DEMO: Resetting Ports

When you're entering commands into a device, a router or a switch, you can always enter commands to reverse whatever it is that you just implemented. But the thing is, sometimes there's lots of commands and maybe you want to reverse all the settings and go back to the default. There is a command that can do that.

Looking at the current configuration

The first thing that I'm going to do is take a look at the running config of this switch that I'm on right here, so I'm going to do show run, and look at what configurations are on these different interfaces. We can see that there is some programming that's on these interfaces.

Defaulting an interface

Let's take this fa 1 0 8, and what I'm going to do is reset that to the default. I do this in the global configuration mode. I type in default interface, and then I'm going to type out the interface that I am making default, so in this case I'm going to just do fa 1 0 8. I just chose one by random. I'm going to do that, and it says that it set it to the default.

Now let's take a look at the running config of that, so I'm going to do show run interface fa 1 0 8 and hit enter. We can see there is no configuration on this, so it has in fact reset the running config of this interface right here.

When to use it

Use this when you have lots of commands and you want to just reset everything to the beginning. It can really save you a lot of headache, because there's times when we're trying to reverse certain things and trying to add certain things, and sometimes it's better just to wipe it all out and start fresh. Or sometimes what I'll do is I'll grab a copy of the configuration and I'll paste that into that configuration, then I will wipe out and make that interface back to the defaults, and then paste it back into the interface. That way I have cleared out anything, it's not going to bring anything over, and I've got a fresh paste of exactly what I want on that interface.