Glossary

Key terms used across this documentation.

Bucket / size bucket — a generator model keyed by approximate config size (sm, md, lg, xl, 2xl–6xl, ciena-6500-tl1, ciena-6500-tl1-gne, infinera-dtnx-tl1, cisco-ons15454-tl1). Selected via --distribution.

Determinism — the property that a given --seed produces byte-identical generator output across runs.

Command file — a per-device file, <root>/<hostname>/<slug>.txt, that answers one CLI command when the server runs with --commands-root. See Command files.

Driver — a vendor personality (cisco_ios, junos, ciena_tl1, infinera_tl1, cisco_ons_tl1) that owns a device’s interactive SSH loop. A non-empty manifest template naming no registered driver is a startup error. See Drivers & vendors.

Fault injection — deliberately making devices misbehave (auth_fail, disconnect_mid, slow_response, malformed) to test tooling resilience. See Faults.

ENE (End NE) — Cisco’s word for what Ciena calls an RNE. Same idea: an element with no management access of its own, reached through its gateway. See Cisco ONS TL1.

GNE (Gateway NE) — in TL1, the network element you connect to directly; it proxies commands to the elements behind it. Emulated by the ciena-6500-tl1-gne, infinera-dtnx-tl1 and cisco-ons15454-tl1 models. Each vendor names the elements differently: Ciena says RNE, Cisco says ENE, and Infinera just says remote node. See Ciena GNE / RNE.

Manifest — the CSV that maps each ip:port to its config, credentials, vendor, and driver. The contract between the two binaries. See Manifest format.

mmap / zero-copy — configs are memory-mapped and streamed straight to the SSH channel without per-request copies, which is what lets one host serve tens of thousands of sessions. See Architecture.

Model — a fully-qualified, generatable device type in the generator registry. Its name is the --distribution key and the manifest size_bucket value.

NCM — network configuration management; the class of tooling rConfig-sim is built to load-test. See Using with rConfig.

rcfg-sim-gen — the config generator binary.

rConfig-sim — the SSH server binary.

Paged response — a TL1 answer split across several blocks, every one but the last coded RTRV rather than COMPLD, with the prompt written between them. A client that reads to the first prompt leaves the rest on the wire, where they are answered to the next command. Only Infinera does this.

RNE (Remote NE) — a TL1 network element with no direct management access, reached only through its GNE by naming its TID in a command (RTRV-EQPT:RNE-LIMERICK:3;). Cisco calls the same thing an ENE. See Ciena GNE / RNE.

TID (target identifier) — the TL1 field that names which NE a command is for: empty/ALL addresses the local node; an RNE’s TID routes the command to that RNE.

TL1 — Transaction Language 1, the management protocol the Ciena TL1 driver speaks over SSH (ACT-USER, RTRV-*, COMPLD/DENY).