Cisco’s can be rebooted with the reload command. The reload command allows you to specify how many minutes like
reload 5
to reload in 5 minutes. We can also reload at a specific time. For instance
reload 13:30
will reload the router at 1:30PM.
For a Cisco config to remain permanent, we have to “write” i.e. save the config. By default, making changes, for instance an IP address on an interface, will get wiped on a reboot or reload.
We can take advantage of this behavior to “test” changes on a Cisco router.
Example:
- Run the command “reload 10” to reboot the router in 10 minutes. The plan is to cancel the reload after making sure our changes work
- Make the needed changes to the Router.
- After verifying that everything is working, run the “reload cancel” command to cancel the reload
- Now we can run “write” to save our new config
To recap reload 10 will reload a router in 10 minutes
If we loose access to the router while making changes, once 10 minutes has expired, the router will reload, returning it to the last know working state.
The reload cancel command will cancel the reload.write will make our config persistent across reboots/reloads
https://superuser.com/questions/1080513/cisco-router-auto-restart-in-x-seconds