Contributing
There are many different forms of contribution that anyone can make to Nipper to help both the general community and myself. Here are just a few ideas, in no particular order:
Donating Device Configurations
Nipper is developed with a combination of personal experience, lots of device reference guides, physical access to the devices and lots of device configurations for testing. If you have access to device configurations and are willing to donate them to the project, please do. When donating a configuration, let me know how you would like me to make use of the configuration. The configurations can be cryptographically stored and deleted once no longer required, or you may be happy for a configuration to be published on this site as an example configuration.
Device configurations are the crown jewels of any network and as such are considered sensitive information. I would be happy to take into account any specific requirements.
You can send configurations to fizz@titania.co.uk, my public PGP key can be downloaded from here. I am happy to discuss alternative methods of transport.
Donating Network Devices
Configurations and documentation are great, but they cannot replace direct physical access to network devices. If you are able to donate a network device, contact me at fizz@titania.co.uk to discuss the arrangements.
Donating Code
If you have donations in the form of Nipper patches, program improvements, added additional functionality or documentation, great! :-) Please send them to fizz@titania.co.uk, my public PGP key can be downloaded from here.
Frontends And Scripts
If you have a script that you use with Nipper to automate some administrative task, have developed a frontend or any other Nipper related code. I can host them on this site for use by others in the community, please send me any updates too. Please send them to fizz@titania.co.uk with a description, licensing details and any other relevent information. My public PGP key can be downloaded from here.
Testing And Bug Reporting
If you are able to test Nipper, great. If you have identified a bug, please report it together with any relevant information. If a specific config has caused the problem, it may not be necessary to send me the entire configuration file in order to determine the issue. Nipper has some hidden debuging functionality that can help locate the issue. The following command will display the Nipper debug options:
nipper --help=debug
Adding --debug when running Nipper is usually enough to identify where an issue may be, this option tells Nipper to print the information it is about to process prior to it actually doing it. It is worth noting that the debug option will override all other output options.
Bugs can be reported in the bug database here.
Feature Requests And Ideas
If you have an idea for additional Nipper functionality, features or would like to see a different type of device supported. Add them as a feature request to the bugzilla database here.
Administration And Security Tips
If you have experience with any network device and would like to share some tips with others, add them to the forums. Additionally, if someone has a problem or a query on the forum and you can help, please do.
Donating Money
Purchasing network hardware and spending time away from things that would pay the bills takes money. If you would like to show your appreciation of the time and effort put into developing Nipper and would like to help, please donate. For paypal payments you can donate by clicking the button below, but I will happily accept other methods of transfer (contact me via email at fizz@titania.co.uk).
Sponsorship
If you are interested in sponsoring the Nipper project, please get in touch. Email me at fizz@titania.co.uk.
Device Manufacturer Support
It can be hard getting support and information about devices, especially when manufacturers are not open about their hardware or their documentation is somewhat lacking. If you are a device manufacturer, please get in contact with me via email at fizz@titania.co.uk. If you are an end user or reseller that has contact with a device manufacturer, please mention the Nipper project to them and ask them to get in touch.