If you’ve ever configured a VPN on a Cisco PIX or ASA and used pre shared keys or PSKs, you’ll know that once they’ve been entered in the the configuration they simple appear as ‘*****’.
If you ever need to make changes or duplicate the VPN configuration on another firewall, it can be a real pain in the ass unless you’ve made a note of the PSK. I recently was in such a situation and after a bit of googling I came across this little trick:
ASA# more system:/running-config
This will show you the complete running config along with the pre shared keys in plain text.
Alternatively, you can copy the running config to a tftp or ftp server. Once the config is stored on the server, all passwords and PSKs appear in plain text.
Hope you find this as useful as I did….