Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

Introduction

This document describes the steps required in order to troubleshoot this error message if it is seen when you attempt to save the configuration on an Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA):

ASA# write memory
Building configuration...
[ERROR] write mem
         Building configuration...
Cryptochecksum: fd8b217c 9c16140e e59864cd 7f5a0e45 

%Error reading system:/running-config 
(Configuration line too long)
Error executing command
[FAILED]
ASA#

Prerequisites

Requirements

There are no specific requirements for this document.

Components Used

This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.

The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is live, make sure that you understand the potential impact of any command.

Troubleshoot

When you enter the write memory command on the ASA or click Save in the Adaptive Security Device Manager, the firewall attempts to write the configuration from memory into permanent storage (compact flash or otherwise). If this process fails to complete, an error message might display. In this example, the error seen is:

[ERROR] write memory
          Building configuration...
Cryptochecksum: fd8b217c 9c16140e e59864cd 7f5a0e45 
%Error reading system:/running-config (Configuration line too long)
Error executing command
[FAILED]

In order to troubleshoot this error, enable these debugs and try to save the configuration on the firewall again:

• debug disk file
• debug disk filesystem
• debug disk file-verbose

Look through the debugs that are displayed for any indicators of a specific problem. For example, the error "Configuration line too long" in the previous example was due to a login banner configuration. The debugs displayed this message:

ch_running_config: Write failed, following config line exceeds 512 characters:
ASA# 	 banner value groupPolicy_VPN attributes

The reduction of the banner size eliminated the error and allowed the configuration to be saved successfully.