NetSysHorizon: Backup and Restore Configuration files

This article will show why would we backup the configuration file and how we configure the router to backup and restore the configuration files.

When would you need backup

Migrate the configuration file from an existing router to a new router
The configuration file or part of the configuration is accidently deleted
Router hardware failure

Before explaining how to backup and restore the configuration file, you should know that there are two configuration files.

running-config file is stored in the ram which contains the configuration active in the system RAM but not yet saved to NVRAM, this configuration will be lost after a power off. The RAM of the router performs the same functions of the ram of the PC.

Startup-config file is stored in the NVRAM which contains the configurations saved or copied from the running-config file, this configuration will not be lost after a power off.

This article show Backing up the running configuration file to a TFTP server, the TFTP server used in this article and video below is Solarwinds tftp server. Also, you can use another TFTP servers such as tftpd.

Backup the running-config file in the ram to a TFTP server using this command

R1#copy running-config tftp

Backup the startup-config file in the NVRAM to a TFTP server using this command

R1#copy startup-config tftp

Restoring the running config file from TFTP server to the RAM running-config file

R1#copy tftp running-config

Restoring the startup- config file from TFTP server to the NVRAM startup-config file

R1#copy tftp startup-config

The details of how to backup the configuration file from the ram to tftp server, and restore the configuration file to the router, as you show below

1- First copy the running config file from the ram to the tftp server using the command copy run tftp, the router will ask you about the ip of the tftp server which is 192.168.1.107 in this lab.After that the router will ask you what will be the name of the config file that will be saved in the tftp server, if you press enter means you accept the suggested name r1-config.

R1#copy run tftp

Address or name of remote host []? 192.168.1.107

Destination filename [r1-confg]?

1180 bytes copied in 1.200 secs (983 bytes/sec)

R1#

Now, the backup is done, the image below shows the syslog messages appeared on the tftp server when you make a backup.

2- we want to change the hostname, because i want to make differences between the configuration file before the restore and after the restore. Since i will restore the backup configuration file in the next step.

R1#conf t

R1(config)#hostname cisco1

cisco1(config)#exit

3- After changing the hostname to cisco1, we want to restore the backup configuration file. After restoring the previous backup configuration file, the host name of the router must be changed to R1 as it was in the backup configuration file

cisco1#copy tftp run

Address or name of remote host [192.168.1.107]? 192.168.1.107

Source filename [r1-confg]?

Destination filename [running-config]?

Accessing tftp://192.168.1.107/r1-confg...

Loading r1-confg from 192.168.1.107 (via FastEthernet0/0): !

[OK - 1180 bytes]

1180 bytes copied in 1.732 secs (681 bytes/sec)

R1#

A s you see above, after restoring the backup condiguration file from the tftp server, the hostname of the router is changed to R1.