LAB SHEET (04)

Before turn on how to manage your configuration, we should know three show Commands that gives you a good scope of what really is happening. 1. Show IP interface brief. If someone is complaining about his port is not access or he has no internet connection, then you type this command and find out what is the problem? Second thing you find out in the Show IP interface brief, is the Status and the Protocol, if the Status is Down then the Cable is unplugged or its a Bad Cable need to be changed, also for the Protocol if its down means that the Protocol type communicating with the Switch is changed, like someone had changed the Encapsulation Type. 2. Show Interface. Suppose that you found in the first Command that everything is fine and UP on the Status and the protocol, then we will show the details on that interface. 3. Show Run. This command shows you what actually the configuration of your Switches is, so if there is something wrong in the configuration so you mistyped it so its better to be fixed, as show run is the easiest way to figure out the problem were it is.

Management and Security: File Management

Its good to take a backup of your configuration and your IOS File, in this LAB Sheet we will see how we may make a Backup files, Copying to and from your Router. Understanding the copy command Before starting with the copy command, lets see the memory components of the Router, and the TFTP Server. The first one is RAM, the RAM existing in the Cisco Switch or Cisco Router, its just as the RAM on your PC. In addition, the benefit of these RAMs is that it stores the Running Config and the Packets coming into the Router and stores it permanently until it look at the Table and decide which interface to get it out. The Second Memory is NVRAM (Non Volatile RAM) and that is which store in it the Running Config, where when you type <copy run config start config> it stores the configured steps in the NVRAM, NVRAM is very small because it only storing the Startup Config file, you can notice your memory size using <show version> in privileged mode

05 January 2011

Page 1

The last one is the TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol), which is a Server that stores files, the protocol that is used to transfer the file to the TFTP is UDP port 69, that in case you have a firewall and need to pass it. So TFTP is used to copy from and to the IOS image file in the Router. TFTP is Free if you go to Google and type in the Search bar TFTP32.

After installation of TFTP and have TFTP server, so If you want to make a backup for your Configuration to the TFTP server, write the following command:

R1#copy running-config tftp Address or name of remote host []?

It asks you the IP of TFTP server interface, you can find that IP address from the program you setup which it has server interface IP. Then you can save the config file in the TFTP server as .txt or .doc, thus you can view the file in the windows system.

You could backup from memory to TFTP server, but you should know the name of the file before. For example: By using the following command it shows the IOS name:

R1#show version System Image file is flash:c2801-adventerprisek9-mz.124-4.XC.bin

So by taking this File name Copy the IOS Name and Paste it in the following lets see
05 January 2011 Page 2

how:

R1#copy flash:c2801-adventerprisek9-mz.124-4.XC.bin tftp://10.238.212.13/ c2801adventerprisek9-mz.124-4.XC.bin

This command above is described as follow, first copy the IOS File that is named (flash:c2801-adventerprisek9-mz.124-4.XC.bin) into TFTP its address is 10.238.212.13, and the file name to be saved in the TFTP is the same file name with the same extension on the flash which is (c2801-adventerprisek9-mz.124-4.XC.bin). Note: When you copy anything to RAM, the IOS MERGE them, meaning if you have a backup Config file on the TFTP server, and you copied the Config file from TFTP to the RAM, what happens is that the Config file from the TFTP will not replace the Config file on RAM but it will merge them mean the two of them will be in one Config file with both features and configuration. As example if you have setup your FE0/0 in RAM by IP address 192.168.2.1, and in the Config File in TFTP its configured as 192.168.3.1, in here the one that is in the TFTP will replace that in the RAM by 192.168.3.1, because when there is a conflict between the Configuration in RAM and TFTP Config file, the Config which comes from the TFTP file Replace the one in RAM if they both exist. The Disadvantage thing is if you configured a NAT on the Router and you dont need it anymore and the NAT Config is not present in the Configuration file at TFTP, and you copied the Config TFTP file to RAM, the NAT Configuration will still exist in RAM, cause there is no conflict or nothing overwrite it or replace it from the TFTP File Config to RAM file Config. So what you do if you want the TFTP config file only works on RAM and no previous Config exist in RAM, just the New Config needed, well this Is done by copying the TFTP Running Config to the NVRAM (Startup Config.), cause in this Case the Configuration file is replaced in NVRAM by the one comes from the TFTP rather than Merging it. Ok now we need to copy the Configuration file from NVRAM to RAM, what we will do, is to REBOOT the Router, because copying the Config file from NVRAM to RAM will merge it and it will not be replaced. So we will copy the Config file from TFTP to NVRAM as following:

R1#copy tftp startup-config Address or name of remote host []?10.238.212.13 Source filename []? r2-config.txt Destination filename [startup-config]? Accessing tftp://192.168.0.1/r2-config.txt.......
As you might see in the fourth line it asks for the Destination Filename what should be its name, so by Default you should leave the name Startup-Config cause that the file name the router is looking at it when it reboots, so dont rename it.
05 January 2011 Page 3

If you want to upgrade your IOS, where a lot of times people delete their IOS from the Flash Memory and download a new IOS from Cisco sites and place it in the Flash memory. But the safe way to do this is actually to allow your router to boot-up from the TFTP server rather than boot-up from Flash Memory, and keep the old IOS in the flash memory as it is. So we download the New version of IOS in to the TFTP server, and make the router to boot up and take the IOS file from TFTP server rather than Flash, so to do that , do the following:

Router(config)#boot system ? WORD TFTP filename or URL flash Boot from flash memory
As you might see it says where you want to boot from, so we will boot from the TFTP server with the IOS Filename as following:

Router(config)#boot system tftp://10.238.212.13/ c2801-adventerprisek9-mz.1244.XC.bin

At this point the next time the router boot it will boot from the TFTP server, with the mentioned IOS File name, but if it didnt find that file on TFTP server it will revert by default to the Flash memory and load the IOS from the Flash Memory. Understanding the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP):

05 January 2011

Page 4