http: to copy files from remote HTTP web servers.

rcp: used for external RCP (Remote Copy Protocol) servers.

xmodem / ymodem: these are older protocols that can be used to copy files through the console.

nvram: the internal NVRAM that stores the startup-configuration.In labs, it can be useful to copy a remote file to generate some bandwidth. This is useful if you want to figure out what the size is of a remote file (like on a TFTP server). null: if you copy a file here, it won’t be saved anywhere.system: this is the system memory where the running-configuration is located.Here is an explanation of some of the prefixes we see above:

The flags describe the permission for the filesystem: nvram: this is the internal NVRAM where the startup-config file is saved.disk: this is used for storage devices like our flash memory or USB sticks.We can use this to copy files from these external sources to our filesystem. network: this is used to give the filesystem access to external systems like TFTP, FTP or HTTP servers.For example, if you use the show running-config command it internally links to the system:running-config file. opaque: these are used for some internal functions.Below the type column we see four different types: Let’s take a look at the Cisco IOS filesystem: R1# show file systems

Startup config is not present