2022 TUTORIAL: LEARN HOW TO BACKUP AND RESTORE MIKROTIK ROUTER CONFIGURATION USING WINBOX AND CLI

Learn how to backup and restore Mikrotik Router Configuration using WinBox and the Command Line Interface.

Backing up and restoring your Mikrotik router configuration is a crucial task for any network administrator. With the right tools, you can easily make sure that your network is running optimally and securely. In this guide, we will show you how to back up and restore your Mikrotik router configuration using WinBox and the Command Line Interface (CLI). We will also discuss the importance of backing up your router settings and discuss some best practices when it comes to setting up backups.

Always remember that keeping a backup of your network configuration is important and very useful in disaster recovery situations. The RouterOS backup feature makes it possible to save your current device’s configuration and can be restored on the same device or a different device with the same model. This tutorial aims to provide a guide on how to backup and restore the MIKROTIK router configuration using the WINBOX and COMMAND LINE INTERFACE

Requirements

In order to complete this tutorial successfully the following items are required. Please ensure to have these items available before taking implimentation action on this tutorial :
1) 1 x Mikrotik Router
2) 1 x Desktop or laptop computer with Windows or MacOS installed
3) 1 Mikrotik winbox utility (click HERE to download WINBOX).

Overview

1) Open Winbox and log into the router using your admin credentials
2) What is a Mikrotik Router and why should you back up its configuration?
3) Create a RouterOS backup using WinBox
4) Restore a RouterOS backup using WinBox
5) Create a RouterOS backup from the command line interface.
6) Restore a RouterOS backup from the command line interface.

What is a Mikrotik Router and Why Should You Back Up Its Configuration?

A Mikrotik Router is a powerful networking device that allows you to connect multiple networks and devices. It provides a wide range of features, including firewall, bandwidth management, VPNs, and more. Backing up the configuration of your Mikrotik Router is an essential part of keeping your network secure and running smoothly. By backing up the configuration settings, you can quickly restore the router in case of any problems or changes in settings. This will help ensure that your network stays connected and running without any disruptions.

STEP 1: Create a RouterOS Backup using WinBox.

1) Connect the mikrotik router to a power source, connect an RJ45 ethernet cable to ETHER2 and the ethernet port of your laptop / desktop. Winbox will automatically detect all connected mikrotik routers. if you do not see your mikrotik router try to click the refresh button under the neighbours tab or try to power cycle your routerboard. Double click on the router you would like to configure, this will populate the “CONNECT TO” field. Enter your username and password and click the “CONNECT button

2) Once you are logged in, click on the”FILES” menu item and the “FILE LIST” window will appear.

3) Next, click on the “BACKUP” button and the “BACKUP” popup window will appear. Enter “MYFIRSTBACKUP” in the NAME field to give your backup a name, you can use any other name you would like. If you would like to password protect your backup add a password in the PASSWORD field. You can also encypt your backup using aes-sha256 or rc4 encryption.

If you do not want to password protect and encrypt your backup leave the PASSWORD and ENCRYPTION fields empty.

Press the BACKUP btton to proceed.

4) You can see the newly created backup file in the FILE LIST window. You can drag and drop the backup file from WINBOX to any location on your computers file explorer

STEP 2: Restore a RouterOS backup using WinBox.

The process of restoring a Mikrotik RouterOS backup is fairly simple. From the WinBox left menu, click Files and click Upload. Browse to the folder where the Mikrotik backup file is located and click Upload

On the File List, click on the newly uploaded backup file and click Restore. On the file section popup window, click Restore and a confirmation window will be displayed. You will see the message: Do you want to restore configuration and reboot?’. Click Yes to proceed. The Mikrotik Router will reboot, log back into the Router and you will see that RouterOS has been restored.

The Benefits of Using the Command Line Interface for Backup & Restore

The Command Line Interface (CLI) is a powerful tool that can be used to backup and restore data. It provides a secure, efficient, and reliable way to store your data. With the CLI, you can easily create backups of your files and databases, as well as quickly restore them when needed. Additionally, the CLI offers a variety of benefits that make it an ideal choice for backup & restore operations. These include faster backup & restore times, better control over backup & restore processes, and improved security for your data

Step 3: Creating a backup from the command line interface

5) You can also create a backup of the current Mikrotik configuration from a command line interface. To do this, use an SSH client such as Putty or the macOS / Linux terminal app to open an SSH session to the Mikrotik router. Run the commands below to create a backup:

When you execute the command you will see the response message:

Saving system configuration
Configuration backup saved

Step 4: Restoring a backup from the command line interface

The Mikrotik command line interface also allows you to restore a system backup. There is a simple built-in command that you can use to perform a backup restoration. Assuming that the backup file is located on the desktop of the device you are using to connect to the Mikrotik Router, run the command below to copy the backup to the Mikrotik Router using the scp command:

Enter the password for your Mikrotik router on the prompt and you will see a file copy progress report.

Now that the backup file has been copied, open an SSH connection to the router and run the command below:

Enter your RouterOS admin password on the password prompt and enter Y to allow RouterOS to restore the backup and reboot the router.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have learnt how to backup and restore Mikrotik Router Configuration using WinBox and the Command Line Interface. We hope that this tutorial has been informative and would like to thank you for reading it. Please visit our home page for more tutorials and guides