Few times in the past when I was doing some changes on Cisco devices remotely I was a victim of myself, when wrong order of commands just disconnected me from device without ability to connect back. After few experiences of this kind I discovered magic command “reload” which can help and save the day.
So, when doing changes which can impact remote terminal connection to device it’s a good idea to initiate reload before making changes. In case something goes wrong device will reboot itself and will come back with previous configuration.
lab-r01# lab-r01#reload in 15 Reload scheduled in 15 minutes by admin on console Reload reason: Reload Command Proceed with reload? [confirm] lab-r01# *Mar 1 03:11:11.659: %SYS-5-SCHEDULED_RELOAD: Reload requested for 03:26:09 UTC Fri Mar 1 2002 at 03:11:09 UTC Fri Mar 1 2002 by admin on console. Reload Reason: Reload Command. lab-r01#
Once everything is configured and connectivity to device was not lost we can cancel reload process.
lab-r01# lab-r01#reload cancel lab-r01# *** *** --- SHUTDOWN ABORTED --- *** *Mar 1 03:11:19.415: %SYS-5-SCHEDULED_RELOAD_CANCELLED: Scheduled reload cancelled at 03:11:19 UTC Fri Mar 1 2002 lab-r01#
It is very helpful and can save time and rescue from trouble.