User NVRAM Save/Restore Utility (R26.2)

[RMerlin]

It pays to double check....but I think I've covered the variable/functional changes when making that move.

I'll update my OP to notify users that version 14 should be fine to use when migrating, thanks.

 

[tsunami2311]

i will give it try when get around to the 378 code, right now only reason i see to update is to fix the

- FIXED: MAC list would get corrupted when removing and re-adding
entries on the MAC filter list

Beyond that i have no issue. Ether way great work on NVRAM utility

 

[janosek]

Thank you. This tool is excellent!

 

[Denny]

john9527,

Any chance to support AiCloud within next version?
From my side, I believe only these parameters are needed however not sure:

cloud_sync=...
enable_cloudsync=1

Thank you

 

[WaVeR]

Hello,

Just upgraded from 3.0.0.4.376.49_4 to the last release. I used your script to save my settings and my time

it looks like everything is restored as before. The only change I noticed is on the VPN pptp page [Network Place (Samba) Support was enabled after updating firmware and using your script to restore NV settings, I had to disable it manually]

Thanks for providing this tool.

 

[john9527]

Hello,

Just upgraded from 3.0.0.4.376.49_4 to the last release. I used your script to save my settings and my time

it looks like everything is restored as before. The only change I noticed is on the VPN pptp page [Network Place (Samba) Support was enabled after updating firmware and using your script to restore NV settings, I had to disable it manually]

Thanks for providing this tool.

Thanks for the report. It looks like a couple of vars got added when the ASUS VPN pages were merged back in. The following will be added to the VPN server section next release (only required if using PPTP server):

pptpd_ms_network
pptpd_sr_rulelist
pptpd_server (this one was declared but never actually used)

 

[Markmaster]

Hi.
I dream about something like this from the beginning of the human beings %)
Every time I update the firmware and reset the settings the fulfilling of the DHCP table and the Port Forwarding was a catastrophe. Now I can see I can do things MUCH EASIER. Thanks!
But I got a question: what if I need in some cases to backup only my DHCP Table and Port Forwardings in case of testing some performance issues with different firmwares? How could I "checked" the only necessary parameters that I want to BackUp?

 

[john9527]

Hi.
I dream about something like this from the beginning of the human beings %)
Every time I update the firmware and reset the settings the fulfilling of the DHCP table and the Port Forwarding was a catastrophe. Now I can see I can do things MUCH EASIER. Thanks!
But I got a question: what if I need in some cases to backup only my DHCP Table and Port Forwardings in case of testing some performance issues with different firmwares? How could I "checked" the only necessary parameters that I want to BackUp?

Right now the way to do that would be to save a copy of the default nvram-merlin.ini and then edit the original to include only the variables you would want to save (either by commenting out the sections or variables with a # as the first character in the line, or just deleting what you don't want to save).
When you want to do a full backup again, backup your custom ini file and replace the nvram-merlin.ini with the default backed up copy you had made before.

I'll look at adding a command line option to specify an .ini file to use to make doing custom saves easier.

 

[Markmaster]

Right now the way to do that would be to save a copy of the default nvram-merlin.ini and then edit the original to include only the variables you would want to save (either by commenting out the sections or variables with a # as the first character in the line, or just deleting what you don't want to save).
When you want to do a full backup again, backup your custom ini file and replace the nvram-merlin.ini with the default backed up copy you had made before.

I'll look at adding a command line option to specify an .ini file to use to make doing custom saves easier.

Thanks! I just want to be sure I am doing this in right way:

[DHCP Settings]
dhcp_staticlist
dhcp_enable_x
dhcpd_querylog
lan_domain
# dhcp_start
# dhcp_end
dhcp_lease
dhcp_gateway_x
# dhcp_dns1_x
lan_dns_fwd_local
# dhcp_wins_x
dhcp_static_x
custom_clientlist

For example the Hashed strings will no be backed uped? So I can "write" my personal *.ini for my personal purpose?
I read the 'readme" carefully and underline that you not recommend to edit any file in the root folder to exclude the mistakes. I am on the OS X, so can I use Sublime (text and whatever editor) to add Hashes to my *.ini file? Do I need to change Encoding to UTF-8 or Cyrillic 1251 when I save the file?
Do I need to manually rename the file in the *.ini? Should it work?
Do I need to enter new, specific commands via Telnet to checksum the new *.ini file and make the magic happens?

 

[john9527]

Thanks! I just want to be sure I am doing this in right way:

For example the Hashed strings will no be backed uped?

Correct...also, if you 'hash' the header, like '#[DHCP Settings]' the entire section will not be backed up.

So I can "write" my personal *.ini for my personal purpose?

Right now the script looks for an ini file named nvram-merlin.ini So, your custom file needs to replace that file and be named the same.

I read the 'readme" carefully and underline that you not recommend to edit any file in the root folder to exclude the mistakes. I am on the OS X, so can I use Sublime (text and whatever editor) to add Hashes to my *.ini file?

That warning is primarily to protect windows users from saving the files in DOS/Windows format vs Linux format (cr/lf vs lf only). I'm not an OS X person, but I think there is also a Mac format as well. You need to make sure you are saving the file in Linux format.

Do I need to change Encoding to UTF-8 or Cyrillic 1251 when I save the file?

I checked, and on my system the files are encoded as 1252 ANSI. I'm not sure if other encodings will work.

Do I need to manually rename the file in the *.ini? Should it work?

See above.....nvram-merlin.ini is the filename that is read.

Do I need to enter new, specific commands via Telnet to checksum the new *.ini file and make the magic happens?

No, I don't do any checksum checking on the files during execution.

 

[james dab]

waht Details in the first post?

 

[noric]

Can I use this to revert to an earlier firmware? I'd go back from 378.50 to 376.49.
Thanks.

 

[john9527]

Can I use this to revert to an earlier firmware? I'd go back from 378.50 to 376.49.
Thanks.

Yes you can...it will even delete variables that are unique to the 378 code during the restore.

The only thing that won't go back exactly as it was are the unique maclists for maclist filtering if you had originally used different lists for 2.4 and 5GHz on 376. Both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz lists will be restored to the single common list that is used in 378.

 

[noric]

Yes you can...it will even delete variables that are unique to the 378 code during the restore.

The only thing that won't go back exactly as it was are the unique maclists for maclist filtering if you had originally used different lists for 2.4 and 5GHz on 376. Both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz lists will be restored to the single common list that is used in 378.

It worked! Congrats, very useful tool.
Just a few notes, in case you need feedback to improve this. It looks like your script restored everything but two things: "Enable WAN down browser redirect notice" and "USB adapter". The latter is in WAN>InternetConnection>USB (when you have dual-wan enabled).

Edit: one more thing. I use to overclock the cpu and apparently your script doesn't backup the nvram "clkfreq" variable.

 

[john9527]

It worked! Congrats, very useful tool.
Just a few notes, in case you need feedback to improve this. It looks like your script restored everything but two things: "Enable WAN down browser redirect notice" and "USB adapter". The latter is in WAN>InternetConnection>USB (when you have dual-wan enabled).

Looks like these got added after I made the original list. Will get them in the next update (nat_redirect_enable and wan_unit)

Edit: one more thing. I use to overclock the cpu and apparently your script doesn't backup the nvram "clkfreq" variable.

I flipped back and forth on including this one, finally deciding that with new code it's better to start with the default clocks. I'll add an option in the next update to include it for 'advanced' users.

Thanks for taking the time to give feedback...it's the only way to keep things up to date.

 

[carov2007]

Probably it is already done and I didn't see it.

What if you add to the script a command so as to get a txt with the settings, just in case?

At http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=22822 it is mentioned:
nvram show | sort > /mnt/sda1/settings.txt

I'd assume that inside the script it would be nvram show | sort > settings.txt.

I have no idea on how to edit script plus I'm windows user (don't want to mess the Linux - DOS formats you've mentioned somewhere).

Running this command at the putty telnet right after running the script, it has created the settings.txt file.

A nice addition would be using a name for the .txt file that includes the date of the backup and other information like the one added to the file created by your script.

 

[noric]

Probably it is already done and I didn't see it.

What if you add to the script a command so as to get a txt with the settings, just in case?

At http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=22822 it is mentioned:
nvram show | sort > /mnt/sda1/settings.txt

I'd assume that inside the script it would be nvram show | sort > settings.txt.

I have no idea on how to edit script plus I'm windows user (don't want to mess the Linux - DOS formats you've mentioned somewhere).

Running this command at the putty telnet right after running the script, it has created the settings.txt file.

A nice addition would be using a name for the .txt file that includes the date of the backup and other information like the one added to the file created by your script.

Just open the restore script in firefox (or any other unix txt reader, such as notepad++).

 

[john9527]

Probably it is already done and I didn't see it.

What if you add to the script a command so as to get a txt with the settings, just in case?

At http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=22822 it is mentioned:
nvram show | sort > /mnt/sda1/settings.txt

I'd assume that inside the script it would be nvram show | sort > settings.txt.

I have no idea on how to edit script plus I'm windows user (don't want to mess the Linux - DOS formats you've mentioned somewhere).

Running this command at the putty telnet right after running the script, it has created the settings.txt file.

A nice addition would be using a name for the .txt file that includes the date of the backup and other information like the one added to the file created by your script.

@noric is correct, you could just look inside the restore script....but, it's also easy for the novice to accidently save the file in the wrong format under windows....

so, I'm going to add two output text files in the next release....

nvram-all-yyyymmdd-macid.txt which will be the sorted nvram show output of all the nvram variables
nvram-usr-yyyymmdd-macid.txt which will be a text listing of the variables saved by the utility by category (leaves out the variables you shouldn't touch )

Thanks for the feedback/suggestion.

 

[carov2007]

Sure, txt is bullet proof in this case.

Noric,

I'm not a newbie in general, but in terms of routers, linux, etc. I'm totally a newbie.

So with that in mind, I'd have to start looking for notepad++, etc.

And it would have been highly likely that I'd have save something by mistake under windows. So many new concepts and terms, that it is very easy to forget a piece of advice.

 

[Dfects]

Hiya,

I've been using merlin firmware for my ac66u for a while now. I've just upgraded to the latest release after backing up using this script. I've factory reset as recommended in the changelog, then used this script to do a restore of the backup. Is this the correct procedure? Or should I have chosen the migration backup instead?

Everything seems to be working okay anyway but I just wanted to check.

Thanks for your great work on this script, its saved me a lot of time restoring settings!