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Any Cisco CCNA folks here?

Discussion in 'Technology' started by Ricambi America, Feb 15, 2013.

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  1. Ricambi America

    Ricambi America F1 World Champ
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    Dec 7, 2003
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    Winston Salem, NC
    #1 Ricambi America, Feb 15, 2013
    I have a quick question about a new Cisco 861 router installed here -- and maybe its just a basic a CLI question really: The router is up and running our VPN connections are rock solid to our various servers, but the configuration took quite an effort to get "right". Now that it's working, how can I ensure the settings will be reloaded in the event of a power outage or reboot? I've got a backup of the settings pulled down to a USB stick, but how can I confirm those settings (our current running configuration) were copied over to the startup memory of the device?

    Next question: if everything goes to hell and a handbasket, is my backup file (created through Cisco Configuration Professional) really just a bunch of CLI commands that we can copy/paste into the router to get it back up and running?

    Thanks in advance!
     
  2. Fast_ian

    Fast_ian Two Time F1 World Champ

    Sep 25, 2006
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    Ian Anderson
    #2 Fast_ian, Feb 15, 2013
    It's been a long time, but in the absence of any other comments;

    - I'm pretty sure your configuration is written to NVRAM, so a power outage shouldn't hurt anything.
    - Doesn't the CCP have a "restore configuration" option should the wheels fall off?

    Cheers,
    Ian
     
  3. sct4a

    sct4a F1 World Champ
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    #3 sct4a, Feb 15, 2013
    From enable mode type wr mem. That will save the config to memory. Do sh run to have it display the entire config. Copy that and save it in a notepad file as a backup. You can reapply to that unit or a new unit to restore your config.
     
  4. Ricambi America

    Ricambi America F1 World Champ
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    #4 Ricambi America, Feb 15, 2013
    Excellent. I've got the sh run backed up on a USB stick, and your post confirms I could use it for a restore. Thank you.

    On the wr mem command, I get this back:

    Building configuration...
    [OK]
    routername#

    sound ok?
     
  5. tjacoby

    tjacoby F1 Rookie

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    #5 tjacoby, Feb 18, 2013
    all ok; you're now ready to test a power cycle. I'd recommend recording the time it takes to restore your connectivity after a full power cycle, likely a couple of minutes. Only test when you're able to spend some time to work on restoring service, if there's some issue. Never know - nvram might be bad, or power supply might be bad. You want to know before you absolutely need to have it working (like when I order something!). As you know better than most, everything will break eventually.
     
  6. Ricambi America

    Ricambi America F1 World Champ
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    #6 Ricambi America, Feb 19, 2013
    Thank you for your post. Indeed, this weekend I did a power off test where the router was unceremoniously ripped from its power cord and left to sit for about 3 minutes. When the power was restored, all the settings came right back up, and VPN traffic resumed within about 2 minutes. Success :) I have a little USB stick taped to the side of the router with the full working configuration file on it. That way, if it needs a restore, we know exactly where to find a working set of configuration commands.

    Moving forward, today's task is to purchase another identical 861, so I can have it ready as a hot-backup. A bit paranoid, I know... but we have hot backups of just about all our equipment because experience has shown, the day something goes "bump" will always be our busiest day of the year.
     
  7. tvu

    tvu Formula 3
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    #7 tvu, Feb 20, 2013
    Once you purchase your router, I would put in the configuration into the new router and swap it out to see if it works or not. I don't know your setup - if you have a business cable/dsl connection that has static IP addressing or not. If it's DHCP, then it would cause a problem on the remote end since they need to update their tunnel configuration. Or I guess you can use certificates as well.
     
  8. sct4a

    sct4a F1 World Champ
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    #8 sct4a, Feb 21, 2013
    If its that critical you could purchase smartnet on it instead of a spare 861. Coverage for an 861 is dirt cheap. For $80/year you could get hardware replacement in the event of a failure within 2 hours by an on site engineer along with 24/7 technical support and software updates. Its a good option for critical equipment and the technical support can be helpful during outages.
     
  9. Ricambi America

    Ricambi America F1 World Champ
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    #9 Ricambi America, Feb 21, 2013
    I hadn't considered Smartnet before. I'll look into it today. Economics aside, with a backup 861 hanging in the rack simply waiting for A/C power, our changeover time would be really quite small. Our modems and switches have enough ports that the backup 861 would be fully connected and really just waiting for somebody to hit the A/C power to activate it.

    You know Murphy however... we're building all this redundancy, but ultimately it'll be a hungry rat that chews through a cable box outside the building and we'll be f*&*ked anyway!! We actually did test a failover plan that used Verizon LTE as a backup ISP... and while it worked, it was pretty laggy.

    Thanks to everyone who has chimed in. I think our architecture is now more robust (and redundant) than ever before.
     

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