How do I stop interfaces from changing names after restore??

I have twenty RouterBOARD 750’s that we are deploying in the field. What I was attempting to do was simply a config in one and then backup and restore in the other routers to save time.

The problem is, that once the backup file is restored in the other router ether1 has become ether2, ether3 has become ether6, etc.. The original ports that I have configured are shown as “unknown” in red.

Obviously, this is going to make life hell trying to explain to someone how to set one of these up if the interfaces are always changing names because the router has one dhcp client, two dhcp servers and two slave switch ports.

How do I make it so that ether1 will always be ether1 no matter what router I transfer the .backup file into?


Thanks!

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Configuration_Management#Description

Description
The configuration backup can be used for backing up MikroTik RouterOS configuration to a binary file, which can be stored on the router or downloaded from it using FTP for future use. The configuration restore can be used for restoring the router’s configuration, exactly as it was at the backup creation moment, from a backup file. > The restoration procedure assumes the cofiguration is restored on the same router, where the backup file was originally created, so it will create partially broken configuration if the hardware has been changed.

Do not restore a binary backup on other routers. It is not supported.

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Configuration_Management#Exporting_Configuration
Use exported text configurations instead. You can then store them into a text file and upload them to other routers, and then use “/import” (also described on the same wiki page) to import that file. Make sure to edit the exported configuration and remove router specific, unique information such as MAC addresses.

Okay, thank-you for your reply. It would be nice (if any devs are reading this) if they could fix this so that the .backup files are interchangable. I can “copy run tftp” and then “copy tftp run” in Cisco easily enough.

I too was trying to figure this out. However, in defence of Mikrotik, when you do a copy run tftp, then copy tftp run you ARE working with text files.

Guys this would be good if there was not a bug in the export.

I have just done an export from a 750G on v5.5. When I go to import I get “expected end of line at line x, column y”

The problem is the exported line is creating the script with the wrong syntax.

E.G.

/queue interface
set 1-Local queue=ethernet-default

This is wrong. The 1-Local interface is index 0, the exported line should be

set 0 queue=ethernet-default

This makes the export/import useless for cross device backup.

Needs fixing urgently.