Question regarding ASA changes

[Eric Washington]

   While doing some testing we made some changes to our DR ASA that were applied, but not saved. We would like to reload the ASA, but were told not to. If we exit the ASA without saving and reloading, will those changes that were applied (but not saved) go into the startup config? Or will it go back to the startup config that was there before we applied our changes?

[Jouni Forss]

Hi,

If you have only configured some command (or applied them through the ASDM) and you have NOT issued "write mem" or copied the running configuration to startup configuration then when the ASA boots the next time the ASA configuration will return to the previously saved version.

- Jouni

[Jouni Forss]

Also,

If you want to revert the configuration I would suggest using the CLI even though it might cause some extra work.

You can use the commands

show running-config

show startup-config

To view both the running and startup configuration and check for the differences and work your way back to the original version. That is, IF you dont want to reload the device and just revert the configuration back while the ASA is on normal operation.

I sometimes for example create 2 MS Word documents of 2 ASA configurations and then compare the differences in the documents with the MS Word. It very clearly shows you what is different between the text documents.

I am sure there are some other softwares that do the very same thing but I have not had to use this that many times and MS Word has been more than enough to fit the purpose.

- Jouni

[Jouni Forss]

Aaand to further clarify,

Since you have applied the configurations then they are naturally in the running-config as long as you either remove/change them manually or reboot the device.

- Jouni

[Julio Carvajal]

Hello Eric,

If we exit the ASA without saving and reloading, will those changes that were applied (but not saved) go into the startup config?

No. The only way for this to happen would be if you save them to the non-volatile-random-access-memory(NVRAM) and for that you must do a write memory or copy running to startup.

So basically a reload would let things as they were before or copy them.

NOTE: Do not do copy startup-config running-config as that will merge both of them  with

Regards

[Eric Washington]

So what happens if I exit without saving and NOT reloading? Network Services does not want to reload the ASA.

[Jouni Forss]

Hi,

If you exit ASDM or the ASA CLI nothing will happen. You have already inserted/applied the configurations to they are in the Running Configuration.

When the ASA reloads the next time then it will revert back to the Startup Configuration which DOESNT have the changes you have made so far.

So options are either to reload or manually remove the configurations you made.

- Jouni

[Julio Carvajal]

Basically nothing...

If they do not want to reload then do the following:

clear configure all  ( will erase everything from the RAM) " THIS WILL ERASE THE CONFIGURATION"

copy startup-config running-config

Those are the 2 options you have reload or the one I just provided

[Jouni Forss]

Just make sure you have an actual Console connection to the ASA if you're going to use "clear configure all".

If you are managing the ASA either by ASDM, SSH or Telnet you will loose management connection as soon as you write "clear configure all"

- Jouni