Network setup - How to - Routers - Cisco - Linux

Copy running-config file of Cisco router to tftp server

We regularly need to backup the configuration of a router in a safe place to minimize the impact should there be any software or hardware failure of the router, if this happens the computer's configuration will be lost. Anyone who has made the complex configuration of a router, you can tell how hard it is to remember everything that was previously configured.

It is more easy to make a backup and then, changing only the damaged device would have to copy back the saved settings. This allows the response time would be much lower failure and thus result in better employee performance.

Cisco believes that the average time between failures (MTBF Mean Time Before Failure) is approximately 15 years, but in a network infrastructure large enough, indicating that failures could be expected at least a few per year, not including possible failures caused by human manipulation.


In this image you can identify the basic connection between a router and a TFTP server, both are configured on the same network 172.16.1.0/24. However, it is possible to make this process even when the server is not on the same network segment.

Router1>enable 
Password: 
Router1#copy running-config tftp://172.16.1.1/router1-confg 
Address or name of remote host [172.25.1.1]? 
Destination filename [router1-confg]? 
!!! 
9640 bytes copied in 3.956 secs (2437 bytes/sec) 
Router1#

As can be seen, it's easy to back a file from a router to a tftp server, however this is not the only thing that can be done with the following command lines can be displayed from a router's configuration in tftp server.

Router1#more tftp://172.16.1.1/router1-confg

!
! Last configuration change at 11:23:59 EST Sat Jan 11 2003 by paulpierce 
! NVRAM config last updated at 00:37:16 EST Sat Jan 11 2003 by paulpierce
!
version 12.2
service tcp-keepalives-in
service timestamps debug datetime msec
service timestamps log datetime localtime
service password-encryption
!
hostname Router1