Archer C7 backup config

Let me start off by saying, I am very new to OpenWRT. What I am trying to accomplish so far I have not been successful at. I work for an ISP, we are using the C7 with open WRT as a firewall for some of our smaller hosted voip customers. I want to create a config that I am able to send to the C7 that has all of the settings we are using to streamline the setup process of these devices. We are setting them all up the same with only a few firewall, DHCP, and DNS settings, disabling the wireless, and adding a few SSH keys. I attempted to generate a backup of one we have already setup thinking I could just use that file but it Cloned the WAN Mac/ IP also from the device I created the backup from which I do not want it do do. I would love to have one configuration I could send to these C7s that adds the openWRT and all of our settings in one upload. I sincerely apologize if this all sounds totally stupid, I am totally new to networking, just looking for some guidance, Thanks!

uci-defaults worth a look.

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If you don't need the firstboot scripts (e.g. to extract the mac address) you could simply build an image with ImageBuilder with all your config files in place. To see if this concept will work, remove any option device defining a MAC address from /etc/config/network and reboot, and see if the actual interface MACs still match the sticker.

If they don't you'll have to do this as uci-defaults.

If they do you could create a backup from the reference unit, untar the backup into the Image Builder filesystem (create a files/ directory in the Image Builder root) and edit them to something generic enough to deploy. Caution with this method is if you hard-code a misconfiguration and end up bricked you will need to TFTP or serial to get back to defaults.

Files under files/ is also how UCI defaults are loaded. For something like ssh public keys which aren't accessible by UCI, you will need an actual file files/etc/dropbear/authorized_keys.

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