Joined: 04 Aug 2018 Posts: 1447 Location: Appalachian mountains, USA
Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 22:25 Post subject: [solved] Restore router A's backup to router B (same model)
I have in the past, on WRT1900ACSv2 routers, successfully flashed and set up a new build by doing
write webflash.bin linux
nvram erase
source giantList
reboot
The giantList file is a meticulously prepared collection of hundreds of "nvram set" commands to get the router initially set up appropriately for the new build. I've done this several times, and it actually works fine.
But now I want to do a variation:
write webflash.bin linux
nvram erase
nvram restore backupFile
reboot
The backupFile was saved on a different router of the same model that was already running the new build. This ridiculous scheme is how I'm trying to configure a west-coast router by hand using a spare east-coast router (to create the backupFile). Lots of help from scp and ssh, of course. I'd "&&" these commands together, but some of these commands don't play well (write in particular) together that way. The original scheme at the top works fine without the && approach.
Questions:
1. Anyone know any reason why this is going to fail and horribly screw up the west-coast router? It will be hard to fix from here on the east coast if that happens.
2. In particular, are the MAC addresses in the east-coast backupFile going to screw things up in the west-coast router?
I have both routers' "nvram show" outputs captured, so I can get to those original west-coast MACs and restore them afterward, if there's even a way to connect to a router with the wrong MACs in it. My fear is that with the wrong MACs the west-coast router will be bricked by virtue of not being reachable to correct the MACs in nvram to make them match the hardware. If, however, the hardware gets its MACs from dd-wrt, so that basically I'll have teleported the east-coast router, MACs and all, to the west coast, I can actually live with that. If this ridiculous scheme works, I'll soon do it to another west-coast router, so two routers on that coast will have matching MACs. Harmless I presume.
Anyone have a clue? _________________ 2x Netgear XR500 and 3x Linksys WRT1900ACSv2 on 53544: VLANs, VAPs, NAS, station mode, OpenVPN client (AirVPN), wireguard server (AirVPN port forward) and clients (AzireVPN, AirVPN, private), 3 DNSCrypt providers via VPN.
Joined: 04 Aug 2018 Posts: 1447 Location: Appalachian mountains, USA
Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 23:49 Post subject:
@KP that's awesome. (My own searching had only turned up discussions from 2014, of which I was skeptical.)
I'll give it a try soon, likely tomorrow, and report back. _________________ 2x Netgear XR500 and 3x Linksys WRT1900ACSv2 on 53544: VLANs, VAPs, NAS, station mode, OpenVPN client (AirVPN), wireguard server (AirVPN port forward) and clients (AzireVPN, AirVPN, private), 3 DNSCrypt providers via VPN.
Joined: 04 Aug 2018 Posts: 1447 Location: Appalachian mountains, USA
Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2021 18:13 Post subject:
Success! The OP procedure using nvram restore just before booting into the new build worked flawlessly.
The only slight oddity was that my six (lots of VAPs) ath*_hwaddr nvram vars from 44048 were augmented by, rather than replaced by, the corresponding six wlan*_nwaddr nvram vars of 46816. So I just did nvram unset on each of the ath ones to clean up. _________________ 2x Netgear XR500 and 3x Linksys WRT1900ACSv2 on 53544: VLANs, VAPs, NAS, station mode, OpenVPN client (AirVPN), wireguard server (AirVPN port forward) and clients (AzireVPN, AirVPN, private), 3 DNSCrypt providers via VPN.
