Automating Centralized backup for Cisco Switches

Another day to day troubleshooting short notes:

Disclaimer: There are many other proper techniques to achieve the centralized backup task, like Linux base scripting or FTP base route, But dueto my laziness I made this method according to the already available resources with minimum work required . 

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Scenario:

Let’s assume:

Operator have dozen’s of manageable Cisco switches installed at various indoor/outdoor locations. Switches configuration are dynamic & the OP make changes on almost daily basis. For backup of switches configs, OP uses TFTP server on local windows server /& perform backup commands on all switches manually once a month. We want to automate this by having centralized backup server & all switches should run schedule backup task which should upload backup to the TFTP server automatically on daily or weekly basis.

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Solution: [for personnel referenec]

1- Install TFTP Server in Windows to receive backup files from devices

Download & install Solarwind free TFTP Server application. Its quite and simple application which can receive backups from your switches/routers/devices and store them in c:\tftp-root folder (default location, you can change it)

At Cisco switch issue following command to test if TFTP is working fine. Your switch must be able to ping/communicate with the tftp server. Login tot switch via terminal or ssh and issue this command to test the TFTP connectivity from switch to tftp server …

en
show running-config | redirect tftp://10.0.0.1/cisco_sw/sw_10.0.0.20.txt

Note: I create new folder name cisco_sw so that all switches configurations should store in a separate folder for easy identification.

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2 – Add Backup Schedule Job / Task on Cisco Switches

Network Details:

1. TFTP SERVER IN WINDOWS IP : 10.0.0.1
2. SWITCH IP : 10.0.0.20

Use following commands to add schedule task to run backup daily in midnight

en
conf t
kron policy-list daily-backup
cli show startup-config | redirect tftp://10.0.0.10/cisco_sw/sw_10.0.0.20.txt
exit
kron occurrence daily-backup at 00:00 recurring
policy-list daily-backup
exit
wr

 

• Verify the kron configuration by using the show command.

show kron schedule

• Result:

Kron Occurrence Schedule
daily-backup inactive, will run again in 0 days 12:58:04 at 0 :00 on

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End Result:

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Tips:

(for specific day and time, use following:

kron occurrence daily-backup at 23:00 Sun recurring)

To run task every 2 minute

kron occurrence daily-backup in 2 recurring
policy-list daily-backup

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Copy to TFTP manually / Short Version:

copy running-config tftp

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FTP Base backup

At one network, we configured FILEZILLA FTP Server, to make switch upload to FTP, we used following

#JZ # Make sure to change "MYSWITCHNAME_OR_IP.txt" & path to match your switch ip or name / ftp folder

en
conf term
ip ftp username cisco
ip ftp password View*pak
end

en
conf t
kron policy-list daily-backup
cli show startup-config | redirect ftp://192.168.0.1/cisco/MYSWITCHNAME_OR_IP.txt
exit
kron occurrence daily-backup at 00:00 recurring
policy-list daily-backup
exit
do wr

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Regard’s
~Syed Jahanzaib