE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"hidden_risk\">The Hidden Risk of Uncommitted Cisco Configs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Cisco devices don\u2019t warn you before rebooting with unsaved changes. A missed write memory means the running config is lost\u2014and the device reloads with an outdated startup config. That\u2019s how critical updates disappear, outages happen, and incidents get escalated. Manually checking for this drift across hundreds or thousands of devices is tedious and error-prone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"value\">Business Value of Config Drift Detection<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Prevent Outages:<\/strong> Eliminate device reload surprises by detecting unsaved changes in advance<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Enforce Operational Hygiene:<\/strong> Ensure all changes are properly committed across environments<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Audit-Ready Insights:<\/strong> Capture and report drift with structure and precision<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Scale Across the Network:<\/strong> Run a single query to check every device in your Cisco estate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"nqe_script\">How the NQE Script Works<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This NQE script checks for differences between the startup and running configurations on Cisco devices. It filters out irrelevant lines (like timestamps or system boot info), compares both configs line by line, and reports any differences as violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also labels:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Lines present in the <strong>running config but not in startup<\/strong> (uncommitted)<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lines present in the <strong>startup config but missing from running<\/strong> (removed)<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Use this as a snapshot-based drift detector across your entire Cisco fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"breakdown\">Full Script Breakdown<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s the full NQE query provided by the Forward Networks community:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>exceptionsList = &#91;\n  \"Current Configuration ...\",\n  \"\",\n  \"boot system.*\"\n];\n\nexceptions(line) = \nforeach item in exceptionsList \nwhere hasMatch(line, regex(item))\nselect line;\n\nflatten(outer) =\n  foreach list in outer\n  foreach item in list\n  select item;\n\nconfig(device, show) =\nforeach command in device.outputs.commands\nwhere command.commandText == show\nlet response = parseConfigBlocks(device.platform.os, command.response)\n  let text = (foreach line in response\n      let lines = if length(line.children) == 0\n          then &#91;line.text]\n          else &#91;line.text] + flatten(foreach line1 in line.children\n               select if length(line1.children) == 0\n                   then &#91;line1.text]\n                   else &#91;line1.text] + flatten(foreach line2 in line1.children\n                        select if length(line2.children) == 0\n                            then &#91;line2.text]\n                            else &#91;line2.text] + flatten(foreach line3 in line2.children\n                                 select if length(line3.children) == 0\n                                    then &#91;line3.text]\n                                    else &#91;line3.text] + flatten(foreach line4 in line3.children\n                                         select if length(line4.children) == 0\n                                            then &#91;line4.text]\n                                            else &#91;\"\"]))))\n            foreach item in lines\n            where item not in exceptions(item)\n            select item)\nforeach line in text \nselect line            \n;\nforeach device in network.devices\nlet runningConfig = config(device, \"show running-config\")\nlet startupConfig = config(device, \"show startup-config\")\nlet uncommitted = runningConfig - startupConfig\nlet removed = startupConfig - runningConfig\nselect {\n  violation: runningConfig != startupConfig,\n  device: device.name,\n  os: device.platform.os,\n  uncommitted,\n  removed\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>The output flags any differences and labels the device with a \"violation\": true tag if drift is detected. You can use this data for ticket generation, dashboards, or alerting workflows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out the original Forward Networks community post to copy the full script and review usage tips:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/community.forwardnetworks.com\/nqe-discussions-39\/prevent-outages-from-uncommitted-configs-using-nqe-to-compare-cisco-running-and-startup-configs-604?utm_source=chatgpt.com\">Prevent Outages from Uncommitted Configs: Using NQE to Compare Cisco Running and Startup Configs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Cisco environments, one missed write memory can spell disaster. Uncommitted changes, saved only in the running config but not in startup, can be wiped out during a reboot, causing outages and rollback failures. With Forward Networks\u2019 Network Query Engine (NQE), teams can automatically detect discrepancies between running and startup configs across all Cisco devices, ensuring every critical change is properly saved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[681],"class_list":["post-4825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authors":[{"term_id":681,"user_id":24,"is_guest":0,"slug":"aricabeckstead","display_name":"Arica Beckstead","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AricaBeckstead.png","url2x":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AricaBeckstead.png"},"author_category":"1","user_url":"","last_name":"Beckstead","first_name":"Arica","job_title":"Customer Success Engineer","description":"Customer Success Engineer"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4825"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4833,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions\/4833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardnetworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}