Configuration Archive and Rollback

Lesson Contents
 Configuration
 Verification

Cisco IOS routers and switches are able to create ‘snapshots’ of their configuration
using the archive feature. Cisco calls these snapshots ‘configuration archives’ and
they are very useful as it allows you to store multiple versions of your configuration.

The configuration archive can be created every time you save your running
configuration or you can create one based on a time schedule, for example, every 24
hours or so.

When you have multiple snapshots you can use a show command to see the
difference between the configurations and easily restore (rollback) to a previous
version.

Let’s take a look at the configuration, shall we?

Configuration
First, we need to configure where we want to store our configuration archives. When
you use the path command, you can see what options we have:

Router(config)#archive

Router(config-archive)#path ?

flash: Write archive on flash: file system

ftp: Write archive on ftp: file system

http: Write archive on http: file system

https: Write archive on https: file system

pram: Write archive on pram: file system

rcp: Write archive on rcp: file system

scp: Write archive on scp: file system

 slot0: Write archive on slot0: file system

tftp: Write archive on tftp: file system

Normally an external location would be a good idea, but to keep things simple, I will
use the flash memory of my router:

Router(config-archive)#path flash:router-backup

Each configuration archive file will start with “router-backup” in the filename. Besides
the destination, we also have to choose when we want to create a configuration
archive. For example, whenever the running-config is saved as the startup-config
might be a good idea to create a backup:

Router(config-archive)#write-memory

I will also configure a schedule, for example, to create a configuration archive every
24 hours:

Router(config-archive)#time-period 1440

1440 minutes means we’ll create a snapshot every 24 hours. Everything is now in
place. Let’s see if it is working.

Verification
We can use the show archive command to see how many snapshots we have. At the
moment, no snapshots were made, so the list is empty:

Router#show archive

There are currently 1 archive configurations saved.

The next archive file will be named flash:router-backup-1

Archive # Name

0
 1

10

11

12

13

14

Now we will save the running-config, and thanks to the write-memory command, it
will also create a configuration archive:

Router#copy running-config startup-config

Destination filename [startup-config]?

Building configuration...

[OK]

Verifying checksum... OK (0xDCF1)

When we look again at the show archive command we’ll see our first configuration
archive:
Router#show archive

There are currently 2 archive configurations saved.

The next archive file will be named flash:router-backup-2

Archive # Name

1 flash:router-backup-1 <- Most Recent

10

11

12

13

14

As configured, you can see that it has been stored on the flash of the router:

Router#show flash:
System CompactFlash directory:

File Length Name/status

1 840 router-backup-1

[904 bytes used, 16776308 available, 16777212 total]

16384K bytes of ATA System CompactFlash (Read/Write)

Having extra backups feels great! Before we are going to recover one, I’ll show you
how you can compare different archives. I’ll make some changes to the running-
config so that we’ll end up with two different configuration archives:

Router(config)#interface loopback0

Router(config-if)#ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0

We’ll save the running-config to the startup-config so that another archive is created:

Router#copy running-config startup-config

Destination filename [startup-config]?

Building configuration...

[OK]

Verifying checksum... OK (0xDCF1)

Let’s find out if we have another snapshot:

Router#show archive

There are currently 3 archive configurations saved.

The next archive file will be named flash:router-backup-3

Archive # Name
 0

1 flash:router-backup-1

2 flash:router-backup-2 <- Most Recent

10

11

12

13

14

So we now have two configuration archives but don’t know their differences. IOS
tells us that the second one is the latest version, but this doesn’t always mean that
it’s the best configuration that we have. Luckily there’s a command that tells us
exactly the difference between the two files:

Router#show archive config differences flash:router-backup-1

flash:router-backup-2

Contextual Config Diffs:

+interface Loopback0

+ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0

The + symbol tells us that the second file has some additional lines. I created that
loopback interface, so it’s showing up here with the IP address. If you see a – symbol,
then it means those lines have been removed.

Now we can replace our running configuration and select one of our snapshots like
this:

Router#configure replace flash:router-backup-1 list

This will apply all necessary additions and deletions

to replace the current running configuration with the

contents of the specified configuration file, which is

assumed to be a complete configuration, not a partial

configuration. Enter Y if you are sure you want to proceed. ? [no]:

yes/pre> Rollback:Acquired Configuration lock. !Pass 1 !List of
Commands: no interface Loopback0 end Total number of passes: 1 Rollback
Done

Router#

%PARSER-6-EXPOSEDLOCKRELEASED: Exclusive configuration lock released

from terminal '0' -Process= "Exec", ipl= 0, pid= 92

%LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Loopback0, changed state to administratively

down

The router tells us which commands it has executed in order to roll back to the
configuration that we selected. In my example, it has removed the loopback 0
interface.

That’s all I wanted to show you for now, I hope this has been a useful lesson for you!
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.