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Procedure for backup of Cisco switch in engineered systems such as Sparc SuperCluster or exadata.

In this Document

Goal

Fix

Applies to:

Goal

This document is intended to help administrators back up the configuration of the Cisco switch included in an Oracle engineered system.

Fix

Prerequisites

You will need the IP address of the switch and a working TFTP server.

It is expected that the reader is aware of TFTP and able to configure their own TFTP server.

For example, using Solaris 11 an administrator would need to install the tftp server software:

pkg install tftp

and start the service:

svcadm enable network/tftp/udp6

and be aware that any file which is received will need to already exist and be writable in the tftproot directory:

mkdir /tftpboot
touch /tftpboot/<system image>
touch /tftpboot/running-config
touch /tftpboot/startup-config
chmod a+w /tftpboot/<system image>
chmod a+w /tftpboot/running-config
chmod a+w /tftpboot/startup-config

(note. The value of <system image> is determined in step II of this process below)

and when the process is complete they may wish to disable the TFTP server:

svcadm disable network/tftp/udp6

For more information on installing software and configuring a tftp server consult the appropriate documentation for your target OS.

The backup process itself is simple and has three steps:

I. connect to the switch as the privileged user

II. identify the required files

III. copy the files to the TFTP server

Step I. connect to the switch as the privileged user

At the time of writing the Cisco switches shipped with Oracle engineered systems support telnet as the primary method of connectivity.

To connect to the switch and enter privileged mode:

# telnet <switch_ip>

User Access Verification
Password: <enter password here>
switch-hostname>enable
Password:<enter privileged password here>
switch-hostname#

Once you have an interactive prompt which ends in a '#'' character it is safe to assume you have reached privileged mode.

Step II. identify the required files

There are 3 files which are of great importance:

1. The startup-config file which configures the switch at startup.
2. The running-config file which reflects the running config (but not necessarily the startup configuration).
3. The system image file which is the binary the switch is booted from.

The first two of these files can be referenced using the shorthand names: "running-config" and "startup-config"

The system image file name will vary and needs to be determined by running:

switch-hostname#show version<return>

For example:

switch-hostname#show version<return>
.
<content elided>
.
System image file is "bootflash:cat4500-ipbase-mz.122-53.SG5.bin"
.
<content elided>
.
switch-hostname#

or:

switch-hostname#show version | include boot
System image file is "bootflash:cat4500-ipbase-mz.122-53.SG5.bin"
switch-hostname#

Step III. copy the files to the tftp server

copy <system image> tftp://<tftp server IP>/<system image>
copy running-config tftp://<tftp server IP>/running-config
copy startup-config tftp://<tftp server IP>/startup-config

The tftproot of your tftp server should now contain backup copies of the three files.

For reference here is a transcript of such a session:

# telnet 10.10.10.10
Trying 10.10.10.10...
Connected to 10.10.10.10.
Escape character is '^]'.

User Access Verification

Password:
switch-hostname>enable
Password:
switch-hostname#show version | include boot
System image file is "bootflash:cat4500-ipbase-mz.122-53.SG5.bin"

switch-hostname#copy bootflash:cat4500-ipbase-mz.122-53.SG5.bin tftp://10.10.10.11/bootflash:cat4500-ipbase-mz.122-53.SG5.bin
Address or name of remote host [10.10.10.11]?
Destination filename [bootflash:cat4500-ipbase-mz.122-53.SG5.bin]?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
15644212 bytes copied in 36.820 secs (424884 bytes/sec)

switch-hostname#copy running-config tftp://10.10.10.11/running-config
Address or name of remote host [10.10.10.11]?
Destination filename [running-config]?
!!
3848 bytes copied in 1.028 secs (3743 bytes/sec)

switch-hostname#copy startup-config tftp://10.10.10.11/startup-config
Address or name of remote host [10.10.10.11]?
Destination filename [startup-config]?
Uncompressed configuration from 1461 bytes to 3816 bytes!!
3816 bytes copied in 0.028 secs (136286 bytes/sec)
switch-hostname#

switch-hostname#exit
Connection to 10.10.10.10 closed by foreign host.

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