Mikrotik RouterOS backups: /export is good, but not enough

For… reasons… I had to restore my Mikrotik router from a backup yesterday, after a hardware reset. Again, a good opportunity to test them live! … And of course realise it’s not seamless. I have historically done my backups manually with /export verbose show-sensitive=true after every config change, and download the generated rsc file off the router. While this is good practice, and the recommended approach for router migration (via the /import command). The better way to do same-device Router OS backups, that I’ll do from now on, is to use the /system/backup commands. It is also available from the Files section in the WebUI. I’ll also look at creating periodic backups, as I noticed that the files stored on the device persisted across hardware and config resets. TIL: /import <FILE> verbose=progress can use the from-line=x option to continue restoring after a failing line (e.g., pre-existing defconf entries [which can, however, be forcefully wiped], or missing packages that need…