Trigger is a robust network engineering 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 engineering 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 (NETCONF support Coming Soon™).
• 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!

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 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 (for graciously giving us the name Trigger!)