% Warning: Saving this config to nvram may corrupt

[v-yelmene]

We get this message everytime we initiate "wr mem".

Why do we get this message everytime? There is plenty of nvram space.

% Warning: Saving this config to nvram may corrupt any network management or

security files stored at the end of nvram.

Continue? [no]:

thanks,

Vince

[Richard Burts]

Vince

There are some things that IOS stores in NVRAM aside from the config-register and startup-config (which is what most of us are used to thinking of being the content of NVRAM). I know that RSA keys (if generated) are stored in NVRAM and I am not sure what else.

There are some releases that generate the warning message that you quote. It made me quite nervous when I would get these messages. But I would save the config into NVRAM anyway. And I never encountered any problems with corrupted network management or security files as the message warns about.

So my advice is to go ahead and save the config. (and my secondary advice is to upgrade to newer code which does not generate this warning message.)

HTH

Rick

[amit-singh]

Hi Vince,

Which device is this. Is it a router or switch. if it is a router try the following command in global config mode.

conf t

service compress-config

HTH, Please rate if it does.

-amit singh

[Richard Burts]

Amit

I have seen that warning message many times from IOS based routers. I did not try the service compress-config but I doubt that it will resolve the issue. The issue appears to be that the IOS believes that something is stored just behind the end-of-file mark. It seems to me that the same issue will exist if the config is compressed - just the end-of-file mark will come sooner. But perhaps Vince can try this and let us know the results.

HTH

Rick

[Roberto Salazar]

This sounds like a 2950. If it is, youmight be runnning into this bug:

CSCeb45692: Free space in NVRAM is decreasing each time config is saved.

Here is the link:

http://www.cisco.com/cgi-bin/Support/Bugtool/onebug.pl?bugid=CSCeb45692&Submit=Search

The bug is resolved in 12.1(20)EA1. However, if you do not wish to upgrade, the workaround is the following:

When hitting this error statement, choose "yes"

The user-config will be saved, and there will be an internal cleanup. Now if the "dir nvram:" command is issued, the original free NVRAM value is displayed.

Please rate helpful posts.