06 November, 2015

Backup Cisco Nexus VLAN and VTP database

To backup a Cisco Nexus series' VLAN/VTP database there is an interesting catch.
For VTP clients, the VLAN and VTP database is stored in bootflash:///vlan.dat
For VTP servers, the VLAN and VTP database is stored in bootflash:///vtp.dat

A VTP server also has vlan.dat in its' bootflash, but it can not be read as long as the switch is configured as a VTP server.

Both vtp.dat on a VTP server and vlan.dat on a VTP client are the same in size (or almost the same). These files are not editable in a text editor, however VLAN names could be read from inbetween displayed gibberish.

Restoring VLAN and VTP configuration on a factory-default Nexus switch is easy:
1) Configure the VTP server with command:
vtp file bootflash:/vtp.dat
2) Copy the backup vtp.dat to bootflash:
copy usb1:///vtp.dat bootflash:///vtp.dat
3) wr
4) reload

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