How to back up your Cisco Router IOS

Follow the steps below on how to back up your Cisco Router IOS:

1.       Log into your router and go into privileged mode by typing en or enable.

2.       Make sure you can connect to the TFTP server that is on your network by pinging the IP address from the router console.

3.       Type show flash to see the contents of flash memory.

4.       Type show version at the router privileged-mode prompt to get the name of the IOS currently running on the router. If there is only one file in flash memory, the show flash and show version commands show the same file. Remember that the show version command shows you the file that is currently running and the show flash command shows you all of the files in flash memory.

5.       Once you know you have good Ethernet connectivity to the TFTP server and you also know the IOS filename, back up your IOS by typing copy flash tftp. This command tells the router to copy the content of flash memory (this is where the IOS is stored by default) to a tftp server.

6.       Enter the IP address of the TFTP server and the source IOS filename. The file is now copied and stored in the TFTP server’s default directory.