Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Booting the Router Using a Remote Configuration File

Problem

You want to boot the router using an alternate configuration.

Solution

The following set of commands allows you to automatically load a configuration file located on a remote TFTP server when the router boots:

Router1#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#service config
Router1(config)#boot network tftp Network-auto 172.25.1.1
Router1(config)#boot host tftp Router8-auto 172.25.1.1
Router1(config)#end
Router1#

Discussion

By default, when the router reloads, it will read the configuration information from a file in its Nonvolatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM). Cisco commonly refers to this file as the startup configuration file. However, you can configure the router to load all or part of its configuration from a remote server via TFTP. This feature does not prevent the router from loading its startup configuration from NVRAM. In fact, the router will load its local startup file first before proceeding to the TFTP server files.

Uses for this feature vary, although most people who implement it do so because their configuration file has grown too large for their NVRAM to handle. It can also be a useful way of keeping an access-list that is shared by a number of routers, centralized and up to date. And we have sometimes used it as a temporary measure when the NVRAM in a router is damaged.

However, we consider this feature to be highly risky and recommend avoiding it in most ...