
MNL-0641-01 Rev A3
ECO-4823
Effective: 04 Oct 16
Page 27 of 107
U
NDERSTANDING THE
S
WITCH
C
ONFIGURATION
F
ILES
The switch supports an Industry Standard configuration (ICFG) and stores the configuration in text files in
CLI format. The files are either virtual (RAM-based) or stored in flash on the switch. All configuration files
except ‘running-config’ are stored in the flash: file system.
There are four kinds of configuration files:
‘running-config’, a virtual file containing the currently running system configuration. running-
config is created each time the system boots, by reading default-config and then startup-config.
When you make configuration changes, they affect running-config.
‘startup-config’, containing the saved configuration that is read at boot time. If you make
configuration changes, you must copy running-config to startup-config in order to save them and
apply them at the next boot.
‘default-config’, a read-only file that contains the factory defaults for the switch. It is used to reset
a feature to its
default, or if ‘startup-config’ is missing, to set the entire configuration to factory
defaults.
User-defined configuration files. These are typically used for backups or variants of startup-
config. The maximum number of files in flash is limited to a compressed size which does not
exceed roughly 1MB.
The CLI supports the maximum number of files.
The GUI file management capabilities are limited; refer to "Managing Configuration Files".
The configuration files can be edited and can be populated on multiple other switches using any standard
text editor offline.
It is possible to reset the total system configuration to defaults in two ways:
Deleting ‘startup-config’ and rebooting.
Instructing the software to discard the current configuration and reset to defaults without
rebooting.
Deleting ‘startup-config’ doesn’t change the current ‘running-config’; however, when the system is
rebooted, only the defaults will be loaded. Conversely, discarding the current configuration affects
‘running-config’ but does not touch ‘startup-config’.
The sections on "Using the CLI" and "Using the Web GUI" provide instructions on working with the
configuration files.
Note: You must use the CLI to change the VLAN 1 IP address from the factory default; refer to
the "CLI Quick Start" section. For all other management activities, you can use either the CLI or
the Web GUI.