Test beds

The Test Bed feature is for labs where the same physical hardware has to become a different setup on demand — a demo rig on Monday, a customer reproduction on Tuesday.

Enable it under Features in the dashboard.

The model

A test bed is a saved set of device configurations. Swapping to one means moving the hardware you have into that state — which is more than restoring a file, because serials, ports, and stack members don’t line up between setups.

Tools: testbed_save, testbed_list, testbed_get, testbed_delete, testbed_capture, testbed_plan, testbed_apply, testbed_export, testbed_import, plus switch_config_copy and switch_config_restore_via_probe for single-switch restores, and config_diff to see what changed on a switch since its capture.

You can keep up to 50 test beds, each with up to 100 devices. A bed left untouched for 365 days is deleted, together with its stored configs.

The workflow

1. Capture — testbed_capture records the current state of the lab as a test bed you can return to. Each switch needs its venueId and switchId (the MAC). Capture takes a fresh R1 config backup — which evicts the oldest of R1’s roughly 7 retained backups for that switch — unless you pass an existing backupId. The config text is mirrored to durable private storage and is never shown to Claude; the capture reports only size and whether the config contains secrets.
2. Plan — testbed_plan works out what has to change to get from where you are to the target test bed. Read the plan before applying it; this is where a mismatch between the saved bed and the hardware actually present shows up.
3. Apply — testbed_apply compiles the plan into a transition MOP, saves it, and returns its mopId. It changes nothing on the devices itself. The swap runs when you drive that MOP with mop_replay: step by step, or unattended with action: "start_auto", unattended: true. Run mop_replay with dryRun: true first. An empty plan is refused with nothing_to_apply.

The Swap lab hardware to a saved test bed prompt runs this end to end and asks you for the target bed and mode.

Export and import

testbed_export and testbed_import move a test bed between accounts or environments — useful for handing a reproduction setup to someone else.

The bundle that testbed_export returns is definition only: inventory, placement, and per-switch config metadata, with no config text. Importing it creates the bed with each switch listed in configsPending, so you re-capture each switch with testbed_capture on the new bench before planning.

The export’s download_url depends on format:

format	The download
json (default)	The full off-box archive, with each switch’s config text embedded. Importing it restores the configs.
html, pdf, docx	A printable test-bed definition document — inventory, topology, and config metadata only, never config text

Caution

The json archive contains the switches’ password hashes and SNMP communities. It opens only in your own signed-in browser — keep the downloaded file out of version control and shared drives. The definition bundle and the printable documents carry no config text.

Config restore

Two restore paths exist for switches, and which one applies depends on whether R1 still holds the switch’s captured backup. R1 retains only a bounded number of backups per switch, so an old one ages out.

• In-place restore to startup config — switch_config_copy, the normal path while the captured backup is still retained. It reports the switch as restorable, and apply: true issues the R1 restore, which overwrites the startup config and reloads the switch — roughly ten minutes offline. It warns loudly when the switch now runs a different firmware train from the one the config was captured on, or when the captured train is unknown; the restore is still allowed, so read the warning first. Other states: restored, offline, no_config, no_backup_id.
• Probe TFTP restore — switch_config_restore_via_probe, for a switch whose backup has aged out of R1. That state is reported as evicted, and once it happens the in-place restore is gone: R1 has no API to re-inject a config. This path carries the durable copy back onto the box over a TFTP download served by an on-LAN probe, then reboots the switch onto it. It needs a linked Probe MCP account (the dashboard’s Probe (config restore) card) and a probe on the same LAN as the switch, named by probeId. reboot: false writes the startup config without rebooting (state copied_no_reboot).

Both default to a preview: without apply: true they report what would happen and change nothing.

What changed since the baseline?

config_diff answers “what changed on this switch since I captured it”, line by line — including after R1’s own backup comparison can’t help because the baseline has aged out of R1’s roughly 7 slots.

• Baseline: a stored capture — baseTestbedId plus the switch serial.
• Compared against: the switch’s current config, taken from R1’s newest successful backup (the default), or another stored capture (compareTestbedId).
• Read-only: it never takes a new R1 backup, because that would evict one. With no usable backup it stops with no_live_backup — run testbed_capture to get one.
• Secrets stay hidden: a credential line (passwords, SNMP communities, RADIUS/TACACS keys) still shows up as changed, with its value replaced by <redacted: kind>.
• Capped: at most 400 emitted lines, with no paging — it reports what changed, and can’t be used to read a config back out. Two configs too different for a useful line diff come back as counts plus a note.

context (0–10, default 2) sets how many unchanged lines surround each change.

Working with test plans

Test beds pair naturally with test plans: the bed puts the hardware in a known state, and the test plan verifies behavior against it with gated expectations and 90 days of regression history.

A caution

Driving the transition MOP changes real hardware. Run it against a lab, read the plan first, and dry-run it with mop_replay before you run it live. Write Guard does not gate test-bed swaps or the switch restores — their own previews and unattended acknowledgement are the safety net.