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Track configuration drift on your devices with BB-Eco

When a device's live configuration diverges from the last configuration you blessed, that's drift — someone fixed a baud rate by hand, a web-UI visit saved an accidental change, a replacement unit came in with factory settings. BB-Eco notices for you: it records a baseline for every device it manages and flags any difference between that baseline and the live device.

Before you start​

Baselines are automatic​

The first time BB-Eco sees a device, it captures the device's configuration as its baseline — you'll briefly see Capturing initial configuration… in the Configuration Status section of the Info tab. No setup required. From then on, BB-Eco re-reads the device's configuration in the background and compares.

Spot drift in the dashboard​

A drifted device shows a drift indicator on its dashboard card (next to the MAC address), so a whole fleet is scannable at a glance. Open the device's detail panel for the specifics — each drifted setting renders as the struck-through baseline value, an arrow, and the live value:

BB-Eco detail panel transitioning from a clean baseline state to drift detected. The Name, Web Port, and Gateway rows flip from single values to struck-through baseline → amber actual pairs, and the Configuration Status pill at the bottom updates from "Capturing…" to "3 changes since baseline".

A single drifted row reads like this — left of the arrow is what the baseline recorded, right is what the device says now:

Detail panel Name row showing 'Line-A-Sensor-12' struck through, an arrow, and 'Line A Sensor 12' in amber — the device's live name no longer matches its captured baseline

The Configuration Status section totals the changes and shows when the baseline was recorded:

Configuration Status section close-up: 'CONFIGURATION STATUS — 3 changes' header, with rows showing Last seen '1d ago' and Baseline Config recorded '24d ago'

When nothing has changed, the section simply reads In sync with baseline.

Verify from the CLI​

bb-eco template diff compares a live device against any template file — the exported baseline, or a fleet standard from Git:

bb-eco template diff 192.168.2.97 es-522-baseline.json
Device is compliant — 32 field(s) match template.

And when something has drifted:

Section  Key          Template     Actual                                Status
-------  -----------  -----------  ------------------------------------  ------
device   device.name  Line3-ES522  Brainboxes ES-522 Ethernet to Serial  DRIFT

DRIFTED: 1 field(s) differ, 31 match.

Fields set to null in the template are "don't care" and never count as drift.

Decide: revert or re-baseline​

Drift itself isn't the problem — undecided drift is. Two buttons on the Info tab map to the two decisions:

DecisionWhenIn the appIn the CLI
Revert — the template is rightThe change was unintentionalApply Template with your baseline filebb-eco template apply (use --dry-run first)
Re-baseline — the device is rightThe change was deliberateRefresh baselinebb-eco template export, commit the diff to Git

After you intentionally change settings, refresh the baseline straight away — then future drift is tracked from the new state, not the old one.

Next step​

One device is a habit; a fleet is a workflow. Detect configuration drift across your fleet covers scheduled CLI audits, CI integration, and site-specific template overrides.

More resources​