Trigger is a framework and suite of tools for interfacing with network devices and managing network configuration data. Written by the AOL Network Security team in 2006, Trigger was originally designed to increase the speed and efficiency of security policy management on firewalls, routers, and switches. It has since been expanded to be a full-featured network engineering toolkit.

Trigger is written in Python utilizing the freely available Twisted event-driven networking engine. The libraries can connect to network devices by any available method (e.g. telnet, ssh), communicate with them in their native interface (e.g. Juniper JunoScript, Cisco IOS), and return output.

Trigger is able to manage any number of jobs in parallel and handle output or errors as they return. With the high number of network devices on the AOL network this application is invaluable to performance and reliability. Hopefully you'll find it useful for it on your network and consider participating!

The following people have contributed to Trigger at some point during its lifetime:

• Jathan McCollum
• Eileen Tschetter
• Mark Ellzey Thomas
• Michael Shields
• Jeff Sullivan (for the best error message ever)
• Nick Sinopoli <https://github.com/NSinopoli> (for graciously giving us the name Trigger!)