In the old days it was quite common to schedule a device reboot e.g. 5 min ahead when ‘tricky’ remote device changes had to be performed over an in-band connection such as SSH/telnet. In case the config changes provided the desired result, the reboot would be cancelled. When the changes would have resulted in a lost management connection, the reboot would have reverted the device state to the previous config (assuming no ‘save’ was done).

Comware 7 now has a similar feature but without the device reboot, so this is an online ‘swap’ of the configuration without the reboot delay.

Note: This command is a one-off command, it is not saved in config and it needs to re-entered every time it is needed.

First set the time in the future when the auto-rollback is supposed to happen

[5900G-1]configuration commit delay ?
 INTEGER<1-65535>  Delay time in minutes
[5900G-1]configuration commit delay 2

%Jan  1 04:11:58:463 2011 5900G-1 SHELL/5/SHELL_COMMIT_DELAY: A configuration rollback will be performed in 2 minutes.

Now a config change is made, for example, the G1/0/1 description is set to ‘demo’

[5900G-1]int g1/0/1
[5900G-1-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]description demo1

Review the running config with the applied change

[5900G-1-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]dis cur int g1/0/1


 #
 interface GigabitEthernet1/0/1
 port link-mode bridge
 description demo1
 #
 return

When the administrator does not confirm the applied changes with the ‘commit’ command within the set delay time, the device will automatically rollback the configuration.

%Jan  1 04:08:28:315 2011 5900G-1 SHELL/5/SHELL_COMMIT_ROLLBACK: The configuration commit delay is overtime, a configuration rollback will be performed.
%Jan  1 04:08:36:403 2011 5900G-1 SHELL/5/SHELL_COMMIT_ROLLBACKDONE: The configuration rollback has been performed.

Now the running config has been reverted to the state before the commit delay was entered

[5900G-1-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]dis cur int g1/0/1
 #
 interface GigabitEthernet1/0/1
 port link-mode bridge
 #
 return

When the admin decides that the changes are fine, the configuration commit can be used. This will cancel the pending timer.

Again some configuration change is made

[5900G-1-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]description demo2
 [5900G-1-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]quit

Now the configuration commit is used

[5900G-1]configuration commit
%Jan  1 04:09:30:268 2011 5900G-1 SHELL/5/SHELL_COMMIT: The configuration has been committed.

And the running configuration now contains the applied changes

[5900G-1-GigabitEthernet1/0/1]dis cur int g1/0/1
#
 interface GigabitEthernet1/0/1
 port link-mode bridge
 description demo2
 #
 return