Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Saving Router Configuration to Server

Problem

You want to store a backup copy of your router’s configuration on a TFTP server.

Solution

This example shows how to use TFTP to upload a copy of the router’s active configuration to a remote server:

Freebsd% touch /tftpboot/router1-confg
Freebsd% chmod 666 /tftpboot/router1-confg
Freebsd% telnet Router1
Trying 172.25.1.5...
Connected to Router1.
Escape character is '^]'.

User Access Verification

Password: <vtypassword>
 
Router1>enable
Password: <enablepassword>
Router1#copy running-config tftp://172.25.1.1/router1-confg
Address or name of remote host [172.25.1.1]? <enter>
Destination filename [router1-confg]? <enter>
!!!
9640 bytes copied in 3.956 secs (2437 bytes/sec)
Router1#

Discussion

We cannot overstress the importance of making regular backups of your router configuration files and keeping copies in a safe place. If you have a serious failure that damages a router’s hardware or software, the configuration will be destroyed. And anybody who has had to reconstruct a complex router configuration file from memory will tell you how difficult and stressful this task is. But if you have a backup of the last working configuration file, you can usually get a router working again within minutes of fixing any hardware problems.

Typical Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) estimates for Cisco routers tend to be about 16 years. This sounds like a long time, but in a large network it means that you can expect to see a few failures every year. Unfortunately, ...