Network Config Validation

Use this skill to review network configuration before a change window or before an automation run touches production devices.

When to Use

• Reviewing Cisco IOS or IOS-XE style snippets before deployment.
• Auditing generated config from scripts or templates.
• Looking for dangerous commands, duplicate IP addresses, or subnet overlaps.
• Checking whether ACLs, route-maps, prefix-lists, or line policies are referenced but not defined.
• Building lightweight pre-flight scripts for network automation.

How It Works

Treat config validation as layered evidence, not as a complete parser. Regex checks are useful for pre-flight warnings, but final approval still needs a network engineer to review intent, platform syntax, and rollback steps.

Validate in this order:

1. Destructive commands.
2. Credential and management-plane exposure.
3. Duplicate addresses and overlapping subnets.
4. Stale references to ACLs, route-maps, prefix-lists, and interfaces.
5. Operational hygiene such as NTP, timestamps, remote logging, and banners.

Dangerous Command Detection

import re

DANGEROUS_PATTERNS: list[tuple[re.Pattern[str], str]] = [
    (re.compile(r"\breload\b", re.I), "reload causes downtime"),
    (re.compile(r"\berase\s+(startup|nvram|flash)", re.I), "erases persistent storage"),
    (re.compile(r"\bformat\b", re.I), "formats a device filesystem"),
    (re.compile(r"\bno\s+router\s+(bgp|ospf|eigrp)\b", re.I), "removes a routing process"),
    (re.compile(r"\bno\s+interface\s+\S+", re.I), "removes interface configuration"),
    (re.compile(r"\baaa\s+new-model\b", re.I), "changes authentication behavior"),
    (re.compile(r"\bcrypto\s+key\s+(zeroize|generate)\b", re.I), "changes device SSH keys"),
]

def find_dangerous_commands(lines: list[str]) -> list[dict[str, str | int]]:
    findings = []
    for line_number, line in enumerate(lines, start=1):
        stripped = line.strip()
        for pattern, reason in DANGEROUS_PATTERNS:
            if pattern.search(stripped):
                findings.append({
                    "line": line_number,
                    "command": stripped,
                    "reason": reason,
                })
    return findings

Duplicate IPs And Subnet Overlaps

import ipaddress
import re
from collections import Counter

IP_ADDRESS_RE = re.compile(
    r"^\s*ip address\s+"
    r"(?P<ip>\d{1,3}(?:\.\d{1,3}){3})\s+"
    r"(?P<mask>\d{1,3}(?:\.\d{1,3}){3})\b",
    re.I | re.M,
)

def extract_interfaces(config: str) -> list[dict[str, str]]:
    results = []
    current = None
    for line in config.splitlines():
        if line.startswith("interface "):
            current = line.split(maxsplit=1)[1]
            continue
        match = IP_ADDRESS_RE.match(line)
        if current and match:
            ip = match.group("ip")
            mask = match.group("mask")
            network = ipaddress.ip_interface(f"{ip}/{mask}").network
            results.append({"interface": current, "ip": ip, "network": str(network)})
    return results

def find_duplicate_ips(config: str) -> list[str]:
    ips = [entry["ip"] for entry in extract_interfaces(config)]
    counts = Counter(ips)
    return sorted(ip for ip, count in counts.items() if count > 1)

def find_subnet_overlaps(config: str) -> list[tuple[str, str]]:
    networks = [ipaddress.ip_network(entry["network"]) for entry in extract_interfaces(config)]
    overlaps = []
    for index, left in enumerate(networks):
        for right in networks[index + 1:]:
            if left.overlaps(right):
                overlaps.append((str(left), str(right)))
    return overlaps

Management-Plane Checks

Parse VTY blocks by section so access-class checks do not spill across unrelated lines.

import re

def iter_blocks(config: str, starts_with: str) -> list[str]:
    blocks = []
    current: list[str] = []
    for line in config.splitlines():
        if line.startswith(starts_with):

…