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Cisco 3200 Series Router Hardware Reference
OL-5816-10
Chapter 7 Managing Firmware and Configurations
Working with the Flash File System
To delete a directory with all its files and subdirectories, use the delete /force /recursive
filesystem:/file-url privileged EXEC command.
Use the /recursive keyword to delete the named directory and all subdirectories and the files contained
in it. Use the /force keyword to suppress the prompting that confirms a deletion of each file in the
directory. You are prompted only once at the beginning of this deletion process. Use the /force and
/recursive keywords for deleting old software images that were installed by using the archive
download-sw command but are no longer needed.
For filesystem, use flash: for the system board flash device. For file-url, enter the name of the directory
to be deleted. All the files in the directory and the directory are removed.
Caution When files and directories are deleted, their contents cannot be recovered.
Copying Files
To copy a file from a source to a destination, use the copy [/erase] source-url destination-url privileged
EXEC command. For the source and destination URLs, you can use running-config and startup-config
keyword shortcuts. For example, the copy running-config startup-config command saves the currently
running configuration file to the NVRAM section of flash memory to be used as the configuration during
system initialization.
Network file system URLs include ftp:, rcp:, and tftp: and have the following syntax:
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)—ftp:[[//username [:password]@location]/directory]/filename
• Remote Copy Protocol (RCP)—rcp:[[//username@location]/directory]/filename
• Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)—tftp:[[//location]/directory]/filename
Local writable file systems include flash:.
Some invalid combinations of source and destination exist. Specifically, you cannot copy these
combinations:
• From a running configuration to a running configuration
• From a startup configuration to a startup configuration
• From a device to the same device (for example, the copy flash: flash: command is invalid)
Command Purpose
Step 1 dir filesystem:Displays the directories on the specified file system.
For filesystem:, use flash: for the system board flash device.
Step 2 mkdir old_configs Creates a new directory.
The command example shows how to create the directory named old_configs.
Directory names are case sensitive.
Directory names are limited to 45 characters between the slashes (/); the name
cannot contain control characters, spaces, deletes, slashes, quotes, semicolons,
or colons.
Step 3 dir filesystem:Verifies your entry.