

In order to do that, you first need to know the name of the IOS file in the flash. Let’s see how you can make a backup of our IOS file using both solutions.įirst, let’s try to copy IOS onto a TFTP server with the address of 10.1.1.100. The ones that I have found relatively stable and free are Linux-based, with the exception of the Solarwinds TFTP server, written for MS Windows. I have tried numerous solutions and many of them tended to crash unexpectedly in the middle of the transmissions. TFTP servers are not the most reliable ones. FTP provides the authentication phase before a file can be accessed.ģ. All the user needs to know is the exact address of the server, the path to a file, and its name to be able to access the file. A TFTP server does not use any credential for the access (such as username and password). FTP uses TCP protocol, which is reliable (it can retransmit what is not properly delivered and it establishes the communication with the server before it starts transmitting data).Ģ. It is an unreliable and connectionless protocol.

A TFTP server uses UDP as the transport protocol. There are three major reasons for doing so:ġ. In order to create a backup copy of these, I would recommend is using a more reliable server, such as an FTP one. In recent years, Cisco has made large improvements in their IOS and, as a result of that, the size of the file is as small as it was 10 years ago. It is not the best solution to create a copy of larger files. However, this server is only suitable for small file transfers, such as configurations or small IOS files. If you want to back up your IOS, Cisco training often mentions trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) as the backup server. * Copy configuration to and from a TFTP/FTP/RCP server.Ĭopy IOS using TFTP and FTP (recommended) servers. * Copy configuration using terminal software logging capability. * Copy IOS using TFTP and FTP (recommended) servers. They are Cisco best practices when it comes to file management. I have seen these as recurring questions/answers on the Internet’s discussion groups. In this article, as part of IOS CLI speed tips, I would like to elaborate on a few file backup techniques.

It is absolutely imperative that you create copies of those two critical files. The latter is a set of instructions telling IOS which features should be enabled providing numerous mandatory and optional parameters. It hides the complexities of hardware from the user, manages the hardware resources, handles I/O operations, etc. The former file is just like the Windows operating system for your computer. The operation of networking equipment mostly relies on two important files: the internetwork operating system (IOS) and the configuration.
