A system restart on Cisco routers is called a reload. If the router needs to be reloaded for any reason, the reload command needs to be entered from privileged mode, as shown in Example 4-4. The reload command also allows a time to be set so that the system restarts after the specified time expires. In Cisco IOS, whenever you enter a configuration command it takes effect immediately and goes into the 'running configuration'. When the router boots up it loads the 'startup configuration'. To make your changes persistent over a reboot you need to copy the running configuration to the startup configuration with the 'copy run start command'. If you go to global configuration mode, you can type reload and then hit the question mark. It shows you your choices. One of the choices is reload in. Further review of the command shows that if you set the reload time to 15 minutes, for example, this will give you a fifteen minute window in which to perform the task at hand. Erase Startup-config. This command lets you erase your startup-configuration. When you reload the router or switch it will return to its default configuration. R1#erase startup-config R1#reload. In the below example R1’s startup configuration is erased.

1. Cisco 3850 Reload Slot Command
2. Cisco Asa Reload Command
3. Cisco Reload In 5 Minutes

When making potentially intrusive changes or doing fail over testing and you do not have physical access to the device, it is a good practice to save the working config, schedule a reboot and make the changes you don’t want to make and in the event it does not preform as expected when your timer runs out it will reboot and your working config you previously saved will take effect.

The first thing you will want to do is save your configuration in its working state.

or

Now we know this will be the state our device will reboot into we can schedule our reboot command, you will want to give yourself enough time to do all the changes you need to make and test but not too long to where you have to sit around for 40 minutes waiting for the device to reboot. Below is an example of scheduling a reboot in 15 minutes from now.

At this point we have some time to make and test our changes, if the changes cut our arm off we can just wait the remaining time until the device reboots and we are allowed back in.

If everything goes well we can then cancel the reboot by issuing the following command.