Copying Configurations To and From Cisco Equipment

Configurations for Cisco kit can be backed up or uploaded to devices over TFTP.

The easiest way to access the switches or routers is via serial. SSH may be enabled so you can get them via IP but this is a service that can be configured so may not be available. Serial ports are labelled in light blue on Cisco equipment and will either be a mini USB, RJ45 or both. Use a USB serial adaptor to connect it to a PC.

Find the number of your COM port by opening Device Manager and locating Ports (COM and LPT). In this example we will be using COM3

You now need to open this serial port using a program such as Teraterm or PuTTY. PuTTY is installed on all the CT control laptops. Open PuTTY, set it to serial mode, enter the COM port you found in Device Manager and set the speed to 9600. Click Open.

If the Cisco device is not powered up already, switch it on and you will see the boot sequence scroll past in the PuTTY window.
Once the device has booted, press Enter and you will be asked to log in.

Once you have logged in, check there is a # at the end of the command line. This indicates that you are in elevated mode. If there is no #, type enable and press enter.
Next get the current configuration of the device

show run

This command will show the entire configuration of the device. Use the space bar to scroll through it. You will find interface configurations like the one below which tell you the IP of the device.

interface GigabitEthernet0/0<br>description LAN
ip address 192.168.203.1 255.255.255.0
ip nat inside
ip virtual-reassembly in
duplex auto
speed auto

Change the IP address of your laptop to match the subnet of the device. In this example we will change it to be in the range of 192.168.203.1. Check you can see the device by opening Commandline and pinging it. If successful, you are now ready to transfer configurations.

Open TFTP64 on the laptop you have connected to the Cisco device. Browse to the location you want to save or read the files from and set the Server interfaces to the IP address of your laptop. In our case this is 192.168.203.2

Backing Up the Config from the Switch or Router

In the PuTTY window, make sure you have saved the current configuration.

wr mem

Now we can copy the running configuration to the laptop.

copy running-config tftp

You will be asked for the address or name of the remote host. This is the IP address of your laptop. You will then be asked for a file name to save the configuration as. The default is hostname-confg but you can put anything you want as long as it doesn’t contain spaces.
Pressing enter will start the transfer and you will get a status of how much was copied.

R3#copy running-config tftp
Address or name of remote host []? 192.168.203.2
Destination filename [r3-confg]?
!!
3850 bytes copied in 0.256 secs (15039 bytes/sec)

The file will now be in the folder you set TFTP64 to look at.

Uploading a Config to a Switch or Router

Make sure TFTP64 is running and the configuration you want to load is in the correct folder.

In the PuTTY window, copy the file you want to the startup configuration of the device.

copy tftp running-config

You will be asked for the address or name of the remote host. This is the IP address of your laptop. You will then be asked for a file name to copy. This is case sensitive, cannot contain spaces and must exactly match the name of the configuration file you want to load.

copy tftp startup-config
Address or name of remote host [192.168.203.2]?
Source filename [gcca-confg-router]? gcca-confg-router-1
Destination filename [startup-config]?
Accessing tftp://192.168.203.2/gcca-confg-router-1…
Loading gcca-confg-router-1 from 192.168.203.2 (via GigabitEthernet0/0): !
[OK – 4069 bytes]
[OK]
4069 bytes copied in 11.500 secs (354 bytes/sec)

This has now copied the configuration into startup and will be loaded at the next reboot. As the device boots it will flag any issues it has found with the configuration which you can fix if you require.