Trigger is a robust network automation toolkit written in Python that was designed for interfacing with network devices and managing network configuration and security policy. It increases the speed and efficiency of managing large-scale networks while reducing the risk of human error.

Started by the AOL Network Security team in 2006, Trigger was originally designed for security policy management on firewalls, routers, and switches. It has since been expanded to be a full-featured network automation toolkit.

With the high number of network devices on the AOL network this application is invaluable to performance and reliability. We hope you'll find it useful on your network and consider participating!

Trigger is designed to work at scale and can support hundreds or thousands of network devices with ease. Here are some of things that make Trigger tick:

• Support for SSH, Telnet, and Juniper's Junoscript XML API.
• Easily get an interactive shell or execute commands asynchronously.
• Leverage advanced event-driven functionality to manage any number of jobs in parallel and handle output or errors as they return.
• Powerful metadata interface for performing complex queries to group and associate network devices by name, manufacturer, type, location, and more.
• Encrypted storage of login credentials so you can interact without constantly being prompted to enter your password.
• Flexible access-list & firewall policy parser that can test access if access is permitted, or easily convert ACLs from one format to another.
• Detailed support for timezones and maintenance windows.
• A suite of tools for simplifying many common tasks.

New in version 1.2:

• Import your metadata from an existing RANCID installation to get up-and-running quickly!

New in version 1.3:

• Import your metadata from a CSV file and get up-and-running even quicker!

The best way to get started is to read the documentation hosted by Read the Docs at http://trigger.readthedocs.org. There you will find everything you need to get going including usage examples, installation and configuration instructions, and more!

• The develop branch is the default branch that will be active when you clone this repository. While it is generally stable this branch is not considered production-ready. Use at your own risk!
• The master branch is the stable branch, and will reflect the latest production-ready changes. It is recommended that this is the branch you use if you are installing Trigger for the first time.
• Each point release of Trigger is maintained as a tag branch. If you require a specific Trigger version, please refer to these.

If you run into any snags, have questions, feedback, or just want to talk shop: contact us!

Pro tip: Find us on IRC at #trigger on Freenode (irc://irc.freenode.net/trigger).