Backup settings/scripts

[tundrwd]

Ok - one more question for tonite, and I'll quit. Didn't see this in the wiki, and couldn't find what I was looking for googling, so:

When I backup the settings in the webui, I'm assuming the new settings are now saved as well?

And there are admonitions to backup your jffs scripts - I'm assuming these are NOT backed up in the webui "settings backup"?

Anyone have a nice script/procedure for a "bare iron" restore of the RT-N66U? Or just reflash, restore settings, etc., etc., etc.

TIA.

 

[joegreat]

Ok - one more question for tonite, and I'll quit. Didn't see this in the wiki, and couldn't find what I was looking for googling, so:

When I backup the settings in the webui, I'm assuming the new settings are now saved as well?

This was(!) discussed here!
And in the TomatoUSB forum you can find an example script for this.

And there are admonitions to backup your jffs scripts - I'm assuming these are NOT backed up in the webui "settings backup"?

Doing a backup of the /jffs folder is a pretty simple task: Use the cp command...

Anyone have a nice script/procedure for a "bare iron" restore of the RT-N66U? Or just reflash, restore settings, etc., etc., etc.

Well, the procedure should be:

1. Reflasch
2. Clear NVRAM
3. Start fresh with your setting by manually re-entering them

Why this? If you come from an older firmware, you need to do a clear NVRAM to get the hidden settings right!
Restoring the saved settings will overwrite the hidden settings as well (with the wrong values)!

But this only applies if you come from an older version. I you follow the updates regulary, it might not be needed - but still a good idea to avoid problems!

With kind regards
Joe

 

[tundrwd]

This was(!) discussed here!

Hmmm... I see a question responded to, with a "I'll look into it", but not an answer that I could find. Since the thread wasn't specific about that one topic, I might have missed it with searches, etc., but I don't see a definitive "yes, and here's how", or "no". Sorry if I missed it.

Doing a backup of the /jffs folder is a pretty simple task: Use the cp command...

Umm.... Yes, but the question was more about an overall backup/restore, not one specific item/directory. And for the jffs directory, wouldn't it be far better to use tar, so you can preserve the directory structure, uid/gid, dates, and permissions? Just untar, and you're back in business. I'm assuming, of course, that the uid doesn't really change given a reload.

Well, the procedure should be:

1. Reflasch
2. Clear NVRAM
3. Start fresh with your setting by manually re-entering them

Why this? If you come from an older firmware, you need to do a clear NVRAM to get the hidden settings right!
Restoring the saved settings will overwrite the hidden settings as well (with the wrong values)!

But this only applies if you come from an older version. I you follow the updates regulary, it might not be needed - but still a good idea to avoid problems!

With kind regards
Joe

Yes - and the question was still about backing up all of the configuration and restoring all of the configuration - not flashing firmware, and manually re-keying. If that's the only choice - so be it. A simple "no, there isn't any other method" would work fine.

Your first two list items are what I mean by "bare metal". Out of the box. The third is the question at hand - is there some other process someone has cooked up - other than re-keying by hand, to reload ALL configuration, jffs files, etc. I'll have to check the tomato forum you referenced to see what they've got.

Sorry, I come from a background where bringing up a piece of hardware, "bare metal, out of the box", in the fastest, easiest, most timely fashion is of the essence. Normally, the support I would have to do would be remote, with a person of less than desirable skills. So a quick, clean, fast relatively foolproof reload back to where it "was" is of the essence. Again - I merely wondered if there were something like that, or some method available that would do this that anyone had "cooked up" or provided.

 

[tundrwd]

I've looked at the tomato script - and it seems ok. Not sure if it works, but seems ok. Looking at it, it uses the nvram command to save the

One question, using the nvram command, I can get the values of names, set names to specific values, - and SHOW them. Would it not be better to run "nvram show > backup.txt", and then using a simple script to read back the contents of the file, and using the "nvram set". It's not entirely clear from the tomato backup script, since it uses different parms than seem to be available for the nvram command we have in AsusWrt/Merlin (i.e. tomato has "nvram export" - don't see that with the nvram we have, unless it simply doesn't output it when running the command with no parms).

Unless, of course, the names in the list changes constantly, or is order dependent on saving values, etc. That might present issues.

So a simple "nvram show > /backup.txt"

and to restore:
while read keyvalue ; do

nvram set $keyvalue​

done < /backup.txt