Introduction
This document describes the configuration steps on how to display the full running configuration for users logged in to the router with low privilege levels. To understand the below problem and workaround it is necessary to understand privilege levels. The available privilege levels range from 0 to 15, and allow the administrator to customise what commands are available at what privilege level. By default, the three privilege levels on a router are:
- Level 0 – Includes only basic commands (disable, enable, exit, help, and logout)
- Level 1 – Includes all commands available at the User EXEC command mode
- Level 15 – Includes all commands available at the Privileged EXEC command mode
The remaining levels in between these minimum and maximum levels are undefined until the administrator assigns commands and/or users to them. Therefore, the administrator can assign users different privilege levels in between these minimum and maximum privilege levels to separate what different users have access too. The administrator can then allocate individual commands (and various other options) to an individual privilege level to make this available for any user at this level. For example:
Router(config)# username user1 privilege 7 password P@ssw0rD1
Router(config)# privilege exec level 7 show access-lists
With this configuration, when ‘user1’ connected to the router they would be able to run the ‘show access-lists’ command, and/or anything else enabled at that privilege level. However the same cannot be said for enabled the ‘show running-config’ command, as will be discussed below with our problem statement.
Prerequisites
Requirements
A basic understanding of cisco privilege levels is required to understand this document, the above introduction should suffice to explain the understanding of privilege levels that is required.
Components Used
The components used for the configuration examples within this document was an ASR1006.
Configuration Problem
When configuring different access levels to the router for different users, it is a common application for a network administrator to attempt to assign certain users to only have access to ‘show’ commands, and not provide access to any ‘configuration’ commands. This is a simple task for most show commands, as you can grant access through simple configuration as per below:
Router(config)# username test_user privilege 10 password testP@ssw0rD
Router(config)# privilege exec level 10 show
Router(config)# privilege exec level 10 show running-config
With this example configuration, the second line will allow the ‘test_user’ to have access to a plethora of show related commands, which are normally not available at this privilege level. However, the show running-config command is treated differently to most show commands. Even with the third line of example code, only an omitted/abbreviated ‘show running-config’ will be displayed for the user despite the command being specified at the correct privilege level.
User Access Verification
Username: test_user
Password:
Router#
Router#show privilege
Current privilege level is 10
Router#
Router#show running-config
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 121 bytes
!
! Last configuration change at 21:10:08 UTC Mon Aug 28 2017
!
boot-start-marker
boot-end-marker
!
!
!
end
Router#
As you can see this output does not show any configuration, and would not be helpful to a user trying to collect information about the configuration of the router. This is because the show running-config command will only display all of the commands that the user is able to modify at their current privilege level. This is designed as a security configuration to prevent the user from having access to commands that have been configured from above their current privilege level. This is an issue when attempting to create a user with access to show commands, as ‘show running-config’ is a standard command for engineers to initially collect when troubleshooting.
Configuration Solution and Verification
As a solution to this dilemma, there is another version of the traditional show run command that will bypass this limitation of the command.
Router(config)# show running-config view full
Router(config)# privilege exec level 10 show running-config view full
The addition of ‘view full’ to the command, (and in turn the privilege level of the command to allow the user access to the command), now allows the user to view the full show running-config without any omitted commands.
Username: test_user
Password:
Router#
Router#show privilege
Current privilege level is 10
Router#
Router#show running-config view full
Building configuration...
Current configuration : 2664 bytes
!
! Last configuration change at 21:25:45 UTC Mon Aug 28 2017
!
version 15.4
service timestamps debug datetime msec
service timestamps log datetime msec
no platform punt-keepalive disable-kernel-core
!
hostname Router
!
boot-start-marker
boot system flash bootflash:packages.conf
boot system flash bootflash:asr1000rp1-adventerprisek9.03.13.06a.S.154-3.S6a-ext.bin
boot-end-marker
!
vrf definition Mgmt-intf
!
address-family ipv4
exit-address-family
!
address-family ipv6
exit-address-family
!
enable password <omitted>
!
no aaa new-model
!
no ip domain lookup
!
subscriber templating
!
multilink bundle-name authenticated
!
spanning-tree extend system-id
!
username test_user privilege 10 password 0 testP@ssw0rD
!
redundancy
mode sso
!
cdp run
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/2/0
no ip address
shutdown
negotiation auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/2/1
no ip address
shutdown
negotiation auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0
vrf forwarding Mgmt-intf
ip address <omitted>
negotiation auto
cdp enable
!
ip forward-protocol nd
!
control-plane
!
!
privilege exec level 10 show running-config view full
alias exec show-running-config show running-config view full
!
line con 0
stopbits 1
line aux 0
exec-timeout 0 1
no exec
transport output none
stopbits 1
line vty 0 4
login local
!
end
Router#
However this does then raise the question, by providing the user access to this version of the command, does this not raise the initial security risk that was attempting to be solved by designing an omitted version?
As a workaround to the solution and to ensure consistency in a secure network design, we can create an alias for the user that will run the full version of the show running-config command without providing access/knowledge to the user, as shown below:
Router(config)# alias exec show-running-config show running-config view full
In this example the ‘show-running-config’ is the alias name, and when the user is logged into the router, they can then enter this alias name instead of the command and receive the expected output without knowledge of the actual command that is being run.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this is just one example of how to have more control when administratively creating user privilege access at different levels. There are a plethora of options to create various privilege levels and access to different commands, and this is an example of how to ensure a ‘show-only’ user still has access to the full running-config when they have no access to any configuration commands.
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