Backup config MS225

[Tylerjuz]

Can anyone help to deploy a backup conf of switch MS225 on cloud?

Cisco Meraki rep answered no way to do offlibe backup of current online switch on cloud.

I'm pretty sure Cisco sell mil of switch over the countries and why developer team not deploy this  feature on cloud.

Know that we can use python but is it safety way when run script on dashboard ? Why does Cisco use third parties software to export conf file? Heard that just succeed 70% conf not 100% as catalyst usual way.

[ww]

No you cant backup the full switch config.

Why do you want a backup config?

i guess you have to  see it like this. The config is on the switch. the cloud is your backup config. 

[Tylerjuz]

How can we config on switch in case urgent ? If Someone reset to default in case we don't have backup file and cannot access to cloud for several hours.?

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@ww wrote:

No you cant backup the full switch config.

Why do you want a backup config?

i guess you have to  see it like this. The config is on the switch. the cloud is your backup config. 

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[molodoko]

I think this is a crap scenario. Yesterday a client accidentally cloned a vanilla switch to a prod switch while attempting to go the other way. This blew out the config in the cloud. Without a local configuration backup, we had to redeploy the entire network. I understand there are 3rd party tools like Auvik to do this, but not every client is going to want to pay for that. 

There needs to be a way to generate a backup file, or at lest a repository in the cloud for them to be saved. It didn't help that the Meraki support engineer had us break the stack which them wiped the other switches in the stack. It was an overall horrible experience with Meraki. 

[PhilipDAth]

@molodoko can create a copy of a network in the dashboard as a simple backup.  Just create a new network and tell it to clone it from the one you want to backup.

You can create as many backups as you want.

Also as already mentioned in this thread, you can use my [free] offline backup script to backup a lot of settings to a local file on your computer.  I updated it earlier this year.

https://www.ifm.net.nz/cookbooks/meraki-backup.html 

[molodoko]

Actually, since posting that I did come to that conclusion. 

As far as your python script, I am a newb. I started reading up on it today and do plan to test your script. 

Thanks for replying. 

[Michael27]

Best practices is to back up configuration before making changes. So, if you are re-configuring a switch you need to be able to pull a current config backup.

Change the cloud --> changed the switch = original config gone.

[PhilipDAth]

If you want to 100% use the dashboard then the only way I can think of is to buy an extra switch, and then clone the switch config you want to the new switch.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Other_Topics/Switch_Cloning

Otherwise I have written a script that can backup a lot of the settings in an organisation, but not everything.

http://www.ifm.net.nz/cookbooks/meraki-backup.html

[Tylerjuz]

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Thanks @PhilipDath .

I do option 2 but does this way safe ? Who can guarantee it does not affect to organization ?

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@PhilipDAth wrote:

If you want to 100% use the dashboard then the only way I can think of is to buy an extra switch, and then clone the switch config you want to the new switch.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Other_Topics/Switch_Cloning

Otherwise I have written a script that can backup a lot of the settings in an organisation, but not everything.

http://www.ifm.net.nz/cookbooks/meraki-backup.html

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[Tylerjuz]

where can I find these 2 modules ?
You are also going to need to install two Python modules:
pip install requests
pip install meraki

[PhilipDAth]

>Can anyone help to deploy a backup conf of switch MS225 on cloud?

I guess you are effectively trusting Meraki to maintain those backups for you.

[BlakeRichardson]

Its not possible. You could create a switch template instead if you are that concerned. 

[GIdenJoe]

A colleague of mine already uses an API to backup firewall rules, so I guess it's possible to backup configurations of other devices.

Another colleague of mine painfully found out that switch cloning only takes the port configs but does not do anything with L3 interfaces and routes so beware.

[Tylerjuz]

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Does it safe after backup? No harmful to the firewall so far? I would like to use an official backup from Meraki, we paid for it , we must require it.

@GIdenJoe wrote:

A colleague of mine already uses an API to backup firewall rules, so I guess it's possible to backup configurations of other devices.

Another colleague of mine painfully found out that switch cloning only takes the port configs but does not do anything with L3 interfaces and routes so beware.

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[GIdenJoe]

@TylerjuzWe had a severe dashboard bug where a change in one unrelated configuration caused a wipe of all L3/L4 firewall rules.  And those changes were not visible on the Organization->Changelog.  So we decided to do a daily backup of all our customers who give us API access to their org up to the last three days.  So we can always restore the firewall rules from the last 3 days.

I believe my colleague used existing python code readily available on the internet and tweaked it a bit for our purposes so I can't answer any details on this.  All I can say it's possible but make sure to get your customers approval and save those file in a secure location.

The scripts you can find usually read the values and write the restore commands so the output is actually a .py file with the commands to restore that config, but for some things like firewall rules, you could output it textbased so it's more human readable and editable.

[Tylerjuz]

If we forget buying license for a year, is it possible to access to cloud ? 

[PhilipDAth]

>If we forget buying license for a year, is it possible to access to cloud ? 

If you don't have a licence your device will stop forwarding traffic.