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Catalyst 2950 and Catalyst 2955 Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 4 Assigning the Switch IP Address and Default Gateway
Modifying the Startup Configuration
To store the configuration or changes you have made to your startup configuration in flash memory, enter
the copy running-config startup-config privileged EXEC command. This command saves the
configuration settings that you made. If you fail to do this, your configuration will be lost the next time
you reload the system. To display information stored in the NVRAM section of flash memory, use the
show startup-config or more startup-config privileged EXEC command.
For more information about alternative locations from which to copy the configuration file on the
Catalyst 2950 LRE switches, see Appendix B, “Working with the Cisco IOS File System, Configuration
Files, and Software Images.”
Modifying the Startup Configuration
This section describes how to modify the switch startup configuration only on a Catalyst 2950 LRE
switch. It contains this configuration information:
• Default Boot Configuration, page 4-13
• Automatically Downloading a Configuration File, page 4-13
• Specifying the Filename to Read and Write the System Configuration, page 4-14
• Booting Manually, page 4-14
• Booting a Specific Software Image, page 4-15
• Controlling Environment Variables, page 4-16

Default Boot Configuration

Table 4-3 shows the default boot configuration.

Automatically Downloading a Configuration File

You can automatically download a configuration file to your switch by using the DHCP-based
autoconfiguration feature. For more information, see the “Understanding DHCP-Based
Autoconfiguration” section on page 4-3.
Tab l e 4-3 Default Boot Configuration
Feature Default Setting
Operating system software image The switch attempts to automatically boot the system using information in the BOOT
environment variable. If the variable is not set, the switch attempts to load and
execute the first executable image it can by performing a recursive, depth-first search
throughout the flash file system.
The software image is stored in a directory that has the same name as the image file
(excluding the .bin extension).
In a depth-first search of a directory, each encountered subdirectory is completely
searched before continuing the search in the original directory.
Configuration file Configured switches use the config.text file stored on the system board in flash
memory.
A new switch has no configuration file.