Perl
perl -pi.bak -e '$from='\''fixed string'\''; $to='\''replacement string'\''; s/\Q$from\E/$to/g' <file>
# or
perl -s -pi.bak -e 's/\Q$from\E/$to/g' -- -from='fixed string' -to='replacement string' files/mini_snmpd.init
Even though perldoc perlrun
says -s
parsing is made before an argument of --
or any filename arguments, in practice a --
is needed before the arguments for this case.