I bought a new RB to serve as spare for an identical unit. The new one is at V6.46.5, the old one v6.46. I performed a Backup on the old one, but when I perform a restore of that file to the new one, the new one disappears into limbo. I have to do a full reset to get it back.
“In limbo” means that Winbox does not see it as a Neighbor nor will it connect using the assigned IP (or the default IP, for that matter). Note that the new one will have been manually configured to look much like the old one before attempting the restore - I was primarily using the restore so I didn’t have to manually enter the Access Control List.
If I understand correctly the netinstall process will recover a device to a basic factory configuration. In my case I can hold the reset button while powering the device and it will recover to a basic factory configuration without that additional help.
I want to understand how to do the backup/restore process correctly so I can copy my configuration from one device to another. At the start both devices have been manually configured to be nearly identical and operating normally, so restoring a backup made on the first device to the second device shouldn’t have such a bad effect.
Of course the backup can be “bad” in some way. The backup process seems simple enough and foolproof as it should be, if we expect to depend on it. How am I going wrong?
Even though official docs say the backup can be restored on the other device of the same model, I would only restore it on the same device that created that backup.
To transfer a configuration to another device consider the /export file=myconfig and /import file=myconfig commands. Note that files stored on the device are not exported and need to be copied manually.
Thanks to mwzru for pointing me to “official docs” , which mentions that “System’s backup file also contain the device’s MAC addresses, which are also restored when the backup file is loaded.”
If I were going to allow transferring a backup to another device (as the official docs do indeed mention) I don’t guess that’s a feature I would have included as default, but assuming it does really change the MAC address of the target board it goes a long way to explaining what I’m seeing.
When I’m ready for another hour of hitting myself in the head with a hammer I may try it again, turning off the original RB so that presumably WinBox finds the new one with the old one’s address.
Then I’ll probably be back asking for help in manually changing its MAC addresses back to the factory values.
Backup was never designed as a migration method. The document concedes that it kinda sorta works with some limitations, but nobody at MT actually recommends it.
MAC addresses are backed up because you can in fact change your original device’s MAC addresses (on some interfaces, anyway), and it is assumed that if you have, it was crucial to your operational configuration.
MAC addresses are backed up because you can in fact change your original device’s MAC addresses (on some interfaces, anyway), and it is assumed that if you have, it was crucial to your operational configuration.
Well aware of that capability, having at one time designed a SCADA system around using it to allow dynamic group configuration. But can anyone tell me how to manually change the MAC in the RB?