A managed network device maintains running configuration information, and changes the information in response to configuration change requests from a network management system (NMS) at a first interface and configuration change requests received from outside the NMS at a second interface, which may include a command line interface and dial-up connection such as TELNET. Configuration information for the device is maintained in a database in the NMS, and can become outdated due to the configuration change requests received at the second interface. To update the information in the NMS database, the NMS sends an upload configuration request to the network device, which responds by transferring a configuration file containing the running configuration information to the NMS. The NMS uses the contents of the uploaded configuration file to update the information in the NMS database.