Configuration files and the include-credentials command

You can use the include-credentials command to store security information in the running-config file. This allows you to upload the file to a TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol. A protocol for transferring files but It cannot list, delete, or rename files or directories and it has no provisions for user authentication. server and then later download the file to the switches on which you want to use the same settings.

The authentication key values are shown in the output of the show running-config and show config commands only if the include-credentials command was executed.

When SNTP Simple Network Time Protocol. A simplified version of Network Time Protocol (NTP) used to synchronize computer clocks on a network. authentication is configured and include-credentials has not been executed, the SNTP authentication configuration is not saved.

The following example shows an enabled SNTP authentication with a key-id of 55.

Configuration file with SNTP authentication information

In this example, the include-credentials command has not been executed and is not present in the configuration file. The configuration file is subsequently saved to a TFTP server for later use. The SNTP authentication information is not saved and is not present in the retrieved configuration files, as shown in the following example.

Retrieved configuration file when include credentials is not configured

If include-credentials is configured, the SNTP authentication configuration is saved in the configuration file. When the show config command is entered, all of the information that has been configured for SNTP authentication displays, including the key-values.

Figure 1  Saved SNTP Authentication information when include-credentials is configured