Billion UK Forum

Hi,

I have been using a 7800N for a number of years now and it has "evolved" with rather a complicated configuration, multiple firewall rules, port mappings, DHCP settings etc. Basically to do a firmware upgrade is a real pain as Billion seem to insist on doing a factory reset every time and then tell you not to restore a backup but type it all in by hand. This seems daft in this day and age.

Is there a way to "migrate" the configuration from a backup rather than having to type it all in by hand every time?

What does everyone else do?

You can understand the requirement to reconfigure as you don't know if any changes to the XML schema might be introduced between firmware levels. I have the same issue so what I did was this. It's a bit of faff and comes with no guarantee and ask at your own risk and ask usual disclaimers!
1. Take a backup before you perform the firmware upgrade.
2. Perform the firmware upgrade as recommended with a factory reset
3. Take another backup of the fresh install
4.Now open the two XML documents side by side (wordpad presents it better than notepad or a proper XML editor if you have one)
5. Compare the configured sections. If the schema is the same for any section (I.e. you see exactly the same XML structure and delimiters) then you can copy and paste from the old to the new. Many sections are sequentially numbered so you need to be careful that it makes sense once you've edited a section. If the schema fit any section is different then probably best to reconfigure that element manually.
6. Dave as a new XML.
7. Import the new XML and cross your fingers!