Manual:TOC 1

Manual:TOC
[See Also TOC by Menus]

Basic
• First Time Startup RouterOS Licensing What's New
• Initial Configuration using WebFig • License • What's new in v6
• Console Login Process • Purchasing a License for RouterOS RouterOS Installation and packages
• Troubleshooting Tools • Entering a RouterOS License key
• Support output file • Default Configurations on RouterBOARDS
• Replacement Key
• RouterOS package types
• RouterOS features Hardware • Upgrading RouterOS
• RouterOS FAQ
• Product Naming • CD Install
• Connection Oriented Communication (TCP/IP)
• Netinstall
Management tools • Configuration Management
• Console
• Winbox
• WebFig

Interfaces Wireless VPN

General interface list General reference and protocols • Virtual Lan Network (VLAN)
• Ethernet • Wireless Interface Reference • IP Security (Ipsec)
• Bonding (Link Aggregation) • Wireless AP Client Point to point Tunnels
• Bridging • Wireless Station Modes • Ethernet Over IP (EoIP)
• VRRP (High Availability) • NV2 protocol • GRE tunnel
Examples • WMM • IPIP tunnel
• Spectrum Analyzer
• Bonding Examples PPP tunnels
• Wireless Advanced Channels
• VRRP Examples • PPP
• HWMP+
Misc • PPPoE
Configuration examples • PPTP
• Switch Chip Features
• Maximum Transmission Units (MTU) on RouterBOARDs • Making A Simple Wireless AP • L2TP
Misc • SSTP
• OpenVPN
• Wireless FAQ
• Wireless Debug Logs • PPP tunnel bridging protocol (BCP)
• MLPPP
MPLS Based VPNs
• VPLS

IP/ IPv6 Addressing Simple IPv4/IPv6 Routing DHCP

• Ip security settings IPv4 • DHCP Server
IPv4 • Routes in general • DHCP Client
• Simple Static Routing • DHCP Relay
• Ip address
• VRF • IPv4 address pool
• ARP
• DHCPv6 Server
• Load Balancing Multiple Same Subnet Links IPv6
• DHCPv6 Client
IPv6 • IPv6 Routing in general • IPv6 address pool
• Ipv6 Settings • Simple IPv6 routing example

• IPv6 Address
• Neighbor Discovery and Stateless Auto Configuration
• My First IPv6 Network
• Creating IPv6 Loopback Address
Manual:TOC 2

IP/IPv6 Firewall Dynamic Routing Traffic control

IP Firewall • Routing filters Queue
• Filters OSPF • HTB
• NAT • OSPF Case Studies • Queue Size
• Mangle • OSPF Exampes • Bursting
• Address Lists • OSPF and Point-to-Point Interfaces • PCQ
• Layer 7 (L7) rules • PCQ Examples
OSPFv3
• Connection tracking • Packet Flow Diagram
• OSPFv3 with Quagga
IPv6 Firewall • Packet Flow Diagram for version 6
BGP
• Filters MPLS Based Traffic control
• Mangle • BGP HowTo & FAQ
• Traffic Engineering Tunnels
• Address Lists • BGP Soft Reconfiguration
• TE Tunnel Auto Bandwidth
• BGP Load Balancing
Misc • Simple TE tunnel Example
• Simple BGP Multihoming
• RouterOS and firewall services • TE Tunnels Example Setup for VPLS
• Using Scope and Target-scope Attributes
• Per connection classifier (PCC) • Traffic Engineering reference
RIP
• Connection Rate
• NTH Matcher • Prefix list
• Routing Table Matcher MME
• MME Case Studies
Multicast Routing

MPLS User Management Virtualization

MPLS in General • Router AAA Virtualization in general
• MPLS Overview • PPP AAA • KVM
• MPLS Over PPPoE • RADIUS Client • Metarouter
• EXP Bit Behaviour • User Manager • XEN
LDP Hotspot • Virtual Ethernets

• LDP • Hotspot Introduction

• LDP Based VPLS • Customizing Hotspot
• Cisco VPLS • Hotspot Reference
BGP VPLS
• BGP Based VPLS
• VPLS Control Word
L3VPN
• Virtual Routing And Forwarding
• Layer3 MPLS VPN Example
• EBGP as PE-CE Routing Protocol
• OSPF as PE-CE Routing Protocol
Traffic Engineering
• TE Tunnels
• TE Tunnel Auto Bandwidth
Reference
• mpls/traffic-eng
• interface/traffic-engineering

Console Monitoring Hardware

Manual:TOC 3

• Serial and USB port configuration • System Logging • NAND Partitions

• Console in general • UPS Control and Monitoring • Grounding
• Console Login Process • LCD Display Control • Wireless Card Diagnostics
• Line Editor • LCD Touch Screen Control • RouterBOARD Bad Blocks
Console Access Methods • GPS • Password Reset
• Traffic Flow (NetFlow) • Flashfig
• Special Login
• SNMP • Bootloader Upgrade
• Serial Console
• Graphing
Scripting
• CPU Profiler
• Console Scripting • Packet Sniffer
• Scripting Examples • Other Diagnostic Tools
• LUA Scripting
SSH
• SSH Client
• SSH Forwarding

Other
• Certificates
• Create Certificates
• Advanced Traffic Generator
• Bandwidth Test tool
• LED configuration
• Administrator Notes
• File List
• Resource Monitoring
• Health Monitoring
• Store
• Watchdog
• Scheduler
• System Time
• API
• Web Proxy
• Fast Path
• Fetch tool
Manual:First time startup 4

Manual:First time startup

Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Overview
After you have installed the RouterOS software, or turned on the Router for the first time, there are various ways
how to connect to it:
• Accessing Command Line Interface (CLI) via Telnet, ssh, serial cable or even keyboard and monitor if router has
VGA card.
• Accessing Web based GUI (WebFig)
• Using WinBox configuration utility
Every router is factory pre-configured with IP address 192.168.88.1/24 on ether1 port. Default username is admin
with empty password.
Additional configuration may be set depending on RouterBoard model. For example, RB750 ether1 is configured as
WAN port and any communication with the router through that port is not possible. List of RouterBOARD models
and their default configurations can be found in this article.

Winbox
Winbox is configuration utility that can connect to the router via MAC or IP protocol. Latest winbox version can be
downloaded from our demo router [1].
Run Winbox utility, then click the [...] button and see if Winbox finds your Router and it's MAC address. Winbox
neighbor discovery will discover all routers on the broadcast network. If you see routers on the list, connect to it by
clicking on MAC address and pressing Connect button.

Winbox will try download plugins from the router, if it is connecting for the first time to the router with current
version. Note that it may take about one minute to download all plugins if winbox is connected with MAC protocol.
This method works with any device that runs RouterOS. Your PC needs to have MTU 1500
Manual:First time startup 5

After winbox have successfully downloaded plugins and authenticated, main window will be displayed:

If winbox cannot find any routers, make sure that your Windows computer is directly connected to the router with an
Ethernet cable, or at least they both are connected to the same switch. As MAC connection works on Layer2, it is
possible to connect to the router even without IP address configuration. Due to the use of broadcasting MAC
connection is not stable enough to use continuously, therefore it is not wise to use it on a real production / live
network!. MAC connection should be used only for initial configuration.
Follow winbox manual for more information.
Manual:First time startup 6

WebFig
If you have router with default configuration, then IP address of the router can be used to connect to the Web
interface. WebFig has almost the same configuration functionality as Winbox.

Please see following articles to learn more about web interface configuration:
• Initial Configuration with WebFig
• General WebFig Manual

CLI
Command Line Interface (CLI) allows configuration of the router's settings using text commands. Since there is a lot
of available commands, they are split into groups organized in a way of hierarchical menu levels. Follow console
manual for CLI syntax and commands.
There are several ways how to access CLI:
• winbox terminal
• telnet
• ssh
• serial cable etc.
Manual:First time startup 7

Serial Cable
If your device has a Serial port, you can use a console cable (or Null modem cable)
Plug one end of the serial cable into the console port (also known as a serial port or DB9 RS232C asynchronous
serial port) of the RouterBOARD and the other end in your PC (which hopefully runs Windows or Linux). You can
also use a USB-Serial adapter. Run a terminal program (HyperTerminal, or Putty on Windows) with the following
parameters for All RouterBOARD models except 230:

115200bit/s, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, flow control=none by default.

RouterBOARD 230 parameters are:

9600bit/s, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, hardware (RTS/CTS) flow control by default.

If parameters are set correctly you should be able to see login prompt. Now you can access router by entering
username and password:

MikroTik 4.15
MikroTik Login:

MMM MMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK

MMMM MMMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK
MMM MMMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MM MMM III KKKKK RRR RRR OOO OOO TTT III KKKKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOO OOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRR RRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK

MikroTik RouterOS 4.15 (c) 1999-2010 http://www.mikrotik.com/

[admin@MikroTik] >

Detailed description of CLI login is in login process section.

Monitor and Keyboard

If your device has a graphics card (ie. regular PC) simply attach a monitor to the video card connector of the
computer (note: RouterBOARD products don't have this, so use Method 1 or 2) and see what happens on the screen.
You should see a login promt like this:

MikroTik v3.16
Login:

Enter admin as the login name, and hit enter twice (because there is no password yet), you will see this screen:

MMM MMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK

MMMM MMMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK
MMM MMMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MM MMM III KKKKK RRR RRR OOO OOO TTT III KKKKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOO OOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRR RRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK

MikroTik RouterOS 3.16 (c) 2008 http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/

Manual:First time startup 8

Terminal ansi detected, using single line input mode

[admin@router] >

Now you can start configuring the router, by issuing the setup command.
This method works with any device that has a video card and keyboard connector
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / demo2. mt. lv/ winbox/ winbox. exe

Manual:Initial Configuration
Summary
Congratulations, you have got hold of MikroTik router for your home network. This guide will help you to do initial
configuration of the router to make your home network a safe place to be.
The guide is mostly intended in case if default configuration did not get you to the internet right away, however
some parts of the guide is still useful.

Connecting wires
Router's initial configuration should be suitable for most of the cases. Description of the configuration is on the back
of the box and also described in the online manual.
The best way to connect wires as described on the box:
• Connect ethernet wire from your internet service provider (ISP) to port ether1, rest of the ports on the router are
for local area network (LAN). At this moment, your router is protected by default firewall configuration so you
should not worry about that;
• Connect LAN wires to the rest of the ports.

Configuring router
Initial configuration has DHCP client on WAN interface (ether1), rest of the ports are considered your local network
with DHCP server configured for automatic address configuration on client devices. To connect to the router you
have to set your computer to accept DHCP settings and plug in the ethernet cable in one of the LAN ports (please
check routerboard.com for port numbering of the product you own, or check front panel of the router).

Logging into the router

To access the router enter address 192.168.88.1 in your browser. Main RouterOS page will be shown as in the screen
shot below. Click on WebFig from the list.
Manual:Initial Configuration 9

You will be prompted for login and password to access configuration interface. Default login name is admin and
blank password (leave empty field as it is already).

Router user accounts

It is good idea to start with password setup or add new user so that router is
not accessible by anyone on your network. User configuration is done form
System -> Users menu.
To access this menu, click on System on the left panel and from the
dropdown menu choose Users (as shown in screenshot on the left)
You will see this screen, where you can manage users of the router. In this
screen you can edit or add new users:
• When you click on account name (in this case admin), edit screen for the
user will be displayed.
• If you click on Add new button, new user creation screen will be
displayed.
Manual:Initial Configuration 10

Both screens are similar as illustrated in screenshot below. After editing user's data click OK (to accept changes) or
Cancel. It will bring you back to initial screen of user management.

In user edit/Add new screen you can alter existing user or create new. Field marked with 2. is the user name, field 1.
will open password screen, where old password for the user can be changed or added new one (see screenshot
below).
Manual:Initial Configuration 11

Configure access to internet

If initial configuration did not work (your ISP is not providing DHCP server for automatic configuration) then you
will have to have details from your ISP for static configuration of the router. These settings should include
• IP address you can use
• Network mask for the IP address
• Default gateway address
Less important settings regarding router configuration:
• DNS address for name resolution
• NTP server address for time automatic configuration
• Your previous MAC address of the interface facing ISP

DHCP Client
Default configuration is set up using DHCP-Client on interface facing your ISP or wide area network (WAN). It has
to be disabled if your ISP is not providing this service in the network. Open 'IP -> DHCP Client' and inspect field 1.
to see status of DHCP Client, if it is in state as displayed in screenshot, means your ISP is not providing you with
automatic configuration and you can use button in selection 2. to remove DHCP-Client configured on the interface.
Manual:Initial Configuration 12

Static IP Address
To manage IP addresses of the router open 'IP -> Address'

You will have one address here - address of your local area network (LAN) 192.168.88.1 one you are connected to
router. Select Add new to add new static IP address to your router's configuration.

You have to fill only fields that are marked. Field 1. should contain IP address provided by your ISP and network
mask'. Examples:

172.16.88.67/24
Manual:Initial Configuration 13

both of these notations mean the same, if your ISP gave you address in one notation, or in the other, use one
provided and router will do the rest of calculation.
Other field of interest is interface this address is going to be assigned. This should be interface your ISP is connected
to, if you followed this guide - interface contains name - ether1
Note: While you type in the address, webfig will calculate if address you have typed is acceptable, if it is not
label of the field will turn red, otherwise it will be blue

Note: It is good practice to add comments on the items to give some additional information for the future, but
that is not required

Configuring network address translation (NAT)

Since you are using local and global networks, you have to set up network masquerade, so that
your LAN is hidden behind IP address provided by your ISP. That should be so, since your ISP does not know what
LAN addresses you are going to use and your LAN will not be routed from global network.
To check if you have the source NAT open 'IP -> Firewall -> tab NAT' and check if item highlighted (or similar) is
in your configuration.

Essential fields for masquerade to work:

• enabled is checked;
• chain - should be srcnat;
• out-interface is set to interface connected to your ISP network, Following this guide ether1;
• action should be set to masquerade.
In screenshot correct rule is visible, note that irrelevant fields that should not have any value set here are hidden (and
can be ignored)
Manual:Initial Configuration 14

Default gateway
under 'IP -> Routes' menu you have to add routing rule called default route. And select Add new to add new route.

In screen presented you will see the following screen:

Manual:Initial Configuration 15

here you will have to press button with + near red Gateway label and enter in the field default gateway, or simply
gateway given by your ISP.
This should look like this, when you have pressed the + button and enter gateway into the field displayed.

After this, you can press OK button to finish creation of the default route.
At this moment, you should be able to reach any globally available host on the Internet using IP address.
To check weather addition of default gateway was successful use Tools -> Ping
Manual:Initial Configuration 16

Domain name resolution

To be able to open web pages or access Internet hosts by domain name DNS should be configured, either on your
router or your computer. In scope of this guide, i will present only option of router configuration, so that DNS
addresses are given out by DHCP-Server that you are already using.
This can be done in 'IP -> DNS ->Settings', first Open 'IP ->DNS':

Then select Settings to set up DNS cacher on the router. You have to add field to enter DNS IP address, section 1. in
image below. and check Allow Remote Requests marked with 2.
Manual:Initial Configuration 17

The result of pressing + twice will result in 2 fields for DNS IP addresses:

Note: Filling acceptable value in the field will turn field label blue, other way it will be marked red.

SNTP Client

RouterBOARD routers do not keep time between restarts or power failuers. To have correct time
on the router set up SNTP client if you require that.

To do that, go to 'System -> SNTP' where you have to enable it, first mark, change mode from broadcast to unicast,
so you can use global or ISP provided NTP servers, that will allow to enter NTP server IP addresses in third area.
Manual:Initial Configuration 18

Setting up Wireless
For ease of use bridged wireless setup will be used, so that your wired hosts will be in same ethernet broadcast
domain as wireless clients.
To make this happen several things has to be checked:
• Ethernet interfaces designated for LAN are swtiched or bridged, or they are separate ports;
• If bridge interface exists;
• Wireless interface mode is set to ap-bridge (in case, router you have has level 4 or higher license level), if not,
then mode has to be set to bridge and only one client (station) will be able to connect to the router using wireless
network;
• There is appropriate security profile created and selected in interface settings.

Check Ethernet interface state

Warning: Changing settings may affect connectivity to your router and you can be disconnected from the
router. Use Safe Mode so in case of disconnection made changes are reverted back to what they where before
you entered safe mode

To check if ethernet port is switched, in other words, if ethernet port is set as slave to another port
go to 'Interface' menu and open Ethernet interface details. They can be distinguished by Type
column displaying Ethernet.
Manual:Initial Configuration 19

When interface details are opened, look up Master Port setting.

Available settings for the attribute are none, or one of Ethernet interface names. If name is set, that mean, that
interface is set as slave port. Usually RouterBOARD routers will come with ether1 as intended WAN port and rest of
ports will be set as slave ports of ether2 for LAN use.
Check if all intended LAN Ethernet ports are set as slave ports of the rest of one of the LAN ports. For example, if
ether2. ether3, ether4 and ether5 are intended as LAN ports, set on ether3 to ether5 attribute Master Port to ether2.
In case this operation fails - means that Ethernet interface is used as port in bridge, you have to remove them from
bridge to enable hardware packet switching between Ethernet ports. To do this, go to Bridge -> Ports and remove
slave ports (in example, ether3 to ether5) from the tab.
Manual:Initial Configuration 20

Note: If master port is present as bridge port, that is fine, intended configuration requires it there, same
applies to wireless interface (wlan)

Security profile

It is important to protect your wireless network, so no malicious acts can be performed by 3rd
parties using your wireless access-point.
To edit or create new security profile head to 'Wireless -> tab 'Security Prodiles' and choose one of two options:
• Using Add new create new profile;
• Using highlighted path in screenshot edit default profile that is already assigned to wireless interface.

In This example i will create new security profile, editing it is quite similar. Options that has to be set are highlighted
with read and recommended options are outlined by red boxes and pre-set to recommended values. WPA and WPA2
is used since there are still legacy equipment around (Laptops with Windows XP, that do not support WPA2 etc.)
WPA Pre- shared key and WPA2 Pre- shared key should be entered with sufficient length. If key length is too short
field label will indicate that by turning red, when sufficient length is reached it will turn blue.
Manual:Initial Configuration 21

Note: WPA and WPA2 pre-shared keys should be different

Note: When configuring this, you can deselect Hide passwords in page header to see the actual values of the
fields, so they can be successfully entered into device configuration that are going to connect to wireless
access-point

Wireless settings

Adjusting wireless settings. That can be done here:

In General section adjust settings to settings as shown in screenshot. Consider these safe, however it is possible, that
these has to be adjusted slightly.
Manual:Initial Configuration 22

Interface mode has to be set to ap-bridge, if that is not possible (license resctrictions) set to bridge, so one client will
be able to connect to device.
WiFI devices usually are designed with 2.4GHz modes in mind, setting band to 2GHz-b/g/n will enable clients with
802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n to connect to the access point
Adjust channel width to enable faster data rates for 802.11n clients. In example channel 6 is used, as result,
20/40MHz HT Above or 20/40 MHz HT Below can be used. Choose either of them.
Set SSID - the name of the access point. It will be visible when you scan for networks using your WiFi equipment.

In section HT set change HT transmit and receive chains. It is good practice to enable all chains that are available
Manual:Initial Configuration 23

When settings are set accordingly it is time to enable our protected wireless access-point

Bridge LAN with Wireless

Open Bridge menu and check if there are any bridge interface available first mark. If there is not, select Add New
marked with second mark and in the screen that opens just accept the default settings and create interface. When
bridge interface is availbe continue to Ports tab where master LAN interface and WiFI interface have to be added.
First marked area is where interfaces that are added as ports to bridge interface are visible. If there are no ports
added, choose Add New to add new ports to created bridge interfaces.
Manual:Initial Configuration 24

When new bridge port is added, select that it is enabled (part of active configuration), select correct bridge interface,
following this guide - there should be only 1 interface. And select correct port - LAN interface master port and WiFi
port

Finished look of bridge configured with all ports required

Manual:Initial Configuration 25

Troubleshooting & Advanced configuration

This section is here to make some deviations from configuration described in the guide itself. It can require more
understanding of networking, wireless networks in general.

General

Check IP address
Adding IP address with wrong network mask will result in wrong network setting. To correct that problem it is
required to change address field, first section, with correct address and network mask and network field with correct
network, or unset it, so it is going to be recalculated again

Change password for current user

To change password of the current user, safe place to go is System ->

Password
Where all the fields has to be filled. There is other place where this can
be done in case you have full privileges on the router.

Change password for existing user

If you have full privileges on the router, it is possible to change

password for any user without knowledge of current one. That can be
done under System -> Users menu.
Steps are:
• Select user;
• type in password and re-type it to know it is one you intend to set
Manual:Initial Configuration 26

No access to the Internet or ISP network

If you have followed this guide to the letter but even then you can only communicate with your local hosts only and
every attempt to connect to Internet fails, there are certain things to check:
• If masquerade is configured properly;
• If setting MAC address of previous device on WAN interface changes anything
• ISP has some captive portal in place.
Respectively, there are several ways how to solve the issue, one - check configuration if you are not missing any part
of configuration, second - set MAC address. Change of mac address is available only from CLI - New Terminal from
the left side menu. If new window is not opening check your browser if it is allowing to open popup windows for
this place. There you will have to write following command by replacing MAC address to correct one:

/interface ethernet set ether1 mac-address=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Or contact your ISP for details and inform that you have changed device.

Checking link
There are certain things that are required for Ethernet link to work:
• Link activity lights are on when Ethernet wire is plugged into the port
• Correct IP address is set on the interface
• Correct route is set on the router
What to look for using ping tool:
• If all packets are replied;
• If all packets have approximately same round trip time (RTT) on non-congested Ethernet link
It is located here: Tool -> Ping menu. Fill in Ping To field and press start to initiate sending of ICMP packets.

Wireless
Wireless unnamed features in the guide that are good to know about. Configuration adjustments.

Channel frequencies and width

It is possible to choose different frequency, here are frequencies that can be used and channel width settings to use
40MHz HT channel (for 802.11n). For example, using channel 1 or 2412MHz frequency setting 20/40MHz HT
below will not yield any results, since there are no 20MHz channels available below set frequency.

Channel # Frequency Below Above

1 2412 MHz no yes

2 2417 MHz no yes

3 2422 MHz no yes

4 2427 MHz no yes

5 2432 MHz yes yes

6 2437 MHz yes yes

7 2442 MHz yes yes

8 2447 MHz yes yes

9 2452 MHz yes yes

10 2457 MHz yes yes

11 2462 MHz yes no

Manual:Initial Configuration 27

12 2467 MHz yes no

13 2472 MHz yes no

Warning: You should check how many and what frequencies you have in your regulatory domain before. If
there are 10 or 11 channels adjust settings accordingly. With only 10 channels, channel #10 will have no
sense of setting 20/40MHz HT above since no full 20MHz channel is available

Wireless frequency usage

If wireless is not performing very well even when data rates are reported as being good, there might be that your
neighbours are using same wireless channel as you are. To make sure follow these steps:
• Open frequency usage monitoring tool Freq. Usage... that is located in wireless interface details;

• Wait for some time as scan results are displayed. Do that for minute or two. Smaller numbers in Usage column
means that channel is less crowded.
Manual:Initial Configuration 28

Note: Monitoring is performed on default channels for Country selected in configuration. For example, if
selected country would be Latvia, there would have been 13 frequencies listed as at that country have 13
channels allowed.

Change Country settings

By default country attribute in wireless settings is set to no_country_set. It is good practice to change this (if
available) to change country you are in. To do that do the following:
• Go to wireless menu and select Advanced mode;

• Look up Country attribute and from drop-down menu select country

Manual:Initial Configuration 29

Note: Advanced mode is toggle button that changes from Simple to Advanced mode and back.

Port forwarding

To make services on local servers/hosts available to general public it is possible to forward ports
from outside to inside your NATed network, that is done from /ip firewall nat menu. For example,
to make possible for remote helpdesk to connect to your desktop and guide you, make your local file cache available
for you when not at location etc.

Static configuration
A lot of users prefer to configure these rules statically, to have more control over what service is reachable from
outside and what is not. This also has to be used when service you are using does not support dynamic configuration.
Following rule will forward all connections to port 22 on the router external ip address to port 86 on your local host
with set IP address:
if you require other services to be accessible you can change protocol as required, but usually services are running
TCP and dst-port. If change of port is not required, eg. remote service is 22 and local is also 22, then to-ports can be
left unset.

Comparable command line command:

/ip firewall nat add chain=dstnat dst-address=172.16.88.67 protocol=tcp dst-port=22 \

action=dst-nat to-address=192.168.88.22 to-ports=86
Manual:Initial Configuration 30

Note: Screenshot contain only minimal set of settings are left visible

Dynamic configuration

uPnP is used to enable dynamic port forwarding configuration where service you are running can
request router using uPnP to forward some ports for it.

Warning: Services you are not aware of can request port forwarding. That can compromise security of your
local network, your host running the service and your data

Configuring uPnP service on the router:

• Set up what interfaces should be considered external and what internal;

/ip upnp interface add interface=ether1 type=external

/ip upnp interface add interface=ether2 type=internal

• Enable service itself

/ip upnp set allow-disable-external-interface=no show-dummy-rule=no enabled=yes

Limiting access to web pages

Using IP -> Web Proxy it is possible to limit access to unwanted web pages. This requires some understanding of use
of WebFig interface.

Set up Web Proxy for page filtering

From IP -> Web Proxy menu Access tab open Web Proxy Settings and make sure that these attributes are set follows:

Enabled -> checked

Port -> 8080
Max. Cache Size -> none
Cache on disk -> unchecked
Parent proxy -> unset

When required alterations are done applysettings to return to Access tab.

Set up Access rules

This list will contain all the rules that are required to limit access to sites on the Internet.
To add sample rule to deny access to any host that contain example.com do the following when adding new entry:

Dst. Host -> .*example\.com.*

Action -> Deny

With this rule any host that has example.com will be unaccessible.
Manual:Initial Configuration 31

Limitation strategies
There are two main approaches to this problem
• deny only pages you know you want to deny (A)
• allow only certain pages and deny everything else (B)
For approach A each site that has to be denied is added with Action set to Deny
For approach B each site that has to be allowed should be added with Action set to Allow and in the end is rule, that
matches everything with Action set to Deny.
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Console login process

Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Description
There are different ways to log into console:
• serial port
• console (screen and keyboard)
• telnet
• ssh
• mac-telnet
• winbox terminal
Input and validation of user name and password is done by login process. Login process can also show different
informative screens (license, demo version upgrade reminder, software key information, default configuration).
At the end of successful login sequence login process prints banner and hands over control to the console process.
Console process displays system note, last critical log entries, auto-detects terminal size and capabilities and then
displays command prompt]. After that you can start writing commands.
Use up arrow to recall previous commands from command history, TAB key to automatically complete words in the
command you are typing, ENTER key to execute command, and Control-C to interrupt currently running command
and return to prompt.
Easiest way to log out of console is to press Control-D at the command prompt while command line is empty (You
can cancel current command and get an empty line with Control-C, so Control-C followed by Control-D will log you
out in most cases).
Manual:Console login process 32

Console login options

Starting from v3.14 it is possible to specify console options during login process. These options enables or disables
various console features like color, terminal detection and many other.
Additional login parameters can be appended to login name after '+' sign.

login_name ::= user_name [ '+' parameters ]

parameters ::= parameter [ parameters ]
parameter ::= [ number ] 'a'..'z'
number ::= '0'..'9' [ number ]

If parameter is not present, then default value is used. If number is not present then implicit value of parameter is
used.
example: admin+c80w - will disable console colors and set terminal width to 80.

Param Default Implicit Description

"w" auto auto Set terminal width

"h" auto auto Set terminal height

"c" on off disable/enable console colors

"t" on off Do auto detection of terminal capabilities

"e" on off Enables "dumb" terminal mode

Different information shown by login process

Banner
Login process will display MikroTik banner after validating user name and password.

MMM MMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK

MMMM MMMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK
MMM MMMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MM MMM III KKKKK RRR RRR OOO OOO TTT III KKKKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOO OOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRR RRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK

MikroTik RouterOS 3.0rc (c) 1999-2007 http://www.mikrotik.com/

Actual banner can be different from the one shown here if it is replaced by distributor. See also: branding.
Manual:Console login process 33

License
After logging in for the first time after installation you are asked to read software licenses.

Do you want to see the software license? [Y/n]:

Answer y to read licenses, n if you do not wish to read licenses (question will not be shown again). Pressing SPACE
will skip this step and the same question will be asked after next login.

Demo version upgrade reminder

After logging into router that has demo key, following remonder is shown:

UPGRADE NOW FOR FULL SUPPORT

----------------------------
FULL SUPPORT benefits:
- receive technical support
- one year feature support
- one year online upgrades
(avoid re-installation and re-configuring your router)
To upgrade, register your license "software ID"
on our account server www.mikrotik.com

Current installation "software ID": ABCD-456

Please press "Enter" to continue!

Software key information

If router does not have software key, it is running in the time limited trial mode. After logging in following
information is shown:

ROUTER HAS NO SOFTWARE KEY

----------------------------
You have 16h58m to configure the router to be remotely accessible,
and to enter the key by pasting it in a Telnet window or in Winbox.
See www.mikrotik.com/key for more details.

Current installation "software ID": ABCD-456

Please press "Enter" to continue!

After entering valid software key, following information is shown after login:
ROUTER HAS NEW SOFTWARE KEY
----------------------------
Your router has a valid key, but it will become active
only after reboot. Router will automatically reboot in a day.

=== Automatic configuration ===

Usually after [[netinstall|installation]] or configuration [[reset]] RouterOS will apply [[default

settings]], such as an IP address.
First login into will show summary of these settings and offer to undo them.
Manual:Console login process 34

This is an example:
<pre>
The following default configuration has been installed on your router:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IP address 192.168.88.1/24 is on ether1
ether1 is enabled

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can type "v" to see the exact commands that are used to add and remove
this default configuration, or you can view them later with
'/system default-configuration print' command.
To remove this default configuration type "r" or hit any other key to continue.
If you are connected using the above IP and you remove it, you will be disconnected.

Applying and removing of the default configuration is done using console script (you can press 'v' to review it).

Different information shown by console process after logging in

System Note
It is possible to always display some fixed text message after logging into console.

Critical log messages

Console will display last critical error messages that this user has not seen yet. See log for more details on
configuration. During console session these messages are printed on screen.
dec/10/2007 10:40:06 system,error,critical login failure for user root from 10.0.0.1 via telnet
dec/10/2007 10:40:07 system,error,critical login failure for user root from 10.0.0.1 via telnet
dec/10/2007 10:40:09 system,error,critical login failure for user test from 10.0.0.1 via telnet

Prompt
• [admin@MikroTik] /interface> - Default command prompt, shows user name, system identity, and
current command path.
• [admin@MikroTik] /interface<SAFE> - Prompt indicates that console session is in Safe Mode.
• [admin@MikroTik] >> - Prompt indicates that HotLock is turned on.
• {(\... - While entering multiple line command continuation prompt shows open parentheses.
• line 2 of 3> - While editing multiple line command prompt shows current line number and line count.
• address: - Command requests additional input. Prompt shows name of requested value.
Console can show different prompts depending on enabled modes and data that is being edited. Default command
prompt looks like this:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface>

Default command prompt shows name of user, '@' sign and system name in brackets, followed by space, followed
by current command path (if it is not '/'), followed by '>' and space. When console is in safe mode, it shows word
SAFE in the command prompt.

[admin@MikroTik] /interface<SAFE>

Hotlock mode is indicated by an additional yellow '>' character at the end of the prompt.
Manual:Console login process 35

[admin@MikroTik] >>

It is possible to write commands that consist of multiple lines. When entered line is not a complete command and
more input is expected, console shows continuation prompt that lists all open parentheses, braces, brackets and
quotes, and also trailing backslash if previous line ended with backslash-whitespace.

[admin@MikroTik] > {
{... :put (\
{(\... 1+2)}
3

When you are editing such multiple line entry, prompt shows number of current line and total line count instead of
usual username and system name.

line 2 of 3> :put (\

Sometimes commands ask for additional input from user. For example, command '/password' asks for old and new
passwords. In such cases prompt shows name of requested value, followed by colon and space.

[admin@MikroTik] > /password

old password: ******
new password: **********
retype new password: **********

FAQ
Q: How do I turn off colors in console?
A: Add '+c' after login name.
Q: After logging in console prints rubbish on the screen, what to do?
Q: My expect script does not work with newer 3.0 releases, it receives some strange characters. What are those?
A: These sequences are used to automatically detect terminal size and capabilities. Add '+t' after login name to turn
them off.
Q: Thank you, now terminal width is not right. How do I set terminal width?
A: Add '+t80w' after login name, where 80 is your terminal width.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 36

Manual:Troubleshooting tools
Troubleshooting tools
Before, we look at the most significant commands for connectivity checking and troubleshooting, here is little
reminder on how to check host computer's network interface parameters on .
The Microsoft windows have a whole set of helpful command line tools that helps testing and configuring
LAN/WAN interfaces. We will look only at commonly used Windows networking tools and commands.
All of the tools are being ran from windows terminal. Go to Start/Run and enter "cmd" to open a Command window.
Some of commands on windows are:
ipconfig – used to display the TCP/IP network configuration values. To open it, enter "ipconfig" in the command
prompt.

C:\>ipconfig
Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : mshome.net
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::58ad:cd3f:f3df:bf18%8
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 173.16.16.243
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 173.16.16.1

There are also a variety of additional functions for ipconfig. To obtain a list of additional options, enter
"ipconfig /?" or “ipconfig -?”.
netstat – displays the active TCP connections and ports on which the computer is listening, Ethernet statistics, the IP
routing table, statistics for the IP, ICMP, TCP, and UDP protocols. It comes with a number of options for displaying
a variety of properties of the network and TCP connections “netstat –?”.
nslookup – is a command-line administrative tool for testing and troubleshooting DNS servers. For example, if you
want to know what IP address is "www.google.com", enter "nslookup www.google.com" and you will find that there
are more addresses 74.125.77.99, 74.125.77.104, 74.125.77.147.
netsh – is a tool an administrator can use to configure and monitor Windows-based computers at a command
prompt. It allows configure interfaces, routing protocols, routes, routing filters and display currently running
configuration.
Very similar commands are available also on unix-like machines. Today in most of Linux distributions network
settings can be managed via GUI, but it is always good to be familiar with the command-line tools. Here is the list of
basic networking commands and tools on Linux:
ifconfig – it is similar like ipconfig commands on windows. It lets enable/disable network adapters, assigned IP
address and netmask details as well as show currently network interface configuration.
iwconfig - iwconfig tool is like ifconfig and ethtool for wireless cards. That also view and set the basic Wi-Fi
network details.
nslookup – give a host name and the command will return IP address.
netstat – print network connections, including port connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade
connections, and more. (netstat – r, netstat - a)
ip – show/manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels on linux-machine.
For example, check IP address on interface using ip command:
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 37

$ip addr show

You can add static route using ip following command:

ip route add {NETWORK address} via {next hop address} dev {DEVICE}, for example:

$ip route add 192.168.55.0/24 via 192.168.1.254 dev eth1

mentioned tools are only small part of networking tools that is available on Linux. Remember if you want full details
on the tools and commands options use man command. For example, if you want to know all options on ifconfig
write command man ifconfig in terminal.

Check network connectivity

Using the ping command

Ping is one of the most commonly used and known commands. Administration utility used to test whether a
particular host is reachable across an Internet Protocol (IP) network and to measure the round-trip time for packets
sent from the local host to a destination host, including the local host's own interfaces.
Ping uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) protocol for echo response and echo request. Ping sends ICMP
echo request packets to the target host and waits for an ICMP response. Ping output displays the minimum, average
and maximum times used for a ping packet to find a specified system and return.
From PC:
Windows:

C:\>ping 10.255.255.4
Pinging 10.255.255.4 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 10.255.255.4: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=61
Reply from 10.255.255.4: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=61
Reply from 10.255.255.4: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=61
Reply from 10.255.255.4: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=61
Ping statistics for 10.255.255.4:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0%
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms

Unix-like:

andris@andris-desktop:/$ ping 10.255.255.6

PING 10.255.255.6 (10.255.255.6) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 10.255.255.6: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=1.23 ms
64 bytes from 10.255.255.6: icmp_seq=2 ttl=61 time=0.904 ms
64 bytes from 10.255.255.6: icmp_seq=3 ttl=61 time=0.780 ms
64 bytes from 10.255.255.6: icmp_seq=4 ttl=61 time=0.879 ms
^C
--- 10.255.255.6 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.780/0.948/1.232/0.174 ms

Press Ctrl-C to stop ping process.

From MikroTik:
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 38

[admin@MikroTik] > ping 10.255.255.4

10.255.255.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=2 ms
10.255.255.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=8 ms
10.255.255.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=1 ms
10.255.255.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=10 ms
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 1/5.2/10 ms

Press Ctrl-C to stop ping process.

Using the traceroute command

Traceroute displays the list of the routers that packet travels through to get to a remote host. The traceroute or
tracepath tool is available on practically all Unix-like operating systems and tracert on Microsoft Windows
operating systems.
Traceroute operation is based on TTL value and ICMP “Time Exceeded” massage. Remember that TTL value in IP
header is used to avoid routing loops. Each hop decrements TTL value by 1. If the TTL reaches zero, the packet is
discarded and ICMP Time Exceeded message is sent back to the sender when this occurs.
Initially by traceroute, the TTL value is set to 1 when next router finds a packet with TTL = 1 it sets TTL value to
zero, and responds with an ICMP "time exceeded" message to the source. This message lets the source know that the
packet traverses that particular router as a hop. Next time TTL value is incremented by 1 and so on. Typically, each
router in the path towards the destination decrements the TTL field by one unit TTL reaches zero.
Using this command you can see how packets travel through the network and where it may fail or slow down. Using
this information you can determine the computer, router, switch or other network device that possibly causing
network issues or failures.
From Personal computer:
Windows:

C:\>tracert 10.255.255.2
Tracing route to 10.255.255.2 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.13.13.1
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 10.255.255.2
Trace complete.

Unix-like:
Traceroute and tracepath is similar, only tracepath does not not require superuser privileges.

andris@andris-desktop:~$ tracepath 10.255.255.6

1: andris-desktop.local (192.168.10.4) 0.123ms pmtu 1500
1: 192.168.10.1 (192.168.10.1) 0.542ms
1: 192.168.10.1 (192.168.10.1) 0.557ms
2: 192.168.1.2 (192.168.1.2) 1.213ms
3: no reply
4: 10.255.255.6 (10.255.255.6) 2.301ms reached
Resume: pmtu 1500 hops 4 back 61

From MikroTik:

[admin@MikroTik] > tool traceroute 10.255.255.1

ADDRESS STATUS
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 39

1 10.0.1.17 2ms 1ms 1ms

2 10.255.255.1 5ms 1ms 1ms
[admin@MikroTik] >

Log Files
System event monitoring facility allows to debug different problems using Logs. Log file is a text file created in the
server/router/host capturing different kind of activity on the device. This file is the primary data analysis source.
RouterOS is capable of logging various system events and status information. Logs can be saved in routers memory
(RAM), disk, file, sent by email or even sent to remote syslog server.
All messages stored in routers local memory can be printed from /log menu. Each entry contains time and date
when event occurred, topics that this message belongs to and message itself.

[admin@MikroTik] /log> print

15:22:52 system,info device changed by admin
16:16:29 system,info,account user admin logged out from 10.13.13.14 via winbox
16:16:29 system,info,account user admin logged out from 10.13.13.14 via telnet
16:17:16 system,info filter rule added by admin
16:17:34 system,info mangle rule added by admin
16:17:52 system,info simple queue removed by admin
16:18:15 system,info OSPFv2 network added by admin

Read more about logging on RouterOS here>>

Torch (/tool torch)

Torch is realtime traffic monitoring tool that can be used to monitor the traffic flow through an interface.
You can monitor traffic classified by protocol name, source address, destination address, port. Torch shows the
protocols you have chosen and tx/rx data rate for each of them.
Example:
The following example monitor the traffic generated by the telnet protocol, which passes through the interface
ether1.

[admin@MikroTik] tool> torch ether1 port=telnet

SRC-PORT DST-PORT TX RX
1439 23 (telnet) 1.7kbps 368bps

[admin@MikroTik] tool>

To see what IP protocols are sent via ether1:

[admin@MikroTik] tool> torch ether1 protocol=any-ip

PRO.. TX RX
tcp 1.06kbps 608bps
udp 896bps 3.7kbps
icmp 480bps 480bps
ospf 0bps 192bps

[admin@MikroTik] tool>
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 40

In order to see what protocols are linked to a host connected to interface 10.0.0.144/32 ether1:

[admin@MikroTik] tool> torch ether1 src-address=10.0.0.144/32 protocol=any

PRO.. SRC-ADDRESS TX RX
tcp 10.0.0.144 1.01kbps 608bps
icmp 10.0.0.144 480bps 480bps
[admin@MikroTik] tool>

IPv6
Starting from v5RC6 torch is capable of showing IPv6 traffic. Two new parameters are introduced src-address6 and
dst-address6. Example:
admin@RB1100test] > /tool torch interface=bypass-bridge src-address6=::/0 ip-protocol=any sr
c-address=0.0.0.0/0
MAC-PROTOCOL IP-PROT... SRC-ADDRESS TX RX
ipv6 tcp 2001:111:2222:2::1 60.1kbps 1005.4kbps
ip tcp 10.5.101.38 18.0kbps 3.5kbps
ip vrrp 10.5.101.34 0bps 288bps
ip udp 10.5.101.1 0bps 304bps
ip tcp 10.0.0.176 0bps 416bps
ip ospf 224.0.0.5 544bps 0bps
78.7kbps 1010.0kbps

To make /ping tool to work with domain name that resolves IPv6 address use the following:

/ping [:resolve ipv6.google.com]

By default ping tool will take IPv4 address.

Manual:Troubleshooting tools 41

Winbox
More attractive Torch interface is available from Winbox (Tool>Torch). In Winbox you can also trigger a Filter bar
by hitting the F key on the keyboard.

Packet Sniffer (/tool sniffer)

Packet sniffer is a tool that can capture and analyze packets sent and received by specific interface. packet sniffer
uses libpcap format.
Packet Sniffer Configuration
In the following example streaming-server will be added, streaming will be enabled, file-name will be set to test
and packet sniffer will be started and stopped after some time:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> set streaming-server=192.168.0.240 \

\... streaming-enabled=yes file-name=test
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> print
interface: all
only-headers: no
memory-limit: 10
file-name: "test"
file-limit: 10
streaming-enabled: yes
streaming-server: 192.168.0.240
filter-stream: yes
filter-protocol: ip-only
filter-address1: 0.0.0.0/0:0-65535
filter-address2: 0.0.0.0/0:0-65535
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 42

running: no
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> start
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> stop

Here you can specify different packet sniffer parameters, like maximum amount of used memory, file size limit in
KBs.
Running Packet Sniffer Tool
There are three commands that are used to control runtime operation of the packet sniffer:
/tool sniffer start, /tool sniffer stop, /tool sniffer save.
The start command is used to start/reset sniffing, stop - stops sniffing. To save currently sniffed packets in a specific
file save command is used.
In the following example the packet sniffer will be started and after some time - stopped:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> start

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> stop

Below the sniffed packets will be saved in the file named test:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> save file-name=test

View sniffed packets

There are also available different submenus for viewing sniffed packets.
• /tool sniffer packet – show the list of sniffed packets
• /tool sniffer protocol – show all kind of protocols that have been sniffed
• /tool sniffer host – shows the list of hosts that were participating in data exchange you've sniffed
For example:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer packet> print

# TIME INTERFACE SRC-ADDRESS

0 1.697 ether1 0.0.0.0:68 (bootpc)
1 1.82 ether1 10.0.1.17
2 2.007 ether1 10.0.1.18
3 2.616 ether1 0.0.0.0:68 (bootpc)
4 2.616 ether1 10.0.1.18:45630
5 5.99 ether1 10.0.1.18
6 6.057 ether1 159.148.42.138
7 7.067 ether1 10.0.1.5:1701 (l2tp)
8 8.087 ether1 10.0.1.18:1701 (l2tp)
9 9.977 ether1 10.0.1.18:1701 (l2tp)
-- more

Figure below shows sniffer GUI in Winbox, which is more user-friendly.

Manual:Troubleshooting tools 43

Detailed commands description can be found in the manual >>

Bandwidth test
The Bandwidth Tester can be used to measure the throughput (Mbps) to another MikroTik router (either wired or
wireless network) and thereby help to discover network "bottlenecks"- network point with lowest throughput.
BW test uses two protocols to test bandwidth:
• TCP – uses the standard TCP protocol operation principles with all main components like connection
initialization, packets acknowledgments, congestion window mechanism and all other features of TCP algorithm.
Please review the TCP protocol for details on its internal speed settings and how to analyze its behavior. Statistics
for throughput are calculated using the entire size of the TCP data stream. As acknowledgments are an internal
working of TCP, their size and usage of the link are not included in the throughput statistics. Therefore statistics
are not as reliable as the UDP statistics when estimating throughput.
• UDP traffic – sends 110% or more packets than currently reported as received on the other side of the link. To see
the maximum throughput of a link, the packet size should be set for the maximum MTU allowed by the links
which is usually 1500 bytes. There is no acknowledgment required by UDP; this implementation means that the
closest approximation of the throughput can be seen.
Remember that Bandwidth Test uses all available bandwidth (by default) and may impact network usability.
If you want to test real throughput of a router, you should run bandwidth test through the router not from or to it. To
do this you need at least 3 routers connected in chain:
Bandwidth Server – router under test – Bandwidth Client.
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 44

Note: If you use UDP protocol then Bandwidth Test counts IP header+UDP header+UDP data. In case if you
use TCP then Bandwidth Test counts only TCP data (TCP header and IP header are not included).

Configuration example:
Server
To enable bandwidth-test server with client authentication:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server> set enabled=yes authenticate=yes

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server> print
enabled: yes
authenticate: yes
allocate-udp-ports-from: 2000
max-sessions: 100

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server>

Client
Run UDP bandwidth test in both directions, user name and password depends on remote Bandwidth Server. In this
case user name is ‘admin’ without any password.
[admin@MikroTik] > tool bandwidth-test protocol=udp user=admin password="" direction=both \
address=10.0.1.5
status: running
duration: 22s
tx-current: 97.0Mbps
tx-10-second-average: 97.1Mbps
tx-total-average: 75.2Mbps
rx-current: 91.7Mbps
rx-10-second-average: 91.8Mbps
rx-total-average: 72.4Mbps
lost-packets: 294
random-data: no
direction: both
tx-size: 1500
rx-size: 1500

-- [Q quit|D dump|C-z pause]

More information and all commands description can be found in the manual>>
Manual:Troubleshooting tools 45

Profiler
Profiler is a tool that shows CPU usage for each process running on RouterOS. It helps to identify which process is
using most of the CPU resources.

Read more >>

[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Support Output File 46

Manual:Support Output File

What is a supout.rif file?

Applies to RouterOS: ALL

'The support file is used for debugging MikroTik RouterOS and to solve the support questions faster.
All MikroTik Router information is saved in a binary file, which is stored on the router and can be
downloaded from the router using ftp.'
You can view the contents of this file in your Mikrotik account [1], simply to to the Supout.rif section and upload the
file.
This file contains all your routers configuration, logs and some other details that will help the MikroTik Support to
solve your issue.
To generate this file, you must type:

/system sup-output

In command line, or use winbox:

You can also use the terminal in Winbox:

Manual:Support Output File 47

To save the file direcly from Winbox, simply drag the file to your desktop:

Of course, it is also possible to download the file with FTP/SFTP or to automate this process with scripting, and have
the file emailed to you.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Support Output File 48

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com

Manual:RouterOS features
RouterOS features
RouterOS is MikroTik's stand-alone operating system based on linux v3.3.5 kernel. The following list shows features
found in the latest RouterOS release:

Hardware Support
• i386 compatible architecture
• SMP – multi-core and multi-CPU compatible
• Minimum 32MB of RAM (maximum supported 2GB, except on Cloud Core devices, where there is no
maximum)
• IDE, SATA, USB and flash storage medium with minimum of 64MB space
• Network cards supported by linux v3.3.5 kernel (PCI, PCI-X)
• Partial hardware compatibility list (user maintained)
• Switch chip configuration support

Installation
• M:Netinstall: Full network based installation from PXE or EtherBoot enabled network card
• Netinstall: Installation to a secondary drive mounted in Windows
• CD based installation

Configuration
• MAC based access for initial configuration
• WinBox – standalone Windows GUI configuration tool
• Webfig - advanced web based configuration interface
• Basic web interface configuration tool
• Powerful command-line configuration interface with integrated scripting capabilities, accessible via local
terminal, serial console, telnet and ssh
• API - the way to create your own configuration and monitoring applications.

Backup/Restore
• Binary configuration backup saving and loading
• Configuration export and import in human readable text format

Firewall
• Statefull filtering
• Source and destination NAT
• NAT helpers (h323, pptp, quake3, sip, ftp, irc, tftp)
• Internal connection, routing and packet marks
• Filtering by IP address and address range, port and port range, IP protocol, DSCP and many more
• Address lists
Manual:RouterOS features 49

• Custom Layer7 matcher

• IPv6 support
• PCC - per connection classifier, used in load balancing configurations

Routing
• Static routing
• Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF)
• Policy based routing
• Interface routing
• ECMP routing
• IPv4 dynamic routing protocols: RIP v1/v2, OSPFv2, BGP v4
• IPv6 dynamic routing protocols: RIPng, OSPFv3, BGP
• Bidirectional Forwarding Detection ( BFD)

MPLS
• Static Label bindings for IPv4
• Label Distribution protocol for IPv4
• RSVP Traffic Engineering tunnels
• VPLS MP-BGP based autodiscovery and signaling
• MP-BGP based MPLS IP VPN
• complete list of MPLS features

VPN
• Ipsec – tunnel and transport mode, certificate or PSK, AH and ESP security protocols. Hardware encryption
support on RouterBOARD 1000 [1].
• Point to point tunneling (OpenVPN, PPTP, PPPoE, L2TP, SSTP)
• Advanced PPP features (MLPPP, BCP)
• Simple tunnels ( IPIP, EoIP) IPv4 andIPv6 support
• 6to4 tunnel support (IPv6 over IPv4 network)
• VLAN – IEEE802.1q Virtual LAN support, Q-in-Q support
• MPLS based VPNs

Wireless
• IEEE802.11a/b/g wireless client and access point
• Full IEEE802.11n support
• Nstreme and Nstreme2 proprietary protocols
• NV2 protocol
• Wireless Distribution System (WDS)
• Virtual AP
• WEP, WPA, WPA2
• Access control list
• Wireless client roaming
• WMM
• HWMP+ Wireless MESH protocol
• MME wireless routing protocol
Manual:RouterOS features 50

DHCP
• Per interface DHCP server
• DHCP client and relay
• Static and dynamic DHCP leases
• RADIUS support
• Custom DHCP options
• DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation (DHCPv6-PD)
• DHCPv6 Client

Hotspot
• Plug-n-Play access to the Network
• Authentication of local Network Clients
• Users Accounting
• RADIUS support for Authentication and Accounting

QoS
• Hierarchical Token Bucket ( HTB) QoS system with CIR, MIR, burst and priority support
• Simple and fast solution for basic QoS implementation - Simple queues
• Dynamic client rate equalization ( PCQ)

Proxy
• HTTP caching proxy server
• Transparent HTTP proxy
• SOCKS protocol support
• DNS static entries
• Support for caching on a separate drive
• Parent proxy support
• Access control list
• Caching list

Tools
• Ping, traceroute
• Bandwidth test, ping flood
• Packet sniffer, torch
• Telnet, ssh
• E-mail and SMS send tools
• Automated script execution tools
• CALEA
• File Fetch tool
• Advanced traffic generator
Manual:RouterOS features 51

Other features
• Samba support
• OpenFlow support
• Bridging – spanning tree protocol (STP, RSTP), bridge firewall and MAC natting.
• Dynamic DNS update tool
• NTP client/server and synchronization with GPS system
• VRRP v2 and v3 support
• SNMP
• M3P - MikroTik Packet packer protocol for wireless links and ethernet
• MNDP - MikroTik neighbor discovery protocol, supports CDP (Cisco discovery protocol)
• RADIUS authentication and accounting
• TFTP server
• Synchronous interface support (Farsync cards only) (Removed in v5.x)
• Asynchronous – serial PPP dial-in/dial-out, dial on demand
• ISDN – dial-in/dial-out, 128K bundle support, Cisco HDLC, x75i, x75ui, x75bui line protocols, dial on demand
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / routerboard. com

Manual:RouterOS FAQ
See also: Mikrotik_RouterOS_Preguntas_Frecuentes_(español/spanish)

What is MikroTik RouterOS™?

What does MikroTik RouterOS™ do?
MikroTik RouterOS™ is a router operating system and software which turns a regular Intel PC or MikroTik
RouterBOARD™ hardware into a dedicated router.
What features does RouterOS™ have?
RouterOS feature list
Can I test the MikroTik RouterOS™ functionality before I buy the license?
Yes, you can download the installation from MikroTik's webpage and install your own MikroTik router. The
router has full functionality without the need for a license key for 24h total running time. That's enough time to
test the router for 3 days at 8h a day, if you shut down the router at the end of each 8h day.
Where can I get the License Key?
Create an account on MikroTik's webpage (the top right-hand corner of www.mikrotik.com). You can use a
credit card to pay for the key.
Can I use MikroTik router to hook up to a service provider via a T1, T3, or other high speed connection?
Yes, you can install various NICs supported by MikroTik RouterOS™ and get your edge router, backbone
router, firewall, bandwidth manager, VPN server, wireless access point, HotSpot and much more in one box.
Please check the Specification Sheet [1] and Manual [2] for supported interfaces!
How fast will it be?
Manual:RouterOS FAQ 52

An Intel PC is faster than almost any proprietary router, and there is plenty of processing power even in a
100MHz CPU.
How does this software compare to using a Cisco router?
You can do almost everything that a proprietary router does at a fraction of the cost of such a router and have
flexibility in upgrading, ease of management and maintenance.
What OS do I need to install the MikroTik RouterOS™?
No Operating System is needed. The MikroTik RouterOS™ is standalone Operating System. The OS is Linux
kernel based and very stable. Your hard drive will be wiped completely by the installation process. No
additional disk support, just one PRIMARY MASTER HDD or FlashDisk, except for WEB proxy cache.
How secure is the router once it is setup?
Access to the router is protected by username and password. Additional users can be added to the router,
specific rights can be set for user groups. Remote access to the router can be restricted by user, IP address.
Firewall filtering is the easiest way to protect your router and network.

Installation
How can I install RouterOS?
RouterOS can be installed with CD Install or Netinstall.
How large HDD can I use for the MikroTik RouterOS™?
MikroTik RouterOS™ supports disks larger than 8GB (usually up to 120GB). But make sure the BIOS of the
router's motherboard is able to support these large disks.
Can I run MikroTik RouterOS™ from any hard drive in my system?
Yes
Is there support for multiple hard drives in MikroTik RouterOS™?
A secondary drive is supported for web cache. This support has been added in 2.8, older versions don't support
multiple hard drives.
Why the CD installation stops at some point and does not go "all the way through"?
The CD installation is not working properly on some motherboards. Try to reboot the computer and start the
installation again. If it does not help, try using different hardware.

Logging on and Passwords

What is the username and password when logging on to the router for the first time?
Username is 'admin', and there is no password (hit the 'Enter' key). You can change the password using the
'/password' command.
How can I recover a lost password?
If you have forgotten the password, there is no recovery for it. You have to reinstall the router.
After power failure the MikroTik router is not starting up again
If you haven't shut the router down, the file system has not been unmounted properly. When starting up, the
RouterOS™ will perform a file system check. Depending on the HDD size, it may take several minutes to
complete. Do not interrupt the file system check! It would make your installation unusable.
How can I access the router if the LAN interface has been disabled?
You can access the router either locally (using monitor and keyboard) or through the serial console.
Manual:RouterOS FAQ 53

Licensing Issues
How many MikroTik RouterOS™ installations does one license cover?
The license is per RouterOS installation. Each installed router needs a separate license.
Does the license expire?
The license never expires. The router runs for ever. Your only limitation is to which versions you can upgrade.
For example if it says "Upgradable to v4.x", it means you can use all v4 releases, but not v5 This doesn't mean
you can't stay on v4.x as long as you want.
How can I reinstall the MikroTik RouterOS™ software without losing my software license?
You have to use CD, Floppies or Netinstall procedure and install the MikroTik RouterOS™ on the HDD with
the previous MikroTik RouterOS™ installation still intact. The license is kept with the HDD. Do not use
format or partitioning utilities, they will delete your key! Use the same (initial) BIOS settings for your HDD!
Can I use my MikroTik RouterOS™ software license on a different hardware?
Yes, you can use different hardware (motherboard, NICs), but you should use the same HDD. The license is
kept with the HDD unless format or fdisk utilities are used. It is not required to reinstall the system when
moving to different hardware. When paying for the license, please be aware, that it cannot be used on another
harddrive than the one it was installed upon.
License transfer to another hard drive costs 10$. Contact support to arrange this.
What to do, if my hard drive with MikroTik RouterOS™ crashes, and I have to install another one?
If you have paid for the license, you have to write to support[at]mikrotik.com and describe the situation. We
may request you to send the broken hard drive to us as proof prior to issuing a replacement key.
What happens if my hardware breaks again, and I lose my replacement key?
The same process is used as above, but this time, we need physical proof that there is in fact been another
incident.
If you have a free demo license, no replacement key can be issued. Please obtain another demo license, or
purchase the base license.
More information available here All_about_licenses
How can I enter a new Software Key?
Entering the key from Console/FTP:
• import the attached file with the command '/system license import' (you should upload this file to the router's FTP
server)
Entering the key with Console/Telnet:
• use copy/paste to enter the key into a Telnet window (no matter which submenu). Be sure to copy the whole
key, including the lines "--BEGIN MIKROTIK SOFTWARE KEY--" and "--END MIKROTIK SOFTWARE
KEY--"
Entering the key from Winbox:
• use 'system -> license' menu in Winbox to Paste or Import the key
I have mis-typed the software ID when I purchased the Software Key. How can I fix this?
In the Account Server choose `work with keys`, then select your mis-typed key, and then choose `fix key`.
About entering keys, see more on this page
Entering a RouterOS License key
All other information about License Keys can be found here
Manual:RouterOS FAQ 54

All_about_licenses

Upgrading
How can I install additional feature packages?
You have to use the same version package files (extension .npk) as the system package. Use the /system
package print command to see the list of installed packages. Check the free space on router's HDD using the
/system resource print command before uploading the package files. Make sure you have at least 2MB free
disk space on the router after you have uploaded the package files!
Upload the package files using the ftp BINARY mode to the router and issue /system reboot command to shut
down the router and reboot. The packages are installed (upgraded) while the router is going for shutdown. You
can monitor the installation process on the monitor screen connected to the router. After reboot, the installed
packages are listed in the /system package print list.
How can I upgrade?
To upgrade the software, you will need to download the latest package files (*.npk) from our website (the
'system' package plus the ones that you need). Then, connect to the router via FTP and upload the new
packages to it by using Binary transfer mode.
Then reboot the router by issuing /system reboot command. More information here: Upgrading_RouterOS
I installed additional feature package, but the relevant interface does not show up under the /interface print list.
You have to obtain (purchase) the required license level or install the NPK package for this interface (for
example package 'wireless').
If I do upgrade RouterOS, will I lose my configuration?
No, configuration is kept intact for upgrades within one version family. When upgrading version families (for
example, V2.5 to V2.6) you may lose the configuration of some features that have major changes. For example
when upgrading from V2.4, you should upgrade to the last version of 2.4 first.
How much free disk space do I need when upgrading to higher version?
You need space for the system package and the additional packages you have to upgrade. After uploading the
newer version packages to the router you should have at least 2MB free disk space left. If not, do not try to
make the upgrade! Uninstall the unnecessary packages first, and then upgrade the remaining ones.

Downgrading
How can I downgrade the MikroTik RouterOS™ installation to an older version?
You can downgrade by reinstalling the RouterOS™ from any media. The software license will be kept with
the HDD as long as the disk is not repartitioned/reformatted. The configuration of the router will be lost (it is
possible to save the old configuration, but this option has unpredictable results when downgrading and it is not
recommended to use it).
Another way is to use the /system package downgrade command. This works only if you downgrade to
2.7.20 and not lower. Upload the older packages to the router via FTP and then use the /system package
downgrade command.
Manual:RouterOS FAQ 55

TCP/IP Related Questions

I have two NIC cards in the MikroTik router and they are working properly. I can ping both networks from the router
but can't ping from one network through the router to the other network and to the Internet. I have no firewall setup.
This is a typical problem, where you do not have routing set up at your main Internet gateway. Since you have
introduced a new network, you need to 'tell' about it your main gateway (your ISP). A route should be added
for your new network. Alternatively, you can 'hide' your new network by means of masquerading to get access
to the Internet. Please take time to study the Basic Setup Guide, where the problem is described and the
solution is given.
There is an example how to masquerade your private LAN:

[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat> add chain=srcnat action=masquerade out-interface=Public

[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
0 chain=srcnat out-interface=Public action=masquerade

How can I change the TCP port number for telnet or http services, if I do not want to use the ports 23 and 80,
respectively?
You can change the allocated ports under /ip service.
When I use the IP address/mask in the form 10.1.1.17/24 for my filtering or queuing rules, they do not work.
The rules 'do not work', since they do not match the packets due to the incorrectly specified address/mask. The
correct form would be:

10.1.1.0/24 for the IP addresses in the range 10.1.1.0-10.1.1.255, or,

10.1.1.17/32 for just one IP address 10.1.1.17.

I need to set up DHCP client, but there is no menu '/ip dhcp-client'.

The DHCP feature is not included in the system software package. You need to install the dhcp package.
Upload it to the router and reboot!
Can I statically bind IP's to MAC addresses via DHCP?
Yes, you can add static leases to the DHCP server leases list. However, DHCP is insecure by default, and it is
better to use PPPoE for user authentication and handing out IP addresses. There you can request the user to log
on from a specified MAC address as well.
How can I masquerade two different subnets using two different external IP addresses for them?
Use /ip firewall nat rule with chain=srcnat action=nat, specify the to-src-address argument value. It should
be one of the router's external addresses. If you use action=masquerade, the to-src-address is not taken into
account, since it is substituted by the external address of the router automatically.
I cannot surf some sites when I use PPPoE.
Use /ip firewall mangle to change MSS (maximum segment size) 40 bytes less than your connection MTU.
For example, if you have encrypted PPPoE link with MTU=1492, set the mangle rule as follows:
/ ip firewall mangle
add chain=forward protocol=tcp tcp-flags=syn action=change-mss tcp-mss=!0-1448 new-mss=1448
Manual:RouterOS FAQ 56

Bandwidth Management Related Questions

How can I controll bandwidth(bandwidth shaping)in Bridge mode?
In bridge settings enable use-ip-firewall.
Can I use MikroTik as a bridge and a traffic shaper in one machine?
Yes. You can use all the extensive queue management features. Set the queue to the interface where the traffic
is actually leaving the router, when passing through the router. It is not the bridge interface! The queue on the
bridge interface is involved only for the traffic generated from the router.
Can I limit bandwidth based on MAC addresses?
For download:

1. connection-mark all packets from the MAC of each client with different marks
for each client using action=passthrough:
/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting src-mac-address=11:11:11:11:11:11 \
action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=host11 passthrough=yes

2. Remark these packets with flow-mark (again different flow-marks for each connection-marks):
/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting connection-mark=host11 new-packet-mark=host11

3. We can use these flow-marks in queue trees now.

While this solution should function, it is fundamentally flawed as the first packet of each connection destined
to these clients will not be taken into account.
For upload:

[admin@AP] ip firewall mangle> add chain=prerouting src-mac-address=11:11:11:11:11:11 \

action=mark-packet new-packet-mark=upload

Wireless Questions
Can I bridge wlan interface operating in the station mode?
No, you cannot.
See more >>

BGP Questions
See BGP FAQ and HowTo
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ docs/ ros/ 2. 9/ guide/ specs
[2] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ docs/ ros/ 2. 9/
Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) 57

Manual:Connection oriented communication

(TCP/IP)
Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP)
The connection-oriented communication is a data communication mode in which you must first establish a
connection with remote host or server before any data can be sent. It is similar with analog telephone network where
you had to establish connection before you are able to communicate with a recipient. Connection establishment
included operations such as dial number, receive dial tone, wait for calling signal etc.

TCP session establishment and termination

Process when transmitting device establishes a connection-oriented session with remote peer is called a three-way
handshake. As the result end-to-end virtual (logical) circuit is created where flow control and acknowledgment for
reliable delivery is used. TCP has several message types used in connection establishment and termination process
(see Figure 2.1.).
Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) 58

Connection establishment process

1. The host A who needs to initialize a connection sends out a SYN (Synchronize) packet with proposed initial
sequence number to the destination host B.
2. When the host B receives SYN message, it returns a packet with both SYN and ACK fags set in the TCP header
(SYN-ACK).
3. When the host A receives the SYN-ACK, it sends back ACK (Acknowledgment) macket.
4. Host B receives ACK and at this stage the connection is ESTABLISHED.
Connection-oriented protocol services are often sending acknowledgments (ACKs) after successful delivery. After
packet with data is transmitted, sender waits acknowledgement from receiver. If time expires and sender did not
receive ACK, packet is retransmitted.

Connection termination
When the data transmission is complete and the host wants to terminate the connection, termination process is
initiated. Unlike TCP Connection establishment, which uses three-way handshake, connection termination uses
four-way massages. Connection is terminated when both sides have finished the shut down procedure by sending a
FIN and receiving an ACK.
1. The host A, who needs to terminate the connection, sends a special message with the FIN (finish) flag, indicating
that it has finished sending the data.
2. The host B, who receives the FIN segment, does not terminate the connection but enters into a "passive close"
(CLOSE_WAIT) state and sends the ACK for the FIN back to the host A. Now the host B enters into
LAST_ACK state. At this point host B will no longer accept data from host A, but can continue transmit data to
host A. If host B does not have any data to transmit to the host A it will also terminate the connection by sending
FIN segment.
3. When the host A receives the last ACK from the host B, it enters into a (TIME_WAIT) state, and sends an ACK
back to the host B.
4. Host B gets the ACK from the host A and closes the connection.

Segments transmission (windowing)

Now that we know how the TCP connection is established we need to understand how data transmission is managed
and maintained. In TCP/IP networks transmission between hosts is handled by TCP protocol.
Let’s think about what happens when datagrams are sent out faster than receiving device can process. Receiver stores
them in memory called a buffer. But since buffer space are not unlimited, when its capacity is exceeded receiver
starts to drop the frames. All dropped frames must be retransmitted again which is the reason for low transmission
performance.
To address this problem, TCP uses flow control protocol. window mechanism is used to control the flow of the data.
When connection is established, receiver specifies window field (see, TCP header format, Figure 1.6.) in each TCP
frame. Window size represents the amount of received data that receiver is willing to store in the buffer. window size
(in bytes) is send together with acknowledgements to the sender. So the size of window controls how much
information can be transmitted from one host to another without receiving an acknowledgment. Sender will send
only amount of bites specified in window size and then will wait for acknowledgments with updated window size.
If the receiving application can process data as quickly as it arrives from the sender, then the receiver will send a
positive window advertisement (increase the windows size) with each acknowledgement. It works until sender
becomes faster than receiver and incoming data will eventually fill the receiver's buffer, causing the receiver to
advertise acknowledgment with a zero window. A sender that receives a zero window advertisement must stop
transmit until it receives a positive window. Windowing process is illustrated in Figure 2.2.
Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) 59

The host A starts transmit with window size of 1000, one 1000byte frame is transmitted. Receiver (host B) returns
ACK with window size to increase to 2000. The host A receives ACK and transmits two frames (1000 bytes each).
After that receiver advertises an initial window size to 2500. Now sender transmits three frames (two containing
1,000 bytes and one containing 500 bytes) and waits for an acknowledgement. The first three segments fill the
receiver's buffer faster than the receiving application can process the data, so the advertised window size reaches
zero indicating that it is necessary to wait before further transmission is possible.
The size of the window and how fast to increase or decrease the window size is available in various TCP congestion
avoidance algorithms such as Reno, Vegas, Tahoe etc.

Ethernet networking

CSMA/CD
The Ethernet system consists of three basic elements:
• the physical medium used to carry Ethernet signals between network devices,
• medium access control system embedded in each Ethernet interface that allow multiple computers to fairly
control access to the shared Ethernet channel,
• Ethernet frame that consists of a standardized set of bits used to carry data over the system.
Ethernet network uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision detection (CSMA/CD) protocol for data
transmission. That helps to control and manage access to shared bandwidth when two or more devices want to
transmit data at the same time. CSMA/CD is a modification of Carrier Sense Multiple Access. Carrier Sense
Multiple Access with Collision Detection is used to improve CSMA performance by terminating transmission as
soon as collision is detected, reducing the probability of a second collision on retry.
Before we discuss a little more about CSMA/CD we need to understand what is collision, collision domain and
network segment. A collision is the result of two devices on the same Ethernet network attempting to transmit data at
the same time. The network detects the "collision" of the two transmitted packets and discards both of them.
Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) 60

If we have one large network solution is to break it up into smaller networks – often called network segmentation. It
is done by using devices like routers and switches - each of switch ports create separate network segment which
result in separate collision domain. A collision domain is a physical network segment where data packets can
"collide" with each other when being sent on a shared medium. Therefore on a hub, only one computer can receive
data simultaneously otherwise collision can occur and data will be lost.

Hub (called also repeater) is specified in Physical layer of OSI model because it regenerates only electrical signal
and sends out input signal to each of ports. Today hubs do not dominate on the LAN networks and are replaced with
switches.
Carrier Sense – means that a transmitter listens for a carrier (encoded information signal) from another station
before attempting to transmit.
Multiple Access – means that multiple stations send and receive on the one medium.
Collision Detection - involves algorithms for checking for collision and advertises about collision with collision
response – “Jam signal”.
When the sender is ready to send data, it checks continuously if the medium is busy. If the medium becomes idle the
sender transmits a frame.
Look at the Figure 2.4 bellow where simple example of CSMA/CD is explained.
Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) 61

1. Any host on the segment that wants to send data “listens” what is happening on the physical medium(wire) an is
checking whether someone else is not sending data already.
2. Host A and host C on shared network segment sees that nobody else is sending and tries to send frames.
3. Host A and Host C are listening at the same time so both of them will transmit at the same time and collision will
occur. Collision results in what we refer to as "noise" - a change in the voltage of the signals in the line (wire).
4. Host A and Host B detect this collision and send out “jam” signal to tell other hosts not to send data at this time.
Both Host A and Host C need to retransmit this data, but we don't want them to send frames simultaneously once
again. To avoid this, host A and host B will start a random timer (ms) before attempting to start CSMA/CD
process again by listening to the wire.
Each computer on Ethernet network operates independently of all other stations on the network.

Half and Full duplex Ethernet

Ethernet standards such as Ethernet II and Ethernet 802.3 are passed through formal IEEE (Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers) standardization process. The difference is that Ethernet II header includes Protocol type field
whereas in Ethernet 802.3 this field was changed to length field. Ethernet is the standard CSMA/CD access method.
Ethernet supports different data transfer rates Ethernet (10BaseT) – 10 Mbps, Fast Ethernet (100Base-TX) – 100
Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T) – 1000 Mbps through different types of physical mediums (twisted pairs
(Copper), coaxial cable, optical fiber). Today Ethernet cables consist of four twisted pairs (8 wires). For example,
10Base-T uses only one of these wire pairs for running in both directions using half-duplex mode.
Half-duplex data transmission means that data can be transmitted in both directions between two nodes, but only one
direction at the same time. Also in the Gigabit Ethernet is defined (Half-duplex) specifications, but it isn’t used in
practice.
Full-duplex data transmission means that data can be transmitted in both directions using different twisted pairs for
each of direction at the same time. Full Duplex Ethernet, collisions are not possible since data is transmitted and
received on different wires, and each segment is connected directly to a switch. Full-duplex Ethernet offers
Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) 62

performance in both directions for example, if your computer supports Gigabit Ethernet (full duplex mode) and your
gateway (router) also support it then between your computer and gateway 2Gbps aggregated bandwidth is available.

Simple network communication example

ARP protocol operation

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a protocol for mapping an Internet Protocol (IP) address of host in the local
network to the hardware address (MAC address). The physical/hardware address is also known as a Media Access
Control or MAC address. Each network device maintains ARP tables (cache) that contain list of MAC address and
its corresponding IP address. MAC addresses uniquely identify every network interface in the network. IP addresses
are used for path selection to destination (in the routing process), but frame forwarding process from one interface to
another occur using MAC addresses.
When host on local area network wants to send IP packet to another host in this network, it must looks for Ethernet
MAC address of destination host in its ARP cache. If the destination host’s MAC address is not in ARP table, then
ARP request is sent to find device with corresponding IP address. ARP sends broadcast request message to all
devices on the LAN by asking the devices with the specified IP address to reply with its MAC address. A device that
recognizes the IP address as its own returns ARP response with its own MAC address. Figure 2.5 shows how an
ARP looks for MAC address on the local network.

Commands that displays current ARP entries on a PC (linux, DOS) and a MikroTik router (commands might do the
same thing, but they syntax may be different):
For windows and Unix like machines: arp – a displays the list of IP addresses with its corresponding MAC
addresses
ip arp print – same command as arp – a but display the ARP table on a MikroTik Router.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Console 63

Manual:Console
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Overview
The console is used for accessing the MikroTik Router's configuration and management features using text
terminals, either remotely using serial port, telnet, SSH or console screen within Winbox, or directly using monitor
and keyboard. The console is also used for writing scripts. This manual describes the general console operation
principles. Please consult the Scripting Manual on some advanced console commands and on how to write scripts.

Hierarchy
The console allows configuration of the router's settings using text commands. Since there is a lot of available
commands, they are split into groups organized in a way of hierarchical menu levels. The name of a menu level
reflects the configuration information accessible in the relevant section, eg. /ip hotspot.

Example
For example, you can issue the /ip route print command:

[admin@MikroTik] > ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DIS INTE...
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 r 10.0.3.1 1 bridge1
1 ADC 1.0.1.0/24 1.0.1.1 0 bridge1
2 ADC 1.0.2.0/24 1.0.2.1 0 ether3
3 ADC 10.0.3.0/24 10.0.3.144 0 bridge1
4 ADC 10.10.10.0/24 10.10.10.1 0 wlan1
[admin@MikroTik] >

Instead of typing ip route path before each command, the path can be typed only once to move into this particular
branch of menu hierarchy. Thus, the example above could also be executed like this:

[admin@MikroTik] > ip route

[admin@MikroTik] ip route> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DIS INTE...
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 r 10.0.3.1 1 bridge1
1 ADC 1.0.1.0/24 1.0.1.1 0 bridge1
2 ADC 1.0.2.0/24 1.0.2.1 0 ether3
3 ADC 10.0.3.0/24 10.0.3.144 0 bridge1
4 ADC 10.10.10.0/24 10.10.10.1 0 wlan1
Manual:Console 64

[admin@MikroTik] ip route>

Notice that the prompt changes in order to reflect where you are located in the menu hierarchy at the moment. To
move to the top level again, type " / "

[admin@MikroTik] > ip route

[admin@MikroTik] ip route> /
[admin@MikroTik] >

To move up one command level, type " .. "

[admin@MikroTik] ip route> ..
[admin@MikroTik] ip>

You can also use / and .. to execute commands from other menu levels without changing the current level:

[admin@MikroTik] ip route> /ping 10.0.0.1

10.0.0.1 ping timeout
2 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat> .. service-port print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# NAME PORTS
0 ftp 21
1 tftp 69
2 irc 6667
3 h323
4 sip
5 pptp
[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat>

Item Names and Numbers

Many of the command levels operate with arrays of items: interfaces, routes, users etc. Such arrays are displayed in
similarly looking lists. All items in the list have an item number followed by flags and parameter values.
To change properties of an item, you have to use set command and specify name or number of the item.

Item Names
Some lists have items with specific names assigned to each of them. Examples are interface or user levels. There
you can use item names instead of item numbers.
You do not have to use the print command before accessing items by their names, which, as opposed to numbers,
are not assigned by the console internally, but are properties of the items. Thus, they would not change on their own.
However, there are all kinds of obscure situations possible when several users are changing router's configuration at
the same time. Generally, item names are more "stable" than the numbers, and also more informative, so you should
prefer them to numbers when writing console scripts.
Manual:Console 65

Item Numbers
Item numbers are assigned by the print command and are not constant - it is possible that two successive print
commands will order items differently. But the results of last print commands are memorized and, thus, once
assigned, item numbers can be used even after add, remove and move operations (since version 3, move operation
does not renumber items). Item numbers are assigned on a per session basis, they will remain the same until you quit
the console or until the next print command is executed. Also, numbers are assigned separately for every item list, so
ip address print will not change numbering of the interface list.
Since version 3 it is possible to use item numbers without running print command. Numbers will be assigned just as
if the print command was executed.
You can specify multiple items as targets to some commands. Almost everywhere, where you can write the number
of item, you can also write a list of numbers.

[admin@MikroTik] > interface print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running
# NAME TYPE MTU
0 R ether1 ether 1500
1 R ether2 ether 1500
2 R ether3 ether 1500
3 R ether4 ether 1500
[admin@MikroTik] > interface set 0,1,2 mtu=1460
[admin@MikroTik] > interface print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running
# NAME TYPE MTU
0 R ether1 ether 1460
1 R ether2 ether 1460
2 R ether3 ether 1460
3 R ether4 ether 1500
[admin@MikroTik] >

Quick Typing
There are two features in the console that help entering commands much quicker and easier - the [Tab] key
completions, and abbreviations of command names. Completions work similarly to the bash shell in UNIX. If you
press the [Tab] key after a part of a word, console tries to find the command within the current context that begins
with this word. If there is only one match, it is automatically appended, followed by a space:
/inte[Tab]_ becomes /interface _
If there is more than one match, but they all have a common beginning, which is longer than that what you have
typed, then the word is completed to this common part, and no space is appended:
/interface set e[Tab]_ becomes /interface set ether_
If you've typed just the common part, pressing the tab key once has no effect. However, pressing it for the second
time shows all possible completions in compact form:

[admin@MikroTik] > interface set e[Tab]_

[admin@MikroTik] > interface set ether[Tab]_
[admin@MikroTik] > interface set ether[Tab]_
ether1 ether5
[admin@MikroTik] > interface set ether_
Manual:Console 66

The [Tab] key can be used almost in any context where the console might have a clue about possible values -
command names, argument names, arguments that have only several possible values (like names of items in some
lists or name of protocol in firewall and NAT rules). You cannot complete numbers, IP addresses and similar values.
Another way to press fewer keys while typing is to abbreviate command and argument names. You can type only
beginning of command name, and, if it is not ambiguous, console will accept it as a full name. So typing:

[admin@MikroTik] > pi 10.1 c 3 si 100

equals to:

[admin@MikroTik] > ping 10.0.0.1 count 3 size 100

It is possible to complete not only beginning, but also any distinctive substring of a name: if there is no exact match,
console starts looking for words that have string being completed as first letters of a multiple word name, or that
simply contain letters of this string in the same order. If single such word is found, it is completed at cursor position.
For example:

[admin@MikroTik] > interface x[TAB]_

[admin@MikroTik] > interface export _

[admin@MikroTik] > interface mt[TAB]_

[admin@MikroTik] > interface monitor-traffic _

General Commands
There are some commands that are common to nearly all menu levels, namely: print, set, remove, add, find, get,
export, enable, disable, comment, move. These commands have similar behavior throughout different menu levels.
• add - this command usually has all the same arguments as set, except the item number argument. It adds a new
item with the values you have specified, usually at the end of the item list, in places where the order of items is
relevant. There are some required properties that you have to supply, such as the interface for a new address,
while other properties are set to defaults unless you explicitly specify them.
• Common Parameters
• copy-from - Copies an existing item. It takes default values of new item's properties from another item. If
you do not want to make exact copy, you can specify new values for some properties. When copying items
that have names, you will usually have to give a new name to a copy
• place-before - places a new item before an existing item with specified position. Thus, you do not need to
use the move command after adding an item to the list
• disabled - controls disabled/enabled state of the newly added item(-s)
• comment - holds the description of a newly created item
• Return Values
• add command returns internal number of item it has added
• edit - this command is associated with the set command. It can be used to edit values of properties that contain
large amount of text, such as scripts, but it works with all editable properties. Depending on the capabilities of the
terminal, either a fullscreen editor, or a single line editor is launched to edit the value of the specified property.
• find - The find command has the same arguments as set, plus the flag arguments like disabled or active that take
values yes or no depending on the value of respective flag. To see all flags and their names, look at the top of
print command's output. The find command returns internal numbers of all items that have the same values of
arguments as specified.
• move - changes the order of items in list.
Manual:Console 67

• Parameters
• first argument specifies the item(-s) being moved.
• second argument specifies the item before which to place all items being moved (they are placed at the end
of the list if the second argument is omitted).
• print - shows all information that's accessible from particular command level. Thus, /system clock print shows
system date and time, /ip route print shows all routes etc. If there's a list of items in current level and they are not
read-only, i.e. you can change/remove them (example of read-only item list is /system history, which shows
history of executed actions), then print command also assigns numbers that are used by all commands that operate
with items in this list.
• Common Parameters
• from - show only specified items, in the same order in which they are given.
• where - show only items that match specified criteria. The syntax of where property is similar to the find
command.
• brief - forces the print command to use tabular output form
• detail - forces the print command to use property=value output form
• count-only - shows the number of items
• file - prints the contents of the specific submenu into a file on the router.
• interval - updates the output from the print command for every interval seconds.
• oid - prints the OID value for properties that are accessible from SNMP
• without-paging - prints the output without stopping after each screenful.
• remove - removes specified item(-s) from a list.
• set - allows you to change values of general parameters or item parameters. The set command has arguments with
names corresponding to values you can change. Use ? or double [Tab] to see list of all arguments. If there is a list
of items in this command level, then set has one action argument that accepts the number of item (or list of
numbers) you wish to set up. This command does not return anything.

Modes
Console line editor works either in multiline mode or in single line mode. In multiline mode line editor displays
complete input line, even if it is longer than single terminal line. It also uses full screen editor for editing large text
values, such as scripts. In single line mode only one terminal line is used for line editing, and long lines are shown
truncated around the cursor. Full screen editor is not used in this mode.
Choice of modes depends on detected terminal capabilities.

List of keys
Control-C
keyboard interrupt.
Control-D
log out (if input line is empty)
Control-K
clear from cursor to the end of line
Control-X
toggle safe mode
Control-V
toggle hotlock mode mode
Manual:Console 68

F6
toggle cellar
F1 or ?
show context sensitive help. If the previous character is \, then inserts literal ?.
Tab
perform line completion. When pressed second time, show possible completions.
Delete
remove character at cursor
Control-H or Backspace
remove character before cursor and move cursor back one position.
Control-\
split line at cursor. Insert newline at cursor position. Display second of the two resulting lines.
Control-B or Left
move cursor backwards one character
Control-F or Right
move cursor forward one character
Control-P or Up
go to previous line. If this is the first line of input then recall previous input from history.
Control-N or Down
go to next line. If this is the last line of input then recall next input from history.
Control-A or Home
move cursor to the beginning of the line. If cursor is already at the beginning of the line, then go to the
beginning of the first line of current input.
Control-E or End
move cursor to the end of line. If cursor is already at the end of line, then move it to the end of the last line of
current input.
Control-L or F5
reset terminal and repaint screen.
up, down and split keys leave cursor at the end of line.

Built-in Help
The console has a built-in help, which can be accessed by typing ?. General rule is that help shows what you can
type in position where the ? was pressed (similarly to pressing [Tab] key twice, but in verbose form and with
explanations).

Safe Mode
It is sometimes possible to change router configuration in a way that will make the router inaccessible (except from
local console). Usually this is done by accident, but there is no way to undo last change when connection to router is
already cut. Safe mode can be used to minimize such risk.
Safe mode is entered by pressing [CTRL]+[X]. To save changes and quit safe mode, press [CTRL]+[X] again. To
exit without saving the made changes, hit [CTRL]+[D]
Manual:Console 69

[admin@MikroTik] ip route>[CTRL]+[X]
[Safe Mode taken]

[admin@MikroTik] ip route<SAFE>

Message Safe Mode taken is displayed and prompt changes to reflect that session is now in safe mode. All
configuration changes that are made (also from other login sessions), while router is in safe mode, are automatically
undone if safe mode session terminates abnormally. You can see all such changes that will be automatically undone
tagged with an F flag in system history:

[admin@MikroTik] ip route>
[Safe Mode taken]

[admin@MikroTik] ip route<SAFE> add

[admin@MikroTik] ip route<SAFE> /system history print
Flags: U - undoable, R - redoable, F - floating-undo
ACTION BY POLICY
F route added admin write

Now, if telnet connection (or winbox terminal) is cut, then after a while (TCP timeout is 9 minutes) all changes that
were made while in safe mode will be undone. Exiting session by [Ctrl]+[D] also undoes all safe mode changes,
while /quit does not.
If another user tries to enter safe mode, he's given following message:

[admin@MikroTik] >
Hijacking Safe Mode from someone - unroll/release/don't take it [u/r/d]:

• [u] - undoes all safe mode changes, and puts the current session in safe mode.
Manual:Console 70

• [r] - keeps all current safe mode changes, and puts current session in a safe mode. Previous owner of safe mode is
notified about this:

[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall rule input

[Safe mode released by another user]

• [d] - leaves everything as-is.

If too many changes are made while in safe mode, and there's no room in history to hold them all (currently history
keeps up to 100 most recent actions), then session is automatically put out of the safe mode, no changes are
automatically undone. Thus, it is best to change configuration in small steps, while in safe mode. Pressing [Ctrl]+[X]
twice is an easy way to empty safe mode action list.

HotLock Mode
When HotLock mode is enabled commands will be auto completed.
To enter/exit HotLock mode press [CTRL]+[V].

[admin@MikroTik] /ip address> [CTRL]+[V]

[admin@MikroTik] /ip address>>

Double >> is indication that HotLock mode is enabled. For example if you type /in e, it will be auto completed
to

[admin@MikroTik] /ip address>> /interface ethernet

Quick Help menu

F6 key enables menu at the bottom of the terminal which shows common key combinations and their usage.

[admin@RB493G] >

tab compl ? F1 help ^V hotlk ^X safe ^C brk ^D quit

Manual:Winbox 71

Manual:Winbox
Summary
Winbox is a small utility that allows administration of Mikrotik RouterOS using a fast and simple GUI. It is a native
Win32 binary, but can be run on Linux and Mac OSX using Wine.
All Winbox interface functions are as close as possible to Console functions, that is why there are no Winbox
sections in the manual.
Some of advanced and system critical configurations are not possible from winbox, like MAC address change on an
interface.

Starting the Winbox

Winbox loader can be downloaded directly from the router.
Open your browser and enter router's IP address, RouterOS welcome page will be displayed. Click on the link to
download winbox.exe

When winbox.exe is downloaded, double click on it and winbox loader window will pop up:
Manual:Winbox 72

To connect to the router enter IP or MAC address of the router, specify username and password (if any) and click on
Connect button. You can also enter the port number after the IP address, separating them with a colon, like this
192.168.88.1:9999. The port can be changed in RouterOS services menu.
Note: It is recommended to use IP address whenever possible. MAC session uses network broadcasts and is
not 100% reliable.

You can also use neighbor discovery, to list available routers by clicking on [...] button:

From list of discovered routers you can click on IP or MAC address column to connect to that router. If you click on
IP address then IP will be used to connect, but if you click on MAC Address then MAC address will be used to
connect to the router.
Note: Neighbor discovery will show also devices which are not compatible with Winbox, like Cisco routers
or any other device that uses CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol)

Description of buttons and fields of loader screen

• [...] - discovers and shows MNDP (MikroTik Neighbor Discovery Protocol) or CDP (Cisco
Discovery Protocol) devices.
• Connect - Connect to the router
• Save - Save address, login, password and note. Saved entries are listed at the bottom of loader window.
• Remove - Remove selected entry from saved list
Manual:Winbox 73

• Tools... - Allows to run various tools: removes all items from the list, clears cache on the local disk, imports
addresses from wbx file or exports them to wbx file.
• Connect To: - destination IP or MAC address of the router
• Login - username used for authentication
• Password - password used for authentication
• Keep Password - if unchecked, password is not saved to the list
• Secure Mode - if checked, winbox will use TLS encryption to secure session
• Load Previous Session - if checked, winbox will try to restore all previously opened windows.
• Note - description of the router that will be saved to the list.
Warning: Passwords are saved in plain text. Anyone with access to your file system will be able to retrieve
passwords.

It is possible to use command line to pass connect to user and password parameters automatically:

winbox.exe [<connect-to> [<login> [<password>]]]

For example (with no password):

winbox.exe 10.5.101.1 admin ""

Will connect to router 10.5.101.1 with username "admin"without password.

IPv6 connectivity
Starting from v5RC6 Winbox supports IPv6 connectivity. To connect to the routers IPv6 address, it must be placed
in square braces the same as in web browsers when connecting to IPv6 server. Example:

Winbox neighbor discovery is now capable of discovering IPv6 enabled routers. As you can see from the image
below, there are two entries for each IPv6 enabled router, one entry is with IPv4 address and another one with IPv6
link-local address. You can easily choose to which one you want to connect:
Manual:Winbox 74

Interface Overview
Winbox interface has been designed to be intuitive for most of the users. Interface consists of:
• Main toolbar at the top where users ca add various info fields, like CPU and memory usage.
• Menu bar on the left - list of all available menus and sub-menus. This list changes depending on what packages
are installed. For example if IPv6 package is disabled, then IPv6 menu and all it's sub-menus will not be
displayed.
• Work area - area where all menu windows are opened.
Manual:Winbox 75

Title bar shows information to identify with which router Winbox session is opened. Information is displayed in
following format:
[username]@[Router's IP or MAC] ( [RouterID] ) - Winbox [ROS version] on [RB model] ([platform])

From screenshot above we can see that user admin is logged into router with IP address 10.1.101.18. Router's ID is
MikroTik, currently installed RouterOS version is v5.0beta1, RouterBoard is RB800 and platform is PowerPC.
On the Main toolbar's left side is located undo and redo buttons to quickly undo any changes made to configuration.
On the right side is located:
• winbox traffic indicator displayed as a green bar,
• indicator that shows whether winbox session uses TLS encryption
• checkbox Hide password. This checkbox replaces all sensitive information (for example, ppp secret passwords)
with '*' asterisk symbols.
Manual:Winbox 76

Work Area and child windows

Winbox has MDI interface meaning that all menu configuration (child) widows are attached to main (parent)
Winbox window and are showed in work area.

Child windows can not be dragged out of working area. Notice in screenshot above that Interface window is
dragged out of visible working area and horizontal scroll bar appeared at the bottom. If any window is outside visible
work area boundaries the vertical or/and horizontal scrollbars will appear.

Child window menu bar

Each child window has its own toolbar. Most of the windows have the same set of toolbar buttons:

• Add - add new item to the list

• Remove - remove selected item from the list
• Enable - enable selected item (the same as enable command from console)
• Disable - disable selected item (the same as disable command from console)
• Comment - add or edit comment
• Sort - allows to sort out items depending on various parameters. Read more >>
Almost all windows have quick search input field at the right side of the toolbar. Any text entered in this field is
searched through all the items and highlighted as illustrated in screenshot below
Manual:Winbox 77

Notice that at the right side next to quick find input filed there is a dropdown box. For currently opened (IP Route)
window this dropdown box allows to quickly sort out items by routing tables. For example if main is selected, then
only routes from main routing table will be listed.
Similar dropdown box is also in all firewall windows to quickly sort out rules by chains.
Manual:Winbox 78

Sorting out displayed items

Almost every window has a Sort button. When clicking on this button several options appear as illustrated in
screenshot below

Example shows how to quickly filter out routes that are in 10.0.0.0/8 range
1. Press Sort button
2. Chose Dst.Address from the first dropdown box.
3. Chose in form the second dropdown box. "in" means that filter will check if dst address value is in range of
specified network.
4. Enter network against which values will be compared (in our example enter "10.0.0.0/8")
5. These buttons are to add or remove another filter to the stack.
6. Press Filter button to apply our filter.
As you can see from screenshot winbox sorted out only routes that are within 10.0.0.0/8 range.
Comparison operators (Number 3 in screenshot) may be different for each window. For example "Ip Route" window
has only two is and in. Other windows may have operators such as "is not", "contains", "contains not".
Winbox allows to build stack of filters. For example if there is a need to filter by destination address and gateway,
then
• set first filter as described in example above,
• press [+] button to add another filter bar in stack.
• set up seconf filter to filter by gateway
• press Filter button to apply filters.
You can also remove unnecessary filter from the stack by pressing [-] button.
Manual:Winbox 79

Customizing list of displayed columns

By default winbox shows most commonly used parameters. However sometimes it is needed to see another
parameters, for example "BGP AS Path" or other BGP attributes to monitor if routes are selected properly.
Winbox allows to customize displayed columns for each individual window. For example to add BGP AS path
column:
• Click on little arrow button (1) on the right side of the column titles or right mouse click on the route list.
• From popped up menu move to Show Columns (2) and from the sub-menu pick desired column, in our case click
on BGP AS Path (3)

Changes made to window layout are saved and next time when winbox is opened the same column order and size is
applied.
Manual:Winbox 80

Detail mode
It is also possible to enable Detail mode. In this mode all parameters are displayed in columns, first column is
parameter name, second column is parameter's value.
To enable detail mode right mouse click on the item list and from the popupmenu pick Detail mode
Manual:Winbox 81

Category view
It is possible to list items by categories. In tis mode all items will be grouped alphabetically or by other category. For
example items may be categorized alphabetically if sorted by name, items can also be categorized by type like in
screenshot below.
To enable Category view, right mouse click on the item list and from the popupmenu pick Show Categories
Manual:Winbox 82

Drag & Drop

It is possible to upload and download files to/from router using winbox drag & drop functionality.

Note: Drag & Drop does not work if winbox is running on Linux using wine. This is not a winbox problem,
wine does not support drag & drop.

Traffic monitoring
Winbox can be used as a tool to monitor traffic of every interface, queue or firewall rule in
real-time. Screenshot below shows ethernet traffic monitoring graphs.
Manual:Winbox 83
Manual:Winbox 84

Item copy
This shows how easy it is to copy an item in Winbox. In this example, we will use the COPY button to make a
Dynamic WDS interface into a Static interface.
This image shows us the initial state, as you see DRA indicates "D" which means Dynamic:

•
Double-Click on the interface and click on COPY:
Manual:Winbox 85

•
A new interface window will appear, a new name will be created automatically (in this case WDS2)

•
You can see that the new interface status has changed:
Manual:Winbox 86

Transferring Settings
On Windows Vista/7 Winbox settings are stored in:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Mikrotik\Winbox\winbox.cfg
Simply copy this file to the same location on the new host.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Webfig 87

Manual:Webfig
Summary
WebFig is a web based RouterOS utility which allows you to monitor, configure and troubleshoot the router. It is
designed as an alternative of WinBox, both have similar layouts and both have access to almost any feature of
RouterOS.
WebFig is accessible directly from the router which means that there is no need to install additional software (except
web browser with JavaScript support, of course).
As Webfig is platform independent, it can be used to configure router directly from various mobile devices without
need of a software developed for specific platform.
Some of the tasks that you can perform with WebFig:
• Configuration - view and edit current configuration;
• Monitoring - display the current status of the router, routing information, interface stats, logs and many more;
• Troubleshooting - RouterOS has built in many troubleshooting tools (like ping, traceroute, packet sniffers, traffic
generators and many other) and all of them can be used with WebFig.

Connecting to Router
WebFig can be launched from the
routers home page which is accessible
by entering routers IP address in the
browser. When home page is
successfully loaded, choose webfig
from the list of available icons as
illustrated in screenshot.
After clicking on webfig icon, login
prompt will ask you to enter username
and password. Enter login information
and click connect.
Now you should be able to see webfig
in action.

IPv6 Connectivity
RouterOS http service now listens on ipv6 address, too. To connect to IPv6, in your browser enter ipv6 address in
square brackets, for example [2001:db8:1::4]. If it is required to connect to link local address, don't forget to specify
interface name or interface id on windows, for example [fe80::9f94:9396%ether1].
Manual:Webfig 88

Interface Overview
WebFig interface is designed to be very intuitive especially for WinBox users. It has very similar layout: menu bar
on the left side, undo/redo at the top and work are at the rest of available space.

When connected to router, browsers title bar (tab name on Chrome) displays currently opened menu, user name used
to authenticate, ip address, system identity, ROS version and RouterBOARD model in following format:
[menu] at [username]@[Router's IP] ( [RouterID] ) - Webfig [ROS version] on [RB model] ([platform])

Menu bar has almost the same design as WinBox menu bar. Little arrow on the right side of the menu item indicates
that this menu has several sub-menus.
When clicking on such menu item, sub-menus will be listed and the arrow will
be pointing down, indicating that sub-menus are listed.
At the top you can see three common buttons Undo/Redo buttons similar to
winbox and one additional button Log Out. In the top right corner, you can see
WebFig logo and RouterBOARDS model name.
Work area has tab design, where you can switch between several configuration
tabs, for example in screenshot there are listed all tabs available in Bridge
menu (Bridge, Ports, Filters, NAT, Rules).
Below the tabs are listed buttons for all menu specific commands, for example
Add New and Settings.
The last part is table of all menu items. First column of an item has item
specific command buttons:
• - enable current item
• - disable current item
• - remove current item
Manual:Webfig 89

Item configuration
When clicking on one of the listed items, webfig will open new page showing all configurable parameters, item
specific commands and status.

At the top you can see item type and item name. In example screenshot you can see that item is an interface with
name bypass
There are also item specific command buttons (Ok, Cancel, Apply, Remove and Torch). These can vary between
different items. For example Torch is available only for interfaces.
Common Item buttons:
• Ok - apply changes to parameters and exit;
• Cancel - exit and do not apply changes;
• Apply - apply changes and stay on current page;
• Remove - remove current item.
Status bar similar to winbox shows current status of item specific flags (e.g running flag). Grey-ed out flag means
that it is not active. In example screenshot you can see that running is in solid black and slave is grey-ed, which
means that interface is running and is not a slave interface.
List of properties is divided in several sections, for example "General", "STP", "Status", "Traffic". In winbox these
sections are located in separate tabs, but webfig lists them all in one page specifying section name. In screenshotyou
can see "General" section. Grey-edout properties mean that they are read-only and configuration is not possible.
Manual:Webfig 90

Work with Files

Webfig allows to upload files directly to the router, without using FTP services. To upload files, open Files menu,
click on Choose File button, pick file and wait until file is uploaded.

Files also can be easily downloaded from the router, by clicking Download button at the right side of the file entry.
Manual:Webfig 91

Traffic Monitoring
Template:TODO
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Skins
Webfig skins is handy tool to make interface more user friendly. It is not a security tool. If user has sufficient rights
it is possible to access hidden features by other means.

Designing skins
If user has sufficient permissions (group has policy edit permissions) Design Skin button becomes available.
Pressing that toggle button will open interface editing options. Possible operations are:
• Hide menu - this will hide all items from menu and its submenus;
• Hide submenu - only certain submenu will be hidden
• Hide tabs - if submenu details have several tabs, it is possible to hide them this way;
• Rename menus, items - make some certain features more obvious or translate them into your launguage;
• Add note to to item (in detail view) - to add comments on filed;
• Make item read-only (in detail view) - for user safety very sensitive fields can be made read only
• Hide flags (in detail view) - while it is only possible to hide flag in detail view, this flag will not be visible in list
view and in detailed view;
• Add limits for field - (in detail view) where it is list of times that are comma or newline separated list of allowed
values:
• number interval '..' example: 1..10 will allow values from 1 to 10 for fiels with numbers, example, MTU size.
• field prefix (Text fields, MAC address, set fields, combo-boxes). If it is required to limit prefix length $ should
be added to the end, for example, limiting wireless interface to "station" only will contain
• Add Tab - will add grey ribbon with editable label that will separate the fields. Ribbon will be added before field
it is added to;
• Add Separator - will add low height horizontal separator before the field it is added to.
Note: Number interval cannot be set to extend limitations set by RouterOS for that field

Note: Set fields are argument that consist of set of check-boxes, for example, setting up policies for user
groups, RADIUS "Service"

Note: Limitations set for combo-boxes will values selectable from dropdown

Configure wireless interface

To configure
Manual:Webfig 92

Status page

Note: Starting RouterOS 5.7 webfig interface adds capability for users to create status page where fields from
anywhere can be added and arranged.

Satus page can be created by users (with sufficient permissions) and fields on the page can be
reordered.
When status page is created it is default page that opens when logging in the router through webfig
interface.

Addition of fields
To add field to status page user has to enter "Design skin" mode and from drop-down menu at the field choose
option - "Add to status page"
As the result of this action desired field in read-only mode will be added to status page. If at the time Status page is
not present at the time, it will be created for the user automatically.

Two columns
Fields in Status page can be arranged in two columns. Columns are filled from top to bottom.
When you have only one column then first item intended for second should be dragged to the top of the first item
when black line appear on top of the first item, then drag mouse to the left until shorter black line is displayed as
showed in screenshot. Releasing mouse button will create second column. Rest of the fields afterwards can be
dragged and dropped same way as with one column design.
Manual:Webfig 93

Skin design examples

Set field
Setting limits for set field

And the result:

Manual:Webfig 94

Using skins
To use skins you have to assign skin to group, when that is done users of that group will automatically use selected
skin as their default when logging into Webfig.
Note: Webfig is only configuration interface that can use skins

If it is required to use created skin on other router you can copy files to skins folder on the other
router. On new router it is required to add copied skin to user group to use it.
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Manual:Product Naming
Naming details for RouterBOARD products
RouterBOARD (short version RB)
<board name> <board features>-<build-in wireless> <wireless card
features>-<connector type>
-<enclosure type>

Board Name
Currently there can be three types of board names:
• 3-digit number
• 1st digit stands for series
• 2nd digit for indicating number of potential wired interfaces (Ethernet, SFP, SFP+)
• 3rd digit for indicating number of potential wireless interfaces (build-in and mPCI and mPCIe slots)
• Word - currently used names are: OmniTIK, Groove, SXT, SEXTANT, Metal. If board has fundamental
changes in hardware (such as completely different CPU) revision version will be added in the end
• Exceptional naming - 600, 800, 1000, 1100, 1200, 2011 boards are standalone representatives of the series or
have more than 9 wired interfaces, so name was simplified to full hundreds or development year.

Board Features
Board features follows immediately after board name section (no spaces or dashes), except when board name is a
word, then board features are separated by space.
Currently used features (listed in order they are used):
• U - USB
• P - power injection with controller
• i - single port power injector without controller
• A - more memory (and usually higher license level)
• H - more powerful CPU
• G - Gigabit (may includes "U","A","H", if not used with "L")
• L - light edition
• S - SFP port (legacy usage - SwitchOS devices)
• e - PCIe interaface extention card
• x<N> - where N is number of CPU cores ( x2, x16, x36 etc)
Manual:Product Naming 95

Built-in wireless details

If board has built-in wireless, then all its features are represented in following format:
<band><power_per_chain><protocol><number_of_chains>
• band
• 5 - 5Ghz
• 2 - 2.4Ghz
• 52 - dual band 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz
• power per chain
• (not used) - "Normal" - <23dBm at 6Mbps 802.11a; <24dBm at 6Mbps 802.11g
• H - "High" - 23-24dBm at 6Mbps 802.11a; 24-27dBm at 6Mbps 802.11g
• HP - "High Power" - 25-26dBm 6Mbps 802.11a; 28-29dBm at 6Mbps 802.11g
• SHP - "Super High Power" - 27+dBm at 6Mbps 802.11a; 30+dBm at 6Mbps 802.11g
• protocol
• (not used) - for cards with only 802.11a/b/g support
• n - for cards with 802.11n support
• ac - for cards with 802.11ac support
• number_of_chains
• (not used) - single chain
• D - dual chain
• T - triple chain
• connector type
• (not used) - only one connector option on the model
• MMCX - MMCX connector type
• u.FL - u.FL connector type

Enclosure type
• (not used) - main type of enclosure for a product
• BU - board unit (no enclosure) - for situation when board-only option is required, but main product already comes
in the case
• RM - rack-mount enclosure
• IN - indoor enclosure
• OUT - outdoor enclosure
• SA - sector antenna enclosure
• HG - high gain antenna enclosure
• EM - extended memory
Manual:Product Naming 96

Example
Lets decode RB912UAG-5HPnD [1] naming
• RB (RouterBOARD)
• 912 - 9th series board with 1 wired (ethernet) interface and two wireless interfaces (built-in and miniPCIe)
• UAG - has USB port, more memory and gigabit ethernet port
• 5HPnD - has built in 5GHz high power dual chain wireless card with 802.11n support.

CloudCoreRouter naming details

CloudCoreRouter (short version CCR) naming consists of:
<4 digit number>-<list of ports>-<enclosure type>
• 4 digit number
• 1st digit stands for series
• 2nd (reserved)
• 3rd-4th digit indicate number of total CPU cores on the device
• list of ports
• -<n>G - number of Gigabit Ethernet ports
• -<n>S - number of SFP ports
• -<n>S+ - number of SFP+ ports
• enclosure type - same as for RouterBOARD products.

CloudRouterSwitch naming details

CloudRouterSwitch (short version CRS) naming consists of:
<3 digit number>-<list of ports>-<build-in wireless card>-<enclosure type>
• 3 digit number
• 1st digit stands for series
• 2nd-3rd digit - total number of wired interfaces (Ethernet, SFP, SFP+)
• list of ports
• -<n>G - number of Gigabit Ethernet ports
• -<n>S - number of SFP ports
• -<n>S+ - number of SFP+ ports
• build-in wireless card - same as for RouterBOARD products.
• enclosure type - same as for RouterBOARD products.
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / routerboard. com/ RB912UAG-5HPnD
Manual:Default Configurations 97

Manual:Default Configurations
Applies to RouterOS: v5

List of Default Configs

Integrated Indoors

Wan port Lan port Wireless ht ht extension dhcp-server dhcp-client Firewall NAT Default IP Mac
mode chain Server

RB750 ether1 Switched - - - on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
RB750G ether2-ether5 access wan port on lan port on wan
to wan port
port

RB751 ether1 Switched AP b/g/n 0,1 above-control on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
ether2-ether5, 2412MHz access wan port on lan port on wan
bridged wlan1 to wan port
with switch port

RB951 ether1 Switched AP b/g/n 0 above-control on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
ether2-ether5, 2412MHz access wan port on lan port on wan
bridged wlan1 to wan port
with switch port

RB1100 - - - - - - - - - 192.168.88.1/24 -
AH/AHx2 on ether1

RB1200 - - - - - - - - - 192.168.88.1/24 -
on ether1

RB2011 sfp1,ether1 two switch - - - on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
gropups access wan port on ether1 on wan
bridged to wan port
(ether2-ether10, port
wlan1 if
present)

Integrated Outdoors
Manual:Default Configurations 98

Wan Lan port Wireless ht ht dhcp-server dhcp-client Firewall NAT Default IP Mac
port mode chain extension Server

Groove wlan1 ether1 station 0 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
2Hn a/n control access wan port on lan port on wan
2.4GHz to wan port
port

Groove wlan1 ether1 station 0 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
5Hn a/n 5GHz control access wan port on lan port on wan
to wan port
port

Groove - bridged AP a/n 0 - - - - - 192.168.88.1/24 -

A-5Hn wlan1,ether1 5300MHz on lan port

Metal 5 wlan1 ether1 station 0 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
a/n 5GHz control access wan port on lan port on wan
to wan port
port

SXT 5xx, wlan1 ether1 station 0,1 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
SXT a/n 5GHz control access wan port on lan port on wan
G-5xx to wan port
port

OmniTik ether1 Switched AP a/n 0,1 - on lan port on wan port - Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 -
ether2-ether5, 5300MHz wan port on lan port
bridged
wlan1 with
switch

SEXTANT wlan1 ether1 station 0,1 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
a/n 5GHz control access wan port on lan port on wan
to wan port
port

Engineered

Wan Lan port Wireless ht ht dhcp-server dhcp-client Firewall NAT Default IP Mac
port mode chain extension Server

RB411xx, - - - - - - - - - 192.168.88.1/24 -
RB435G, on ether1
RB433xx,
RB495xx,
RB800

RB450xx ether1 Switched - - - on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
ether2-ether5 access wan port on lan port on wan
to wan port
port

RB711-5xx, wlan1 ether1 station 0 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
RB711G-5xx a/n 5GHz control access wan port on lan port on wan
to wan port
port

RB711UA-5xx, - bridged AP a/n 0 - - - - - 192.168.88.1/24 -

RB711GA-5xx wlan1,ether1 5300MHz on lan port
Manual:Default Configurations 99

RB711-2xx wlan1 ether1 station 0 above on lan port on wan port blocked Masquerade 192.168.88.1/24 Disabled
b/g/n control access wan port on lan port on wan
2.4GHz to wan port
port

RB711UA-2xx - bridged AP a/n 0 - - - - - 192.168.88.1/24 -

wlan1,ether1 2412MHz on lan port

Note: To see exact configuration script that will be applied after system reset use following command
/system default-configuration print

Warning: /system default-configuration print Always shows factory default configuration

even if it is override by different netinstall script.

Wan Port
When applying configuration WAN port is renamed to "<wan port>-gateway", for example, if wan
port is ether1, it will be renamed to "ether1-gateway".

Local Port
Local port can be:
• single interface
• ethernets configured in switch group
• bridged all interfaces that are not WAN and switch slaves.
If ports are switched then master port is renamed to "<ethernet name>-master-local" and slaves to "<ethernet
name>-slave-local".
Lets take RB751 as an example. Board has ether1 configured as WAN port, it has switch chip and one
pre-configured wireless interface. So in this case all ethernets except ether1 are grouped in switch group and bridged
with wireless interface.
Generated config will be:
/interface set ether2 name=ether2-master-local;

/interface set ether3 name=ether3-slave-local;

/interface set ether4 name=ether4-slave-local;

/interface set ether5 name=ether5-slave-local;

/interface ethernet set ether3-slave-local master-port=ether2-master-local;

/interface ethernet set ether4-slave-local master-port=ether2-master-local;

/interface ethernet set ether5-slave-local master-port=ether2-master-local;

/interface bridge add name=bridge-local disabled=no auto-mac=no protocol-mode=rstp;

:local bMACIsSet 0;

:foreach k in=[/interface find] do={

:local tmpPort [/interface get $k name];

:if ($bMACIsSet = 0) do={

:if ([/interface get $k type] = "ether") do={

Manual:Default Configurations 100

/interface bridge set "bridge-local" admin-mac=[/interface ethernet get $tmpPort mac-address];

:set bMACIsSet 1;

:if (!($tmpPort~"bridge" || $tmpPort~"ether1" || $tmpPort~"slave")) do={

/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge-local interface=$tmpPort;

Wireless Config
Wireless configuration depends on market segment for which board is designed. It can be configured as AP or
station in 2GHz and 5GHz frequencies. Default 2GHz frequency is 2412 and default 5GHz frequency is 5300. SSID
is "Mikrotik-" + last 3 bytes in hex from wireless MAC address. Starting from v5.25 and v6rc14 Wireless Security
profile is configured with WPA/WPA2 and security key equal to router's serial number.
For example, If Mac address of the wlan1 interface is 00:0B:6B:30:7F:C2, and serial number of the board is

/sys routerboard print

routerboard: yes
serial-number: 0163008F8883

Then following settings will be applied:

• SSID="MikroTik-307FC2"
• security settings:
• mode=dynamic-keys
• authentication-types=wpa-psk,wpa2-psk
• wpa-pre-shared-key=0163008F8883
• wpa2-pre-shared-key=0163008F8883
Note: security key is case sensitive

If board has two chains (letter D in the naming of the board), then both chains are enabled. HT
Extension is enabled on all CPEs.
For example generated config on RB751:

:if ( $wirelessEnabled = 1) do={

# wait for wireless

:while ([/interface wireless find] = "") do={ :delay 1s; };

/interface wireless set wlan1 mode=ap-bridge band=2ghz-b/g/n ht-txchains=0,1 ht-rxchains=0,1 \

disabled=no country=no_country_set wireless-protocol=any

/interface wireless set wlan1 channel-width=20/40mhz-ht-above ;

}
Manual:Default Configurations 101

Default IP and DHCP Config

Default IP address on all boards is 192.168.88.1/24. Boards without specific configuration has IP address set on
ether1, other boards has IP address on LAN interface.
All boards that has WAN port configured, DHCP client is set on WAN port.
Typically on all CPEs DHCP server is set on LAN port, giving out addresses in range from
192.168.88.2-192.168.88.254
As an example RB751 applied DHCP config.
/ip dhcp-client add interface=ether1-gateway disabled=no

/ip pool add name="default-dhcp" ranges=192.168.88.10-192.168.88.254;

/ip dhcp-server

add name=default address-pool="default-dhcp" interface=bridge-local disabled=no;

/ip dhcp-server network

add address=192.168.88.0/24 gateway=192.168.88.1 dns-server=192.168.88.1 comment="default configuration";

Firewall, NAT and MAC server

All boards with configured WAN port has configured protection on that port. Any traffic leaving WAN port is
masqueraded. In forward chain also three rules are added for boards with masquerade rule: accept established, accept
related and drop invalid to prevent packets with local network IP to be leaked on the wan port.
Config example:
/ip firewall {

filter add chain=input action=accept protocol=icmp comment="default configuration"

filter add chain=input action=accept connection-state=established in-interface=ether1-gateway comment="default configuration"

filter add chain=input action=accept connection-state=related in-interface=ether1-gateway comment="default configuration"

filter add chain=input action=drop in-interface=ether1-gateway comment="default configuration"

nat add chain=srcnat out-interface=ether1-gateway action=masquerade comment="default configuration"

/tool mac-server remove [find];

/tool mac-server mac-winbox disable [find];

:foreach k in=[/interface find] do={

:local tmpName [/interface get $k name];

:if (!($tmpName~"ether1")) do={

/tool mac-server add interface=$tmpName disabled=no;

/tool mac-server mac-winbox add interface=$tmpName disabled=no;

/ip neighbor discovery set [find name="ether1-gateway"] discover=no

Manual:Default Configurations 102

DNS
Every board allows remote DNS requests and static DNS name is pre-configured.

/ip dns {
set allow-remote-requests=yes
static add name=router address=192.168.88.1
}

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Manual:Upgrading RouterOS
It is suggested to always keep your RouterOS installation up to date, MikroTik always keeps adding new
functionality and improving performance and stability by releasing updates.
RouterOS versions are numbered sequentially, when a period is used to separate sequences, it does not represent a
decimal point, and the sequences do not have positional significance. An identifier of 2.5, for instance, is not "two
and a half" or "half way to version three", it is the fifth second-level revision of the second first-level revision.
Therefore v5.2 is older than v5.18, which is newer.

Requirements and suggestions

In this article we assume that youre license allows upgrading. When using a RouterBOARD device, it is always
suggested to upgrade it's RouterBOOT bootloader after RouterOS is upgraded. To do this, issue the command
"/system routerboard upgrade"

Automatic upgrade
In RouterOS v5.21, Automatic Upgrade was added. To upgrade your RouterOS version, all you need to do is click a
button. This feature is available in command line, Winbox GUI, Webfig GUI and QuickSet.
The automatic upgrade feature connects to the MikroTik download servers, and checks if there is a new RouterOS
version for your device. If yes, a Changelog is displayed, and Upgrade button is shown. Clicking the Upgrade button,
software packages are automatically downloaded, and device will be rebooted.
Even if you have a custom set of packages installed, only the correct packages will be downloaded. The process is
easy and fast, and will save you trips to our download page, and use of FTP utilities.
Upgrade button in QuickSet:
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 103

Upgrade button in the Packages menu:

After clicking the Upgrade button, Changelog is shown:

Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 104

By clicking "Download & Upgrade", downloads will start, and router will reboot. After the reboot, your router will
be running the latest RouterOS version. You can then click the Upgrade button again, to confirm that your router is
running the latest RouterOS.

Manual upgrade methods

You can upgrade RouterOS in the following ways:
• Winbox – drag and drop files to the Files menu
• FTP - upload files to root directory
• The Dude – See manual here
Note: RouterOS cannot be upgraded through serial cable. Using this method only RouterBOOT can be
upgraded.

Upgrade process
• First step - visit www.mikrotik.com [1] and head to the download page, there choose the type of
system you have the RouterOS installed on.
• Download the Combined package, it will include all the functionality of RouterOS:
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 105

Using Winbox
Choose your system type, and download the upgrade package:

Connect to your router with Winbox, Select the downloaded file with your mouse, and drag it to the Files menu. If
there are some files already present, make sure to put the package in the root menu, not inside the hotspot
folder!:
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 106

The upload will start:

After it finishes - REBOOT and that's all! The New version number will be seen in the Winbox Title and in
the Packages menu
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 107

Using FTP
• Open your favourite FTP program (in this case it is Filezilla [1]), select the package and upload it to your router
(demo2.mt.lv is the address of my router in this example). note that in the image I'm uploading many packages,
but in your case - you will have one file that contains them all

• if you wish, you can check if the file is successfully transferred onto the router (optional):

[normis@Demo_v2.9] > file print

# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 supout.rif .rif file 285942 nov/24/2005 15:21:54
1 dhcp-2.9.8.npk package 138846 nov/29/2005 09:55:42
2 ppp-2.9.8.npk package 328636 nov/29/2005 09:55:43
3 advanced-tools-2.9.... package 142820 nov/29/2005 09:55:42
4 web-proxy-2.9.8.npk package 377837 nov/29/2005 09:55:43
5 wireless-2.9.8.npk package 534052 nov/29/2005 09:55:43
6 routerboard-2.9.8.npk package 192628 nov/29/2005 09:55:45
7 system-2.9.8.npk package 5826498 nov/29/2005 09:55:54

• and reboot your router for the upgrade process to begin:

[normis@Demo_v2.9] > system reboot

Reboot, yes? [y/N]: y

• after the reboot, your router will be up to date, you can check it in this menu:

/system package print

• if your router did not upgrade correctly, make sure you check the log

/log print without-paging

Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 108

RouterOS massive auto-upgrade

You can upgrade multiple MikroTik routers within few clicks. Let's have a look on simple network with 3 routers
(the same method works on networks with infinite numbers of routers),

RouterOS auto-upgrade
Sub-menu: /system package update
RouterOS version 6 has new auto upgrade option. RouterOS checks amazon servers for information if new version is
available and upgrades after upgrade command is executed.
You can automatize upgrade process by running script in scheduler:

/system package update

check-for-updates
:delay 1s;
:if ( [get current-version] != [get latest-version]) do={ upgrade }

Older option
RouterOS can download software packages from a remote MikroTik router.
• Make one router as network upgrade central point, that will update MikroTik RouterOS on other routers.
• Upload necessary RouterOS packages to this router (in the example, mipsbe for RB751U and powerpc for
RB1100AHx2).
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 109

• Add upgrade router (192.168.100.1) information to a router that you want to update (192.168.100.253), required
settings IP address/Username/Password

• Click on Refresh to see available packages, download newest packages and reboot the router to finalize the
upgrade.
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 110
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 111

The Dude auto-upgrade

Dude application can help you to upgrade entire RouterOS network with one click per router.
• Set type RouterOS and correct password for any device on your Dude map, that you want to upgrade
automatically,

• Upload required RouterOS packages to Dude files,

• Upgrade RouterOS version on devices from RouterOS list. Upgrade process is automatic, after click on upgrade
(or force upgrade), package will be uploaded and router will be rebooted by the Dude automatically.
Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 112

The Dude hierarchical upgrade

For complicated networks, when routers are connected sequentially, the simplest example is 1router-2router-3router
connection. You might get an issue, 2router will go to reboot before packages are uploaded to the 3router. The
solution is Dude groups, the feature allows to group routers and upgrade all of them by one click!

• Select group and click Upgrade (or Force Upgrade),

Manual:Upgrading RouterOS 113

License issues
When upgrading from older versions, there could be issues with your license key. Possible scenarios:
• When upgrading from RouterOS v2.8 or older, the system might complain about expired upgrade time. To
override this, use Netinstall to upgrade. Netinstall will ignore old license restriction and will upgrade
• When upgrading to RouterOS v4 or newer, the system will ask you to update license to a new format. To do this,
ensure your Winbox PC (not the router) has a working internet connection without any restrictions to reach
www.mikrotik.com and click "update license" in the license menu.

References
[1] http:/ / filezilla. sourceforge. net/

Manual:Configuration Management
Applies to RouterOS: ALL

Summary

This manual introduces you with commands which are used to perform the following functions:
• system backup;
• system restore from a backup;
• configuration export;
• configuration import;
• system configuration reset.

Description
The configuration backup can be used for backing up MikroTik RouterOS configuration to a binary file, which can
be stored on the router or downloaded from it using FTP for future use. The configuration restore can be used for
restoring the router's configuration, exactly as it was at the backup creation moment, from a backup file. The
restoration procedure assumes the cofiguration is restored on the same router, where the backup file was originally
created, so it will create partially broken configuration if the hardware has been changed.
The configuration export can be used for dumping out complete or partial MikroTik RouterOS configuration to the
console screen or to a text (script) file, which can be downloaded from the router using FTP protocol. The
configuration dumped is actually a batch of commands that add (without removing the existing configuration) the
selected configuration to a router. The configuration import facility executes a batch of console commands from a
script file.
Manual:Configuration Management 114

System reset command is used to erase all configuration on the router. Before doing that, it might be useful to
backup the router's configuration.

System Backup
Submenu level: /system backup

Description
The backup save command is used to store the entire router configuration in a backup file. The file is shown in the
/file submenu. It can be downloaded via ftp to keep it as a backup for your configuration.
Important! The backup file contains sensitive information, do not store your backup files inside the router's Files
directory, instead, download them, and keep them in a secure location.
To restore the system configuration, for example, after a /system reset-configuration, it is possible to upload that file
via ftp and load that backup file using load command in /system backup submenu. Command Description
• load name=[filename] - Load configuration backup from a file
• save name=[filename] - Save configuration backup to a file
Warning: If TheDude and user-manager is installed on the router then backup will not take care of
configuration used by these tools. Therefore additional care should be taken to save configuration from these.
Use provided tool mechanisms to save/export configuration if you want to save it.

Example
To save the router configuration to file test:

[admin@MikroTik] system backup> save name=test

Configuration backup saved
[admin@MikroTik] system backup>

To see the files stored on the router:

[admin@MikroTik] > file print

# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 test.backup backup 12567 sep/08/2004 21:07:50
[admin@MikroTik] >

To load the saved backup file test:

[admin@MikroTik] > system backup load name=test

Restore and reboot? [y/N]:
y
Restoring system configuration
System configuration restored, rebooting now
Manual:Configuration Management 115

Exporting Configuration
Command name: /export
The export command prints a script that can be used to restore configuration. The command can be invoked at any
menu level, and it acts for that menu level and all menu levels below it. The output can be saved into a file, available
for download using FTP.

Command Description
• file=[filename] - saves the export to a file

Example
[admin@MikroTik] > ip address print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.1.0.172/24 10.1.0.0 10.1.0.255 bridge1
1 10.5.1.1/24 10.5.1.0 10.5.1.255 ether1
[admin@MikroTik] >

To make an export file:

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> export file=address

[admin@MikroTik] ip address>

To see the files stored on the router:

[admin@MikroTik] > file print

# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 address.rsc script 315 dec/23/2003 13:21:48
[admin@MikroTik] >

Compact Export
Starting from v5.12 compact export was added. It allows to export only part of configuration that is not default
RouterOS config.
Note: Starting from v6rc1 "export compact" is default behavior. To do old style export use export verbose

For example compact OSPF export:

[admin@SXT-ST] /routing ospf> export compact

# jan/02/1970 20:16:32 by RouterOS 5.12
# software id = JRB7-9UGC
#
/routing ospf instance
set [ find default=yes ] redistribute-connected=as-type-1
/routing ospf interface
add disabled=yes interface=wlan1 network-type=point-to-point
/routing ospf network
add area=backbone network=10.255.255.36/32
Manual:Configuration Management 116

add area=backbone disabled=yes network=10.5.101.0/24

add area=backbone network=10.10.10.0/24
[admin@SXT-ST] /routing ospf>

Compact export introduces another feature that indicates which part of config is default on RouterOS and cannot be
deleted. As in example below '*' indicates that this OSPF instance is part of default configuration.

[admin@SXT-ST] /routing ospf instance> print

Flags: X - disabled, * - default
0 * name="default" router-id=0.0.0.0 distribute-default=never
redistribute-connected=as-type-1 redistribute-static=no
redistribute-rip=no redistribute-bgp=no redistribute-other-ospf=no
metric-default=1 metric-connected=20 metric-static=20 metric-rip=20
metric-bgp=auto metric-other-ospf=auto in-filter=ospf-in
out-filter=ospf-out

List of default config by menus that cannot be removed:

Menu Entries

/interface wireless default

security-profiles

/ppp profile "default", "default-encryption"

/ip hotspot profile "default"

/ip hotspot user profile "default"

/ip ipsec proposal "default"

/ip smb shares "pub"

/ip smb users "guest"

/ipv6 nd "all"

/mpls interface "all"

/routing bfd interface "all"

/routing bgp instance "default"

/routing ospf instance "default"

/routing ospf area "backbone"

/routing ospf-v3 instance "default"

/routing ospf-v3 area "backbone"

/snmp community "public"

/tool mac-server "all"

mac-winbox

/tool mac-server "all"

/system logging "info", "error", "warning", "critical"

/system logging action "memory", "disk", "echo", "remote"

/queue type "default", "ethernet-default", "wireless-default", "synchronous-default", "hotspot-default", "only-hardware-queue",

"multi-queue-ethernet-default", "default-small"
Manual:Configuration Management 117

Importing Configuration
Command name: /import
The root level command /import [file_name] executes a script, stored in the specified file adds the configuration
from the specified file to the existing setup. This file may contain any console comands, including scripts. is used to
restore configuration or part of it after a /system reset event or anything that causes configuration data loss.

Command Description
• file=[filename] - loads the exported configuration from a file to router

Automatic Import
Since RouterOS v3rc it is possible to automatically execute scripts - your script file has to be called
anything.auto.rsc - once this file is uploaded with FTP to the router, it will automatically be executed, just like with
the Import command.

Example
To load the saved export file use the following command:

[admin@MikroTik] > import address.rsc

Opening script file address.rsc

Script file loaded and executed successfully

[admin@MikroTik] >

Configuration Reset
Command name: /system reset-configuration

Description
The command clears all configuration of the router and sets it to the default including the login name and password
('admin' and no password), IP addresses and other configuration is erased, interfaces will become disabled. After the
reset command router will reboot.

Command Description
• keep-users: keeps router users and passwords
• no-defaults: doesn't load any default cofigurations, just clears everything
• skip-backup: automatic backup is not created before reset, when yes is specified
• run-after-reset: specify export file name to run after reset
Warning: If the router has been installed using netinstall and had a script specified as the initial
configuration, the reset command executes this script after purging the configuration. To stop it doing so, you
will have to reinstall the router.
Manual:Configuration Management 118

Example
[admin@MikroTik] > system reset-configuration
Dangerous! Reset anyway? [y/N]: n
action cancelled
[admin@MikroTik] >

Manual:Interface
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Sub Categories
List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface
MikroTik RouterOS supports a variety of Network Interface Cards as well as virtual interfaces (like Bonding,
Bridge, VLAN etc.). Each of them has its own submenu, but common properties of all interfaces can be configured
and read in general interface menu.

Properties
Property Description

l2mtu (integer; Default: ) Layer2 Maximum transmission unit. Note that this property can not be configured on all interfaces. Read more>>

mtu (integer; Default: ) Layer3 Maximum transmission unit

name (string; Default: ) Name of an interface

Read-only properties
Manual:Interface 119

Property Description

bytes (integer/integer) Total received and transmitted bytes by interface since startup. Read more>>

drops (integer/integer) packets not sent/received because interface queue is full (no free descriptors), dma engine overrun/underrun. Read
more>>

dynamic (yes|no) Whether interface is dynamically created

errors (integer/integer) Packets received with some kind of error or not transimitted because of some error. Read more>>

packets Total count of packets on interface since startup. Read more>>

(integer/integer)

running (yes|no) Whether interface is running. Note that some interface does not have running check and they are always reported as
"running"

slave (yes|no) Whether interface is configured as a slave of another interface (for example Bonding)

dynamic (yes|no) Whether interface is dynamically created

type (string) Type of an interface (ethernet, wireless, etc.)

Traffic monitor
The traffic passing through any interface can be monitored using following command:
/interface monitor-traffic [id | name]
For example monitor ether2 and aggregate traffic. Aggregate is used to monitor total ammount of traffic handled
by the router:

[maris@maris_main] > /interface monitor-traffic ether2,aggregate

rx-packets-per-second: 9 14
rx-drops-per-second: 0 0
rx-errors-per-second: 0 0
rx-bits-per-second: 6.6kbps 10.2kbps
tx-packets-per-second: 9 12
tx-drops-per-second: 0 0
tx-errors-per-second: 0 0
tx-bits-per-second: 13.6kbps 15.8kbps

Stats
RouterOS v3.22 introduces a new command:

/interface print stats

This command prints total packets, bytes, drops and errors.

All interfaces that support this feature will be displayed. Some interfaces are not supporting Error and Drop counters
at the moment (RB4XX except RB450G ether 2-5), these devices will not display these counters.
Traffic monitor now also displays errors per second, in addition to the usual stats:

/interface monitor-traffic

/interface ethernet print stats will display all kinds of other statistics if the interface is supporting
them (currently only RB450G ether2-ether5 and also RB750 ether2-ether5).
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Interface/Ethernet 120

Manual:Interface/Ethernet
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface ethernet
Standards: IEEE 802.3 [1]
MikroTik RouterOS supports various types of Ethernet interfaces.

Properties
Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | Address Resolution Protocol mode

reply-only; Default: enabled)

auto-negotiation (yes | no; Default: When enabled, the interface "advertises" its maximum capabilities to achieve the best connection
yes) possible.
Note: Auto-negotiation must be disabled on both ends, otherwise Ethernets may not work properly.
Note2: Gigabit link cannot work with auto-negotiation disabled.

bandwidth (integer/integer; Default: Sets max rx/tx bandwidth that will be handled by an interface.
unlimited/unlimited)

cable-setting (default | short | changes the cable length setting (only applicable to NS DP83815/6 cards)
standard; Default: default)

disable-running-check (yes | no; Disable running check. If this value is set to 'no', the router automatically detects whether the NIC is
Default: yes) connected with a device in the network or not. By default value is 'yes' because older NICs does not
support it. (only applicable to x86)

full-duplex (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether the transmission of data appears in two directions simultaneously

l2mtu (integer; Default: ) Layer2 Maximum transmission unit. Read more>>

mac-address (MAC; Default: ) Media Access Control number of an interface.

master-port (name | none; Default: Sets switch group master interface

none)

mdix-enable (yes | no; Default: ) Whether the MDI/X auto crosscable correction feature is enabled for the port

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Layer3 Maximum transmission unit

name (string; Default: ) Name of an interface

speed (10Mbps | 100Mbps | 1Gbps; Sets the data transmission speed of the interface. By default, this value is the maximal data rate
Default: max available) supported by the interface

poe-out (auto-on | forced-on | off; Poe Out settings. Read more >>
Default: off)
Manual:Interface/Ethernet 121

Property Description

running (yes | no) Whether interface is running. Note that some interface does not have running check and they are always reported as
"running"

rx-1024-1518 (integer) Total count of received 1024 to 1518 byte packets

rx-128-255 (integer) Total count of received 128 to 255 byte packets

rx-1519-max (integer) Total count of received packets larger than 1519 bytes

rx-256-511 (integer) Total count of received 256 to 511 byte packets

rx-512-1023 (integer) Total count of received 512 to 1023 byte packets

rx-64 (integer) Total count of received 64 byte packets

rx-65-127 (integer) Total count of received 65 to 127 byte packets

rx-align-error Total count of received align error messages

(integer)

rx-broadcast (integer) Total count of received broadcast packets

rx-bytes (integer) Total count of received bytes

rx-fcs-error (integer) Total count of received frames with incorrect checksum

rx-fragment (integer) Total count of received fragmented frames

rx-multicast (integer) Total count of received multicast packets

rx-overflow (integer)

rx-pause (integer) Amount of received pause frames

rx-runt (integer) Amount of received frames shorter than the minimum 64 bytes but with a valid CRC

rx-too-long (integer)

slave (yes | no) Whether interface is configured as a slave of another interface (for example Bonding)

switch (integer) ID to which switch chip interface belongs to.

tx-1024-1518 (integer)

tx-128-255 (integer)

tx-1519-max (integer)

tx-256-511 (integer)

tx-512-1023 (integer)

tx-64 (integer)

tx-65-127 (integer)

tx-align-error
(integer)

tx-broadcast (integer)

tx-bytes (integer)

tx-fcs-error (integer)

tx-fragment (integer)

tx-multicast (integer)

tx-overflow (integer)

tx-pause (integer)

tx-runt (integer)
Manual:Interface/Ethernet 122

tx-too-long (integer)

Menu specific commands

Property Description

blink ([id, name]) Blink Ethernet leds

monitor ([id, name]) Monitor ethernet status. Read more>>

reset-counters ([id, name]) Reset stats counters. Read more>>

reset-mac ([id, name]) Reset MAC address to manufacturers default.

cable-pairs (string) Shows detected problems with cable pairs. Read More >>

Monitor
/interface ethernet monitor command prints out current link, rate and duplex status of an interface.
Properties:

Property Description

auto-negotiation (done | incomplete) Current auto negotiation status:

• done-negotiation completed
• incomplete-negotiation failed or not yet completed

default-cable-settings (short | standard) Default cable length setting (only applicable to NS DP83815/6 cards)
• short-support short cables
• standard-support standard cables

full-duplex (yes | no) Whether transmission of data occurs in two directions simultaneously

rate (10Mbps | 100Mbps | 1Gbps) Actual data rate of the connection.

status (link-ok | no-link | unknown) Current link status of an interface

• link-ok-the card is connected to the network
• no-link-the card is not connected to the network
• unknown-the connection is not recognized (if the card does not report connection status)

phy-regs () List of Ethernet PHY registers

Example output of ethernet status:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> monitor ether1

status: link-ok
auto-negotiation: done
rate: 1Gbps
full-duplex: yes
Manual:Interface/Ethernet 123

Detect Cable Problems

In RouterOS v6rc4 and newer releases there is ability to see if there are any problems with connected cables. Cable
test can detect problems or measure the cable length only if cable is unplugged on the other end and there is
"no-link". RouterOS will tell:
• which cable pair is damaged
• at what length is the cable broken
• how is the cable broken - shorted or torn
This also works if the other end is simply unplugged - in that case, simply the cable length will be shown.
This works on SXT-G, SXT Lite, RB711G, RB2011, RB750 series and other devices with the same switch chips,
and also the Cloud Core series devices.
Here is example output:

[admin@CCR] > interface ethernet cable-test ether1

name: ether1
status: no-link
cable-pairs: open:4,open:4,open:4,open:4

In the above example, cable is not shorted but cut “open” at 4 meters length, all cable pairs equally at same location.

Stats
RouterOS v3.22 introduces a new command:

/interface ethernet print stats

This command will display all kinds of other statistics if the interface is supporting them (currently only RB450G
ether2-ether5, RB750 ether2-ether5, RB750G ether1-ether5 and also RB1100 ether1-ether10). Complete list of
properties can be found in section above
For example, output of ethernet stats on RB450G:
[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> print stats
name: ether1-gateway ether2-local ether3-local ether4-local ether5-local
rx-broadcast: 22 31 3666 11
rx-pause: 0 0 0 0
rx-multicast: 4 7 1423 5
rx-fcs-error: 0 0 2 0
rx-align-error: 0 0 0 0
rx-runt: 0 0 0 0
rx-fragment: 0 0 1 0
rx-64: 0 0 0 0
rx-65-127: 8 14 21598 10
rx-128-255: 0 0 0 0
rx-256-511: 18 24 2245 6
rx-512-1023: 28926 7649 371938 24476
rx-1024-1518: 0 0 0 0
rx-1519-max: 0 0 0 0
rx-too-long: 0 0 0 0
rx-overflow: 0 0 0 0
rx-bytes: 15337844 4063737 199738064 12975401
Manual:Interface/Ethernet 124

tx-broadcast: 13 13 1496 8
tx-pause: 0 0 0 0
tx-multicast: 13 13 1496 8
tx-underrun: 0 0 0 0
tx-64: 0 0 0 0
tx-65-127: 26 26 2992 16
tx-128-255: 0 0 0 0
tx-256-511: 0 0 0 0
tx-512-1023: 0 0 0 0
tx-1024-1518: 0 0 0 0
tx-1519-max: 0 0 0 0
tx-too-long: 0 0 0 0
tx-collision: 0 0 0 0
tx-excessive-collision: 0 0 0 0
tx-multiple-collision: 0 0 0 0
tx-single-collision: 0 0 0 0
tx-excessive-deferred: 0 0 0 0
tx-deferred: 0 0 0 0
tx-late-collision: 0 0 0 0
tx-bytes: 2561 2561 294712 1576

Switch
Sub-menu: /interface ethernet switch
This submenu allows to configure certain RouterBoard switch chip feature. Read more >>.

PoE out
PoE out settings are only available on RouterBOARD devices that have this hardware feature present.
See more here: PoE-Out
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / grouper. ieee. org/ groups/ 802/ 3/
Manual:Interface/Bonding 125

Manual:Interface/Bonding
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
Bonding is a technology that allows to aggregate multiple ethernet-like interfaces into a single virtual link, thus
getting higher data rates and providing failover.

Specifications
• Packages required: system
• License required: Level1
• Submenu level: /interface bonding
• Standards and Technologies: None
• Hardware usage: Not significant

Quick Setup Guide

Let us assume that we have 2 NICs in each router (Router1 and Router2) and want to get maximum data rate
between 2 routers. To make this possible, follow these steps:
• Make sure that you do not have IP addresses on interfaces which will be enslaved for bonding interface!
• Add bonding interface on Router1:

[admin@Router1] interface bonding> add slaves=ether1,ether2

And on Router2:

[admin@Router2] interface bonding> add slaves=ether1,ether2

Add addresses to bonding interfaces:

[admin@Router1] ip address> add address=172.16.0.1/24 interface=bonding1

[admin@Router2] ip address> add address=172.16.0.2/24 interface=bonding1

Test the link from Router1:

[admin@Router1] interface bonding> /pi 172.16.0.2

172.16.0.2 ping timeout
172.16.0.2 ping timeout
172.16.0.2 ping timeout
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms
Manual:Interface/Bonding 126

Note: bonding interface needs a couple of seconds to get connectivity with its peer.

Link monitoring
It is critical that one of available link monitoring options are enabled. In example above if one of
the bonded links fail, bonding driver will still continue to send packets over failed link which will
lead to network degradation. Currently bonding in RouterOS supports two schemes for monitoring a link state of
slave devices: MII and ARP monitoring. It is not possible to use both methods at a time due to restrictions in the
bonding driver.

ARP Monitoring
ARP monitoring sends ARP queries and uses the response as an indication that the link is operational. This also
gives assurance that traffic is actually flowing over the links. If balance-rr and balance-xor modes are set, then the
switch should be configured to evenly distribute packets across all links. Otherwise all replies from the ARP targets
will be received on the same link which could cause other links to fail. ARP monitoring is enabled by setting three
properties link-monitoring, arp-ip-targets and arp-interval. Meaning of each option is described
later in this article. It is possible to specify multiple ARP targets that can be useful in a High Availability setups. If
only one target is set, the target itself may go down. Having an additional targets increases the reliability of the ARP
monitoring.
Enable ARP monitoring

[admin@Router1] interface bonding> set 0 link-monitoring=arp arp-ip-targets=172.16.0.2

[admin@Router2] interface bonding> set 0 link-monitoring=arp arp-ip-targets=172.16.0.1

We will not change arp-interval value in our example, RouterOS sets arp-interval to 100ms by default.
Unplug one of the cables to test if link monitoring works correctly, you will notice some ping timeouts until arp
monitoring detects link failure.

[admin@Router1] interface bonding> /pi 172.16.0.2

172.16.0.2 ping timeout
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms
172.16.0.2 ping timeout
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms
172.16.0.2 ping timeout
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms
172.16.0.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=2 ms

MII monitoring
MII monitoring monitors only the state of the local interface. In RouterOS it is possible to configure MII monitoring
in two ways:
• MII Type 1 - device driver determines whether link is up or down. If device driver does not support this option
then link will appear as always up.
• MII Type 2 - deprecated calling sequences within the kernel are used to determine if link is up. This method is
less efficient but can be used on all devices. This mode should be set only if MII type 1 is not supported.
Main disadvantage is that MII monitoring can't tell if the link actually can pass the packets or not even if the link is
detected as up.
Manual:Interface/Bonding 127

MII monitoring is configured setting desired link-monitoring mode and mii-interval.

Enable MII Type2 monitoring:

[admin@Router1] interface bonding> set 0 link-monitoring=mii-type-2

[admin@Router2] interface bonding> set 0 link-monitoring=mii-type-2

We will leave mii-interval to it's default value (100ms)

When unplugging one of the cables, notice that failure was detected almost instantly compared to ARP link
monitoring.

Bonding modes

802.3ad
802.3ad mode is an IEEE standard also called LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol). It includes automatic
configuration of the aggregates, so minimal configuration of the switch is needed. This standard also mandates that
frames will be delivered in order and connections should not see mis-ordering of packets. Also standard mandates
that all devices in the aggregate must operate at the same speed and duplex and works only with MII link monitoring.
LACP balances outgoing traffic across the active ports based on hashed protocol header information and accepts
incoming traffic from any active port. The hash includes the Ethernet source and destination address, and, if
available, the VLAN tag, and the IPv4/IPv6 source and destination address. How has is calculated depends on
transmit-hash-policy parameter.
Note: layer-3-and-4 mode is not fully compatible with LACP.

Configuration example

Example connects two ethernet interfaces on a router to the Edimax switch as a single load balanced and fault
tolerant link. More interfaces can be added to increase throughput and fault tolerance. Since frame ordering is
mandatory on Ethernet links then any traffic between two devices always flows over the same physical link limiting
the maximum speed to that of one interface. The transmit algorithm attempts to use as much information as it can to
distinguish different traffic flows and balance across the available interfaces.
Router R1 configuration:
/inteface bonding add slaves=ether1,ether2 mode=802.3ad lacp-rate=30secs link-monitoring=mii-type1 \
transmit-hash-policy=layer-2-and-3

Configuration on a switch:
Manual:Interface/Bonding 128

Intelligent Switch : Trunk Configuration

==================
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 M1 M2
1 - v - v - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
4 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
7 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TRK1 LACP
TRK2 Disable
TRK3 Disable
TRK4 Disable
TRK5 Disable
TRK6 Disable
TRK7 Disable

Notice that LACP is enabled on first trunk group (TRK1) and switch ports on first trunk group are bound with 'v'
flag. In our case port 2 and port4 will run LACP.
Verify if LACP is working: On the switch at first we should verify if LACP protocol is enabled and running:

Intelligent Switch : LACP Port State Active Configuration

==================

Port State Activity Port State Activity

--------------------------- ---------------------------
2 Active
4 Active

After that we can ensure that LACP negotiated with our router. If you don't see both ports on the list then something
is wrong and LACP is not going to work.

Intelligent Switch : LACP Group Status

==================

Group
[Actor] [Partner]

Priority: 1 65535

MAC : 000E2E2206A9 000C42409426

Port_No Key Priority Active Port_No Key Priority

2 513 1 selected 1 9 255
4 513 1 selected 2 9 255
Manual:Interface/Bonding 129

After we verified that switch successfully negotiated LACP with our router, we can start traffic from Client1 and
Client2 to the Server and check how traffic is evenly forwarded through both bonding slaves:

[admin@test-host] /interface> monitor-traffic ether1,ether2,bonding1

rx-packets-per-second: 8158 8120 16278
rx-drops-per-second: 0 0 0
rx-errors-per-second: 0 0 0
rx-bits-per-second: 98.8Mbps 98.2Mbps 197.0Mbps
tx-packets-per-second: 4833 4560 9394
tx-drops-per-second: 0 0 0
tx-errors-per-second: 0 0 0
tx-bits-per-second: 2.7Mbps 3.0Mbps 5.8Mbps

Note: On some of the switches you need to set correct link aggregation protocol, to make balancing work in
both directions

balance-rr
If this mode is set, packets are transmitted in sequential order from the first available slave to the
last.
Balance-rr is the only mode that will send packets across multiple interfaces that belong to the same TCP/IP
connection.
When utilizing multiple sending and multiple receiving links, packets often are received out of order, which result in
segment retransmission, for other protocols such as UDP it is not a problem if client software can tolerate
out-of-order packets.
If switch is used to aggregate links together, then appropriate switch port configuration is required, however many
switches do not support balance-rr.
Quick setup guide demonstrates use of the balance-rr bonding mode. As you can see, it is quite simple to set up.
Balance-rr is also useful for bonding several wireless links, however it requires equal bandwidth for all bonded links.
If bandwidth of one bonded link drops, then total bandwidth of bond will be equal to bandwidth of the slowest
bonded link.

active-backup
This mode uses only one active slave to transmit packets. Different slave becomes active only if primary slave fails.
Mac address of the bonding interface is visible only on active port to avoid confusing of the switch. Active-backup is
best choice in high availability setups with multiple switches that are interconnected.
ARP monitoring in this mode will not work correctly if both routers are directly connected. In such setups
mii-type1 or mii-type2 monitoring must be used or switch should be put between routers.
Manual:Interface/Bonding 130

balance-xor
This mode balances outgoing traffic across the active ports based on hashed protocol header information and accepts
incoming traffic from any active port. Mode is very similar to LACP except that it is not standardized and works
with layer-3-and-4 hash policy.

broadcast
When ports configured with broadcast mode, all slave ports transmits the same packets to the destination that way
providing fault tolerance. This mode does not provide load balancing.

balance-tlb
This mode balances outgoing traffic by peer. Each link can be a different speed and duplex and no specific switch
configuration is required as in other modes. Downside of this mode is that only MII link monitoring is supported and
incoming traffic is not balanced. Incoming traffic will use the link that is configured as "primary".
Configuration example
Lets assume than router has two links - ether1 max bandwidth is 10Mbps and ether2 max bandwidth is 5Mbps.
First link has more bandwidth so we set it as primary link

/interface bonding add mode=balance-tlb slaves=ether1,ether2 primary=ether1

No additional configuration is required for the switch.

Image above illustrates how balance-tlb mode works. As you can see router can communicate to all the clients
connected to switch with total bandwidth of both links (15Mbps). But as you already know, balance-tlb is not
balancing incoming traffic. In our example clients can communicate to router with total bandwidth of primary link
which is 10Mbps in our configuration.
Manual:Interface/Bonding 131

balance-alb
Mode is basically the same as balance-tlb but incoming traffic is also balanced. Only additional downside of
this mode is that it requires device driver capability to change mac address. Most of the cheap cards do not support
this mode.

Image above illustrates how balance-alb mode works. Compared to balance-tlb traffic from clients also can use
secondary link to communicate with router.

Property Description
Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | Address Resolution Protocol for the interface.
reply-only; Default: enabled) • disabled - the interface will not use ARP
• enabled - the interface will use ARP
• proxy-arp - the interface will use the ARP proxy feature
• reply-only - the interface will only reply to the requests originated to its own IP addresses.
Neighbour MAC addresses will be resolved using /ip arp statically set table only

arp-interval (time; Default: time in milliseconds which defines how often to monitor ARP requests
00:00:00.100)

arp-ip-targets (IP addres; IP target address which will be monitored if link-monitoring is set to arp. You can specify
Default: ) multiple IP addresses, separated by comma

down-delay (time; Default: 00:00:00) if a link failure has been detected, bonding interface is disabled for down-delay time. Value should be a
multiple of mii-interval

lacp-rate (1sec | 30secs; Default: Link Aggregation Control Protocol rate specifies how often to exchange with LACPDUs between
30secs) bonding peer. Used to determine whether link is up or other changes have occurred in the network.
LACP tries to adapt to these changes providing failover.
Manual:Interface/Bonding 132

link-monitoring (arp | mii-type1 | method to use for monitoring the link (whether it is up or down)
mii-type2 | none; Default: none) • arp - uses Address Resolution Protocol to determine whether the remote interface is reachable
• mii-type1 - uses Media Independent Interface type1 to determine link status. Link status
determenation relies on the device driver
• mii-type2 - similar as mii-type1, but status determination does not rely on the device driver
• none - no method for link monitoring is used.
Note: some bonding modes require specific link monitoring to work properly.

mii-interval (time; Default: how often to monitor the link for failures (parameter used only if link-monitoring is mii-type1 or
00:00:00.100) mii-type2)

mode (802.3ad | active-backup | Specifies one of the bonding policies

balance-alb | balance-rr | balance-tlb |
balance-xor | broadcast; Default:
balance-rr)

• 802.3ad - IEEE 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation. In this mode, the interfaces are aggregated in a
group where each slave shares the same speed. Provides fault tolerance and load balancing. Slave
selection for outgoing traffic is done according to the transmit-hash-policy more>
• active-backup - provides link backup. Only one slave can be active at a time. Another slave
becomes active only, if first one fails. more>
• balance-alb - adaptive load balancing. The same as balance-tlb but received traffic is also
balanced. Device driver should have support for changing the mac address. more>
• balance-rr - round-robin load balancing. Slaves in bonding interface will transmit and receive
data in sequential order. Provides load balancing and fault tolerance. more>
• balance-tlb - Outgoing traffic is distributed according to the current load on each slave.
Incoming traffic is not balanced and is received by the current slave. If receiving slave fails, then
another slave takes the MAC address of the failed slave. more>
• balance-xor - Transmit based on the selected transmit-hash-policy. This mode provides
load balancing and fault tolerance. more>
• broadcast - Broadcasts the same data on all interfaces at once. This provides fault tolerance but
slows down traffic throughput on some slow machines. more>

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmit Unit in bytes

name (string; Default: ) descriptive name of bonding interface

primary (string; Default: ) Interface is used as primary output interface. If primary interface fails, only then others slaves will be
used. This value works only with active-backup mode

slaves (string; Default: none) at least two ethernet-like interfaces separated by a comma, which will be used for bonding

up-delay (time; Default: 00:00:00) if a link has been brought up, bonding interface is disabled for up-delay time and after this time it is
enabled. Value should be a multiple of mii-interval

transmit-hash-policy (layer-2 | Selects the transmit hash policy to use for slave selection in balance-xor and 802.3ad modes
layer-2-and-3 | layer-3-and-4; Default:
layer-2)

• layer-2 - Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses to generate the hash. This algorithm will place
all traffic to a particular network peer on the same slave. This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.
• layer-2-and-3 - This policy uses a combination of layer2 and layer3 protocol information to
generate the hash. Uses XOR of hardware MAC addresses and IP addresses to generate the hash.
This algorithm will place all traffic to a particular network peer on the same slave. For non-IP traffic,
the formula is the same as for the layer2 transmit hash policy. This policy is intended to provide a
more balanced distribution of traffic than layer2 alone, especially in environments where a layer3
gateway device is required to reach most destinations. This algorithm is 802.3ad compliant.
• layer-3-and-4 - This policy uses upper layer protocol information, when available, to generate
the hash. This allows for traffic to a particular network peer to span multiple slaves, although a single
connection will not span multiple slaves. For fragmented TCP or UDP packets and all other IP
protocol traffic, the source and destination port information is omitted. For non-IP traffic, the formula
is the same as for the layer2 transmit hash policy. This algorithm is not fully 802.3ad compliant.
Manual:Interface/Bonding 133

Notes
Link failure detection and failover is working significantly better with expensive network cards, for example, made
by Intel, then with more cheap ones. For example, on Intel cards failover is taking place in less than a second after
link loss, while on some other cards, it may require up to 20 seconds. Also, the Active load balancing
(mode=balance-alb) does not work on some cheap cards.
L2 MTU of bonding interface is determined by taking smallest value of all slaves.

Manual:Interface/Bridge
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface bridge
Standards: IEEE802.1D [1]
Ethernet-like networks (Ethernet, Ethernet over IP, IEEE802.11 in ap-bridge or bridge mode, WDS, VLAN) can be
connected together using MAC bridges. The bridge feature allows the interconnection of hosts connected to separate
LANs (using EoIP, geographically distributed networks can be bridged as well if any kind of IP network
interconnection exists between them) as if they were attached to a single LAN. As bridges are transparent, they do
not appear in traceroute list, and no utility can make a distinction between a host working in one LAN and a host
working in another LAN if these LANs are bridged (depending on the way the LANs are interconnected, latency and
data rate between hosts may vary).
Network loops may emerge (intentionally or not) in complex topologies. Without any special treatment, loops would
prevent network from functioning normally, as they would lead to avalanche-like packet multiplication. Each bridge
runs an algorithm which calculates how the loop can be prevented. STP and RSTP allows bridges to communicate
with each other, so they can negotiate a loop free topology. All other alternative connections that would otherwise
form loops, are put to standby, so that should the main connection fail, another connection could take its place. This
algorithm exchange configuration messages (BPDU - Bridge Protocol Data Unit) periodically, so that all bridges
would be updated with the newest information about changes in network topology. (R)STP selects root bridge which
is responosible for network reconfiguration, such as blocking and opening ports of the other bridges. The root bridge
is the bridge with lowest bridge ID.
Manual:Interface/Bridge 134

Bridge Interface Setup

Sub-menu: /interface bridge
To combine a number of networks into one bridge, a bridge interface should be created (later, all the desired
interfaces should be set up as its ports). One MAC address will be assigned to all the bridged interfaces (the smallest
MAC address will be chosen automatically).

Property Description

admin-mac (MAC address; Default: ) Static MAC address of the bridge (takes effect if auto-mac=no)

ageing-time (time; Default: How long a host information will be kept in the bridge database
00:05:00)

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | Address Resolution Protocol setting

reply-only; Default: enabled)

auto-mac (yes | no; Default: yes) Automatically select the smallest MAC address of bridge ports as a bridge MAC address

forward-delay (time; Default: Time which is spent during the initialization phase of the bridge interface (i.e., after router startup or
00:00:15) enabling the interface) in listening/learning state before the bridge will start functioning normally

l2mtu (integer; read-only) Layer2 Maximum transmission unit. read more»

max-message-age (time; Default: How long to remember Hello messages received from other bridges
00:00:20)

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmission Unit

name (text; Default: bridgeN) Name of the bridge interface

priority (integer: 0..65535; Spanning tree protocol priority for bridge interface. Bridge with the smallest (lowest) bridge ID becomes a
Default: 32768) Root-Bridge. Bridge ID consists of two numbers - priority and MAC address of the bridge. To compare
two bridge IDs, the priority is compared first. If two bridges have equal priority, then the MAC addresses
are compared.

protocol-mode (none | rstp | stp; Select Spanning tree protocol (STP) or Rapid spanning tree protocol (RSTP) to ensure a loop-free
Default: none) topology for any bridged LAN. RSTP provides provides for faster spanning tree convergence after a
topology change.

transmit-hold-count (integer: The Transmit Hold Count used by the Port Transmit state machine to limit transmission rate
1..10; Default: 6)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_Tree_Protocol [2]
To add and enable a bridge interface that will forward all the protocols:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge> add

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="bridge1" mtu=1500 l2mtu=65535 arp=enabled
mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:00 protocol-mode=none priority=0x8000
auto-mac=yes admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s
forward-delay=15s transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m
[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge>
Manual:Interface/Bridge 135

Bridge Settings
Sub-menu: /interface bridge settings

Property Description

allow-fast-path (yes | no; Default: yes) Allows fast path

use-ip-firewall (yes | no; Default: no) Makes bridged traffic to be processed through IP firewall

use-ip-firewall-for-pppoe (yes | no; Makes bridged un-encrypted PPPoE traffic to be processed through IP firewall (requires
Default: no) use-ip-firewall=yes to work)

use-ip-firewall-for-vlan (yes | no; Makes bridged VLAN traffic to be processed through IP firewall (requires
Default: no) use-ip-firewall=yes to work)

Port Settings
Sub-menu: /interface bridge port
Port submenu is used to enslave interfaces in a particular bridge interface.

Property Description

bridge (name; Default: none) The bridge interface the respective interface is grouped in

edge (auto | no | no-discover | Set port as edge port or non-edge port, or enable automatic detection. Edge ports are connected to LAN that
yes | yes-discover; Default: auto) has no other bridges attached. If the port is configured to discover edge port then as soon as the bridge detects a
BPDU coming to an edge port, the port becomes a non-edge port.

external-fdb (auto | no | yes; Whether to use wireless registration table to speed up bridge host learning
Default: auto)

horizon (none | integer Use split horizon bridging to prevent bridging loops. read more»
0..429496729; Default: none)

interface (name; Default: Name of the interface

none)

path-cost (integer: 0..65535; Path cost to the interface, used by STP to determine the "best" path
Default: 10)

priority (integer: 0..255; The priority of the interface in comparison with other going to the same subnet
Default: 128)

To group ether1 and ether2 in the already created bridge1 bridge

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge port> add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether1

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge port> add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether2
[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge port> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON
0 ether1 bridge1 0x80 10 none
1 ether2 bridge1 0x80 10 none
[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge port>
Manual:Interface/Bridge 136

Bridge Monitoring
Sub-menu: /interface bridge monitor
Used to monitor the current status of a bridge.

Property Description

current-mac-address (MAC address) Current MAC address of the bridge

designated-port-count (integer) Number of designated bridge ports

port-count (integer) Number of the bridge ports

root-bridge (yes | no) Shows whether bridge is the root bridge of the spanning tree

root-bridge-id (text) The root bridge ID, which is in form of bridge-priority.bridge-MAC-address

root-path-cost (integer) The total cost of the path to the root-bridge

root-port (name) Port to which the root bridge is connected to

state (enabled | disabled) State of the bridge

To monitor a bridge:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge> monitor bridge1

state: enabled
current-mac-address: 00:0C:42:52:2E:CE
root-bridge: yes
root-bridge-id: 0x8000.00:00:00:00:00:00
root-path-cost: 0
root-port: none
port-count: 2
designated-port-count: 0

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge>

Bridge Port Monitoring

Sub-menu: /interface bridge port monitor
Statistics of an interface that belongs to a bridge.

Property Description

edge-port-discovery (yes | no) Whether port to automatically detects edge ports

external-fdb (yes | no) Shows whether registration table is used instead of forwarding data base

forwarding (yes | no) Port state

learning (yes | no) Port state

port-number (integer 1..4095) Port identifier

Manual:Interface/Bridge 137

role (designated | root port | alternate | backup | (R)STP algorithm assigned role of the port:
disabled) • Disabled port - not strictly part of STP, a network administrator can manually disable
a port
• Root port – a forwarding port that is the best port from Nonroot-bridge to Rootbridge
• Alternative port – an alternate path to the root bridge. This path is different than using
the root port
• Designated port – a forwarding port for every LAN segment
• Backup port – a backup/redundant path to a segment where another bridge port
already connects.

sending-rstp (yes | no) Whether the port is sending BPDU messages

status (in-bridge | inactive) Port status

To monitor a bridge port:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge port> monitor 0

status: in-bridge
port-number: 1
role: designated-port
edge-port: no
edge-port-discovery: yes
point-to-point-port: no
external-fdb: no
sending-rstp: no
learning: yes
forwarding: yes

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge port>

Bridge Host Monitoring

Sub-menu: /interface bridge host

Property Description

age (read-only: time) The time since the last packet was received from the host

bridge (read-only: name) The bridge the entry belongs to

external-fdb (read-only: flag) Whether the host was learned using wireless registration table

local (read-only: flag) Whether the host entry is of the bridge itself (that way all local interfaces are shown)

mac-address (read-only: MAC address) Host's MAC address

on-interface (read-only: name) Which of the bridged interfaces the host is connected to

To get the active host table:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge host> print

Flags: L - local, E - external-fdb
BRIDGE MAC-ADDRESS ON-INTERFACE AGE
bridge1 00:00:00:00:00:01 ether2 3s
bridge1 00:01:29:FF:1D:CC ether2 0s
L bridge1 00:0C:42:52:2E:CF ether2 0s
bridge1 00:0C:42:52:2E:D0 ether2 3s
bridge1 00:0C:42:5C:A5:AE ether2 0s
Manual:Interface/Bridge 138

[admin@MikroTik] /interface bridge host>

Bridge Firewall
Sub-menu: /interface bridge filter, /interface bridge nat
The bridge firewall implements packet filtering and thereby provides security functions that are used to manage data
flow to, from and through bridge.
Packet flow diagram shows how packets are processed through router. It is possible to force bridge traffic to go
through /ip firewall filter rules (see: Bridge Settings)
There are two bridge firewall tables:
• filter - bridge firewall with three predefined chains:
• input - filters packets, which destination is the bridge (including those packets that will be routed, as they are
anyway destined to the bridge MAC address)
• output - filters packets, which come from the bridge (including those packets that has been routed normally)
• forward - filters packets, which are to be bridged (note: this chain is not applied to the packets that should be
routed through the router, just to those that are traversing between the ports of the same bridge)
• nat - bridge network address translation provides ways for changing source/destination MAC addresses of the
packets traversing a bridge. Has two built-in chains:
• srcnat - used for "hiding" a host or a network behind a different MAC address. This chain is applied to the
packets leaving the router through a bridged interface
• dstnat - used for redirecting some pakets to another destinations
You can put packet marks in bridge firewall (filter and NAT), which are the same as the packet marks in IP firewall
put by mangle. So packet marks put by bridge firewall can be used in IP firewall, and vice versa.
General bridge firewall properties are described in this section. Some parameters that differ between nat and filter
rules are described in further sections.
Property802.3-sap (integer)802.3-type (integer)arp-dst-address (IP address; default:
)arp-dst-mac-address (MAC address; default: )arp-gratuitous (yes | no; default:
)arp-hardware-type (integer; default: 1)arp-opcode (arp-nak | drarp-error | drarp-reply | drarp-request |
inarp-reply | inarp-request | reply | reply-reverse | request | request-reverse)arp-src-address (IP address;
default: )arp-src-mac-address (MAC address; default: )chain (text)dst-address (IP address;
default: )dst-mac-address (MAC address; default: )dst-port (integer 0..65535)in-bridge
(name)in-interface (name)ingress-priority (integer 0..63)ip-protocol (ddp | ggp | icmp | igmp |
ipsec-ah | ospf | rdp | tcp | vrrp | egp | gre | icmpv6 | ipencap | ipsec-esp | pim | rspf | udp | xns-idp | encap | hmp |
idpr-cmtp | ipip | iso-tp4 | pup | st | vmtp | xtp)jump-target (name)limit
(integer/time,integer)log-prefix (text)mac-protocol (arp | ip | ipv6 | ipx | length | pppoe | pppoe-discovery |
rarp | vlan)out-bridge (name)out-interface (name)packet-mark (name)packet-type (broadcast
| host | multicast | other-host)src-address (IP address; default: )src-mac-address (MAC address;
default: )src-port (integer 0..65535)stp-flags (topology-change |
topology-change-ack)stp-forward-delay (time 0..65535)stp-hello-time (time
0..65535)stp-max-age (time 0..65535)stp-msg-age (time 0..65535)stp-port (integer
0..65535)stp-root-address (MAC address)stp-root-cost (integer 0..65535)stp-root-priority
(integer 0..65535)stp-sender-address (MAC address)stp-sender-priority (integer
0..65535)stp-type (config | tcn)vlan-encap (arp | ip | ipv6 | ipx | length | pppoe | pppoe-discovery | rarp |
vlan )vlan-id (integer 0..4095)vlan-priority (integer 0..7)DescriptionDSAP (Destination Service Access
Point) and SSAP (Source Service Access Point) are 2 one byte fields, which identify the network protocol entities
which use the link layer service. These bytes are always equal. Two hexadecimal digits may be specified here to
Manual:Interface/Bridge 139

match an SAP byteEthernet protocol type, placed after the IEEE 802.2 frame header. Works only if 802.3-sap is
0xAA (SNAP - Sub-Network Attachment Point header). For example, AppleTalk can be indicated by SAP code of
0xAA followed by a SNAP type code of 0x809BARP destination addressARP destination MAC addressMatches
ARP gratuitous packetsARP hardware type. This normally Ethernet (Type 1) ARP opcode (packet type)
• arp-nak - negative ARP reply (rarely used, mostly in ATM networks)
• drarp-error - Dynamic RARP error code, saying that an IP address for the given MAC address can not be
allocated
• drarp-reply - Dynamic RARP reply, with a temporaty IP address assignment for a host
• drarp-request - Dynamic RARP request to assign a temporary IP address for the given MAC address
• inarp-reply -
• inarp-request -
• reply - standard ARP reply with a MAC address
• reply-reverse - reverse ARP (RARP) reply with an IP address assigned
• request - standard ARP request to a known IP address to find out unknown MAC address
• request-reverse - reverse ARP (RARP) request to a known MAC address to find out unknown IP address
(intended to be used by hosts to find out their own IP address, similarly to DHCP service)
ARP source addressARP source MAC addressBridge firewall chain, which the filter is functioning in (either a
built-in one, or a user defined)Destination IP address (only if MAC protocol is set to IPv4)Destination MAC
addressDestination port number or range (only for TCP or UDP protocols)Bridge interface through which the packet
is coming inPhysical interface (i.e., bridge port) through which the packet is coming inMatches ingress priority of
the packet. Priority may be derived from VLAN, WMM or MPLS EXP bit. read more» IP protocol (only if MAC
protocol is set to IPv4)
• ipsec-ah - IPsec AH protocol
• ipsec-esp - IPsec ESP protocol
• ddp - datagram delivery protocol
• egp - exterior gateway protocol
• ggp - gateway-gateway protocol
• gre - general routing encapsulation
• hmp - host monitoring protocol
• idpr-cmtp - idpr control message transport
• icmp - internet control message protocol
• icmpv6 -
• igmp - internet group management protocol
• ipencap - ip encapsulated in ip
• encap - ip encapsulation
• ipip - ip encapsulation
• iso-tp4 - iso transport protocol class 4
• ospf - open shortest path first
• pim - protocol independent multicast
• pup - parc universal packet protocol
• rspf - radio shortest path first
• rdp - reliable datagram protocol
• st - st datagram mode
• tcp - transmission control protocol
• udp - user datagram protocol
• vmtp - versatile message transport
• vrrp -
Manual:Interface/Bridge 140

• xns-idp - xerox ns idp

• xtp – xpress transfer protocol
If action=jump specified, then specifies the user-defined firewall chain to process the packet Restricts packet
match rate to a given limit.
• count - maximum average packet rate, measured in packets per second (pps), unless followed by Time option
• time - specifies the time interval over which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets to match in a burst
Defines the prefix to be printed before the logging informationEthernet payload type (MAC-level protocol)Outgoing
bridge interfaceInterface via packet is leaving the bridgeMatch packets with certain packet mark MAC frame type:
• broadcast - broadcast MAC packet
• host - packet is destined to the bridge itself
• multicast - multicast MAC packet
• other-host - packet is destined to some other unicast address, not to the bridge itself
Source IP address (only if MAC protocol is set to IPv4)Source MAC addressSource port number or range (only for
TCP or UDP protocols) The BPDU (Bridge Protocol Data Unit) flags. Bridge exchange configuration messages
named BPDU peridiocally for preventing from loop
• topology-change - topology change flag is set when a bridge detects port state change, to force all other bridges
to drop their host tables and recalculate network topology
• topology-change-ack - topology change acknowledgement flag is sen in replies to the notification packets
Forward delay timerSTP hello packets timeMaximal STP message ageSTP message ageSTP port identifierRoot
bridge MAC addressRoot bridge costRoot bridge prioritySTP message sender MAC addressSTP sender priority The
BPDU type:
• config - configuration BPDU
• tcn - topology change notification
the MAC protocol type encapsulated in the VLAN frameVLAN identifier fieldThe user priority field
• STP matchers are only valid if destination MAC address is 01:80:C2:00:00:00/FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF (Bridge Group
address), also stp should be enabled.
• ARP matchers are only valid if mac-protocol is arp or rarp
• VLAN matchers are only valid for vlan ethernet protocol
• IP-related matchers are only valid if mac-protocol is set as ipv4
• 802.3 matchers are only consulted if the actual frame is compliant with IEEE 802.2 and IEEE 802.3 standards
(note: it is not the industry-standard Ethernet frame format used in most networks worldwide!). These matchers
are ignored for other packets.

Bridge Packet Filter

Sub-menu: /interface bridge filter
This section describes bridge packet filter specific filtering options, which were omitted in the general firewall
description.

Property Description
Manual:Interface/Bridge 141

action (accept | drop | jump | log | mark-packet • accept - accept the packet. No action, i.e., the packet is passed through without undertaking
| passthrough | return | set-priority) any action, and no more rules are processed in the relevant list/chain
• drop - silently drop the packet (without sending the ICMP reject message)
• jump - jump to the chain specified by the value of the jump-target argument
• log - log the packet
• mark - mark the packet to use the mark later
• passthrough - ignore this rule and go on to the next one. Acts the same way as a disabled
rule, except for ability to count packets
• return - return to the previous chain, from where the jump took place
• set-priority

Bridge NAT
Sub-menu: /interface bridge nat
This section describes bridge NAT options, which were omitted in the general firewall description.

Property Description

action (accept | drop | jump | mark-packet | redirect | set-priority • accept - accept the packet. No action, i.e., the packet is passed through
| arp-reply | dst-nat | log | passthrough | return | src-nat) without undertaking any action, and no more rules are processed in the
relevant list/chain
• arp-reply - send a reply to an ARP request (any other packets will be
ignored by this rule) with the specified MAC address (only valid in
dstnat chain)
• drop - silently drop the packet (without sending the ICMP reject
message)
• dst-nat - change destination MAC address of a packet (only valid in
dstnat chain)
• jump - jump to the chain specified by the value of the jump-target
argument
• log - log the packet
• mark - mark the packet to use the mark later
• passthrough - ignore this rule and go on to the next one. Acts the same
way as a disabled rule, except for ability to count packets
• redirect - redirect the packet to the bridge itself (only valid in dstnat
chain)
• return - return to the previous chain, from where the jump took place
• set-priority
• src-nat - change source MAC address of a packet (only valid in srcnat
chain)

to-arp-reply-mac-address (MAC address) Source MAC address to put in Ethernet frame and ARP payload, when
action=arp-reply is selected

to-dst-mac-address (MAC address) Destination MAC address to put in Ethernet frames, when
action=dst-nat is selected

to-src-mac-address (MAC address) Source MAC address to put in Ethernet frames, when action=src-nat
is selected

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Interface/Bridge 142

References
[1] http:/ / standards. ieee. org/ getieee802/ download/ 802. 1D-2004. pdf
[2] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Spanning_Tree_Protocol

Manual:Interface/VRRP
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5

Summary
Sub-menu level: /interface vrrp
Standards: RFC 5798, RFC 3768
This chapter describes the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) support in RouterOS.
Mostly on larger LANs dynamic routing protocols ( OSPF or RIP) are used, however there are number of factors that
may make undesirable to use dynamic routing protocols. One alternative is to use static routing, but if statically
configured first hop fails, then host will not be able to communicate with other hosts.
In IPv6 networks, hosts learn about routers by receiving Router Advertisements used by Neighbor Discovery (ND)
protocol. ND already has built in mechanism to determine unreachable routers. However it can take up to 38seconds
to detect unreachable router. It is possible to change parameters and make detection faster, but it will increase
overhead of ND traffic especially if there are a lot of hosts. VRRP allows to detect unreachable router within
3seconds without additional traffic overhead.
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) provides a solution by combining number of routers into logical group
called Virtual Router (VR). VRRP implementation in RouterOS is compliant to VRRPv2 RFC 3768 and VRRPv3
RFC 5798.
Manual:Interface/VRRP 143

Protocol Overview
The purpose of the VRRP is to
communicate to all VRRP routers
associated with the Virtual Router ID
and support router redundancy through
a prioritized election process among
them.
All messaging is done by IPv4 or IPv6
multicast packets. Destination address
of IPv4 packet is 224.0.0.12 and for
IPv6 it is FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:12. Source
address of the packet is always the
primary IP address of an interface from
which the packet is being sent. In IPv6
networks source address is link-local
address of an interface.

These packets are always sent with

TTL=255 and are not forwarded by the
router. If for any reason router receives
a packet with lower TTL, packet is
discarded. Simple VRRP example
Each VR node has a single assigned
MAC address. This MAC address is used as a source for all periodic messages sent by Master.
Virtual Router is defined by VRID and mapped set of IPv4 or IPv6 addresses. Master router is said to be the owner
of mapped IPv4/IPv6 addresses. There are no limits to use the same VRID for IPv4 and IPv6, however these will be
two different Virtual Routers.
Only Master router is sending periodic Advertisement messages to minimize the traffic. Backup will try to preempt
the Master only if it has the higher priority and preemption is not prohibited.
All VRRP routers belonging to the same VR must be configured with the same advertisement interval. If
interval does not match router will discard received advertisement packet.

Virtual Router (VR)

A Virtual Router (VR) consists of one Owner router and one or more backup routers belonging to the same network.
VR includes:
• VRID configured on each VRRP router
• the same virtual IP on each router
• Owner and Backup configured on each router. On a given VR there can be only one Owner.
Manual:Interface/VRRP 144

Virtual MAC address

VRRP automatically assigns MAC address to VRRP interface based on standard MAC prefix for VRRP packets and
VRID number. First five octets are 00:00:5E:00:01 and last octet is configured VRID. For example, Virtual Routers
VRID is 49, then virtual MAC address will be 00:00:5E:00:01:31.
Note: Virtual mac address can not be manually set or edited.

Owner
An Owner router for a VR is default
Master router and operates as the
Owner for all subnets included in the
VR. As mentioned before priority on
an owner router must be the highest
value (255). In example network R1 is
an Owner. It's priority is set to 255 and
virtual IP is the same as real IP (owns
the virtual IP address).

All Virtual Router members can be

configured so that virtual IP is not the VRRP without Owner

same as physical IP. Such Virtual

address can be called floating or pure virtual IP address.
Advantage of this setup is flexibility given to the administrator. Since the virtual IP address is not the real address of
any one of the participant routers, the administrator can change these physical routers or their addresses without any
need to reconfigure the virtual router itself.
Note: RouterOS can not be configured as Owner. Pure virtual IP configuration is the only valid configuration
unless non-RouterOS device is set as owner.

Master
Master router in a VR operates as the physical gateway for the network for which it is configured.
Selection of the Master is controlled by priority value. Master state describes behavior of Master router. In example
network R1 is the Master router. When R1 is no longer available R2 becomes master.
Manual:Interface/VRRP 145

Backup
VR must contain at least one Backup router. Backup router must be configured with the same virtual IP as Master for
that VR. Default priority for Backup routers is 100. When current master router is no longer available, backup router
with highest priority will become current master. Every time when router with higher priority becomes available it is
switched to master. Sometimes this behavior is not necessary. To override it preemption mode should be disabled.

Virtual Address
Virtual IP associated with VR must be identical and set on all VR nodes. On Owner router Virtual IP must be the
same as real IP. For example on Owner router real IP and virtual IP is 192.168.1.1, on Backup router virtual IP is
192.168.1.1, but real IP is 192.168.1.2. All virtual and real addresses should be from the same network.
If the Master of VR is associated with multiple IP addresses, then Backup routers belonging to the same VR must
also be associated with the same set of virtual IP addresses. If virtual address on the Master is not also on Backup a
misconfiguration exists and VRRP advertisement packets will be discarded.
Note: It is not recommended to set up Mikrotik router as an Owner router. VRRP address and real IP address
should not be the same.

In IPv6 networks first address is always link-local address associated to VR. If multiple IPv6
addresses are configured, then they are added in advertisement packet after the link-local address.

IPv4 ARP
The Master for a given VR responds to ARP requests with the VR's assigned MAC address. Virtual MAC address is
also used as the source MAC address for advertisement packets sent by the Master. To ARP requests for non-virtual
IP addresses router responds with the system MAC address. Backup routers are not responding to ARP requests for
Virtual IPs.

IPv6 ND
As you already know there are no ARP in IPv6 networks, routers are discovered by Neighbor Discovery protocol.
When router becomes the Master, unsolicited ND Neighbor Advertisement with the Router Flag is sent for each IPv6
address associated with the virtual router.
Manual:Interface/VRRP 146

VRRP state machine

As you can see from diagram, each
VRRP node can be in one of three
states:
• Init state
• Backup state
• Master state

Init state
The purpose of this state is to wait for
a Startup event. When this event is
received, then following actions are
taken:
• if priority is 255,
• * for IPv4 send advertisement
VRRP state transition flow
packet and broadcast ARP requests
• * for IPv6 send an unsolicited ND Neighbor Advertisement for each IPv6 address associated with the virtual
router and set target address to link-local address associated with VR.
• * transit to MASTER state;
• else transit to BACKUP state.

Backup state
When in backup state,
• in IPv4 networks, node is not responding to ARP requests and is not forwarding traffic for the IP associated with
the VR.
• in IPv6 networks, node is not responding to ND Neighbor Solicitation messages and is not sending ND Router
Advertisement messages for VR associated IPv6 addresses.
Routers main task is to receive advertisement packets and check if master node is available.
Backup router will transit itself to master state in two cases:
• If priority in advertisement packet is 0;
• When Preemption_Mode is set to no, or Priority in the ADVERTISEMENT is greater than or equal to the local
Priority
After transition to Master state node is:
• in IPv4 broadcasts gratuitous ARP request;
• in IPv6 sends an unsolicited ND Neighbor Advertisement for every associated IPv6 address.
In other cases advertisement packets will be discarded. When shutdown event is received, transit to Init state.
Note: Preemption mode is ignored if Owner router becomes available.

Master state
When MASTER state is set, node functions as a forwarding router for IPv4/IPv6 addresses
associated with the VR.
In IPv4 networks Master node responds to ARP requests for the IPv4 address associated with the VR. In IPv6
networks Master node:
Manual:Interface/VRRP 147

• responds to ND Neighbor Solicitation message for the associated IPv6 address;

• sends ND Router Advertisements for the associated IPv6 addresses.
If advertisement packet is received by master node:
• If priority is 0, send advertisement immediately;
• If priority in advertisement packet is greater than nodes priority then transit to backup state
• If priority in advertisement packet is equal to nodes priority and primary IP Address of the sender is greater than
the local primary IP Address, then transit to backup state
• Ignore advertisement in other cases
When shutdown event is received, send advertisement packet with priority=0 and transit to Init state.

Configuring VRRP

IPv4
Setting up Virtual Router is quite easy, only two actions are required - create vrrp interface and set Virtual Routers
IP address.
For example, add vrrp to ether1 and set VRs address to 192.168.1.1

/interface vrrp add name=vrrp1 interface=ether1

/ip address add address=192.168.1.1/32 interface=vrrp1

Notice that only 'interface' parameter was specified when adding vrrp. It is the only parameter required to be set
manually, other parameters if not specified will be set to their defaults: vrid=1, priority=100 and
authentication=none.
Note: address on VRRP interface must have /32 netmask.

Before VRRP can operate correctly correct IP address is required on ether1. In this example it is
192.168.1.2/24
VRRP Examples section contains several configuration examples.

IPv6
To make VRRP work in IPv6 networks, several additional options must be enabled - v3 support is required and
protocol type should be set to IPv6:

/interface vrrp add name=vrrp1 interface=ether1 version=3 v3-protocol=ipv6

Now when VRRP interface is set, we can add global address and enable ND advertisement:

/ipv6 address add address=FEC0:0:0:FFFF::1/64 advertise=yes interface=vrrp1

No additional address configuration is required as it is in IPv4 case. IPv6 uses link-local addresses to communicate
between nodes.
Manual:Interface/VRRP 148

Property reference
Sub-menu: /interface vrrp

Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | ARP resolution protocol mode

reply-only; Default: enabled)

authentication (ah | none | Authentication method to use for VRRP advertisement packets.
simple; Default: none) • none - should be used only in low security networks (e.g., two VRRP nodes on LAN).
• ah - IP Authentication Header. This algorithm provides strong protection against configuration errors,
replay attacks and packet corruption/modification. Recommended when there is limited control over the
administration of nodes on a LAN.
• simple - uses clear text password. Protects against accidental misconfiguration of routers on local
network.

interface (string; Default: ) Interface name on which VRRP instance will be running

interval (time [10ms..4m15s]; VRRP update interval in seconds. Defines how often master sends advertisement packets.
Default: 1s)

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Layer3 MTU size

name (string; Default: ) VRRP interface name

on-backup (string; Default: ) Script to execute when the node is switched to backup state

on-master (string; Default: ) Script to execute when the node is switched to master state

password (string; Default: ) Password required for authentication. Can be ignored if authentication is not used.

preemption-mode (yes | no; Whether master node always has the priority. When set to 'no' backup node will not be elected to be a master
Default: yes) until the current master fails, even if the backup node has higher priority than the current master. This
setting is ignored if Owner router becomes available

priority (integer: 1..254; Default: Priority of VRRP node used in Master election algorithm. Higher number means higher priority. '255' is
100) reserved to Router that owns VR IP and '0' is reserved for Master router to indicate that it is releasing
responsibility.

v3-protocol (ipv4 | ipv6; Protocol that will be used by VRRPv3. Valid only if version is 3
Default: ipv4)

version (integer [2, 3]; Default: 3) Which VRRP version to use.

vrid (integer: 1..255; Default: 1) Virtual Router identifier. Each Virtual router must have unique id number

There are two ways to add scripts to on-backup and on-master

• specify scripts name added to script repository
• write script directly by putting it in scopes '{ }'.

See more
• VRRP-examples
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Bonding Examples 149

Manual:Bonding Examples
Bonding EoIP tunnels over two wireless links
This is an example of aggregating multiple network interfaces into a single pipe. In particular, it is shown how to
aggregate multiple virtual (EoIP) interfaces to get maximum throughput (MT) with emphasis on availability.

Network Diagram
Two routers R1 and R2 are interconnected via multihop wireless links. Wireless interfaces on both sides have
assigned IP addresses.

Getting started
Bonding could be used only on OSI layer 2 (Ethernet level) connections. Thus we need to create EoIP interfaces on
each of the wireless links. This is done as follows:
• on router R1:

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface eoip add remote-address=10.0.1.1/24 tunnel-id=1

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface eoip add remote-address=10.0.2.1/24 tunnel-id=2

• and on router R2

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface eoip add remote-address=10.1.1.1/24 tunnel-id=1

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface eoip add remote-address=10.2.2.1/24 tunnel-id=2

The second step is to add bonding interface and specify EoIP interfaces as slaves:
• R1:
[admin@MikroTik] > / interface bonding add slaves=eoip-tunnel1,eoip-tunnel2 mode=balance-rr

• R2
[admin@MikroTik] > / interface bonding add slaves=eoip-tunnel1,eoip-tunnel2 mode=balance-rr

The last step is to add IP addresses to the bonding interfaces:

• R1:

[admin@MikroTik] > / ip address add address 192.168.0.1/24 interface=bonding1

• R2

[admin@MikroTik] > / ip address add address 192.168.0.2/24 interface=bonding1

Manual:Bonding Examples 150

Test the configuration

Now two routers are able to reach each other using addresses from the 192.168.0.0/24 network. To verify bonding
interface functionality, do the following:
• R1:

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface monitor-traffic eoip-tunnel1,eoip-tunnel2

• R2

[admin@MikroTik] > /tool bandwidth-test 192.168.0.1 direction=transmit

You should see that traffic is distributed equally across both EoIP interfaces:

[admin@MikroTik] > /int monitor-traffic eoip-tunnel1,eoip-tunnel2

received-packets-per-second: 685 685
received-bits-per-second: 8.0Mbps 8.0Mbps
sent-packets-per-second: 21 20
sent-bits-per-second: 11.9kbps 11.0kbps
received-packets-per-second: 898 899
received-bits-per-second: 10.6Mbps 10.6Mbps
sent-packets-per-second: 20 21
sent-bits-per-second: 11.0kbps 11.9kbps
received-packets-per-second: 975 975
received-bits-per-second: 11.5Mbps 11.5Mbps
sent-packets-per-second: 22 22
sent-bits-per-second: 12.4kbps 12.3kbps
received-packets-per-second: 980 980
received-bits-per-second: 11.6Mbps 11.6Mbps
sent-packets-per-second: 21 21
sent-bits-per-second: 11.9kbps 11.8kbps
received-packets-per-second: 977 977
received-bits-per-second: 11.6Mbps 11.5Mbps
sent-packets-per-second: 21 21
sent-bits-per-second: 11.9kbps 11.8kbps
-- [Q quit|D dump|C-z pause]
[admin@MikroTik] >

Link Monitoring
It is easy to notice that with the configuration above as soon as any of individual link fails, the bonding interface
throughput collapses. That's because no link monitoring is performed, consequently, the bonding driver is unaware
of problems with the underlying links. Enabling link monitoring is a must in most bonding configurations. To enable
ARP link monitoring, do the following:
• R1:
[admin@MikroTik] > / interface bonding set bonding1 link-monitoring=arp arp-ip-targets=192.168.0.2

• R2
[admin@MikroTik] > / interface bonding set bonding1 link-monitoring=arp arp-ip-targets=192.168.0.1
Manual:Bonding Examples 151

Bonding Multiple P2P wireless links

Consider following setup:

Manual:VRRP-examples
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

VRRP Configuration Examples

This section contains several useful VRRP configuration examples

Basic Setup
This is the basic VRRP configuration example.

According to this configuration, as long as the master, R1, is functional, all traffic destined to the external network
gets directed to R1. But as soon as R1 fails, R2 takes over as the master and starts handling packets forwarded to the
interface associated with IP(R1). In this setup Router R2 is completely idle during Backup period.
Manual:VRRP-examples 152

Configuration
R1 configuration:

/ip address add address=192.168.1.1/24 interface=ether1

/interface vrrp add interface=ether1 vrid=49 priority=254
/ip address add address=192.168.1.254/32 interface=vrrp1

R2 configuration:

/ip address add address=192.168.1.2/24 interface=ether1

/interface vrrp add interface=ether1 vrid=49
/ip address add address=192.168.1.254/32 interface=vrrp1

Testing
First of all check if both routers have correct flags at vrrp interfaces. On router R1 it should look like this
/interface vrrp print
0 RM name="vrrp1" mtu=1500 mac-address=00:00:5E:00:01:31 arp=enabled interface=ether1 vrid=49
priority=254 interval=1 preemption-mode=yes authentication=none password="" on-backup=""
on-master=""

and on router R2:

/interface vrrp print
0 B name="vrrp1" mtu=1500 mac-address=00:00:5E:00:01:31 arp=enabled interface=ether1 vrid=49
priority=100 interval=1 preemption-mode=yes authentication=none password=""
on-backup="" on-master="

As you can see vrrp interface mac addresses are identical on both routers. Now to check if vrrp is working correctly,
try to ping virtual address from client and check arp entries:

[admin@client] > /ping 192.168.1.254

192.168.1.254 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=10 ms
192.168.1.254 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=8 ms
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 8/9.0/10 ms
[admin@client] /ip arp> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, H - DHCP, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS MAC-ADDRESS INTERFACE
...
1 D 192.168.1.254 00:00:5E:00:01:31 bridge1

Now unplug ether1 cable on router R1. R2 will become VRRP master, ARP table on client will not change but
traffic will start to flow over R2 router.

Load sharing
In basic configuration example R2 is completely idle during Backup state. This behavior may be considered as waste
of valuable resources. In such circumstances R2 router can be set as gateway for some clients.
The obvious advantage of this configuration is the establishment of a load-sharing scheme. But by doing so R2
router is not protected by current VRRP setup.
To make this setup work we need two virtual routers.
Manual:VRRP-examples 153

Configuration for V1 virtual router will be identical to configuration in basic example - R1 is the Master and R2 is
Backup router. In V2 Master is R2 and Backup is R1.
With this configuration, we establish a load-sharing between R1 and R2; moreover, we create protection setup by
having two routers acting as backups for each other.

Configuration
R1 configuration:

/ip address add address=192.168.1.1/24 interface=ether1

/interface vrrp add interface=ether1 vrid=49 priority=254
/interface vrrp add interface=ether1 vrid=77
/ip address add address=192.168.1.253/32 interface=vrrp1
/ip address add address=192.168.1.254/32 interface=vrrp2

R2 configuration:

/ip address add address=192.168.1.2/24 interface=ether1

/interface vrrp add interface=ether1 vrid=49
/interface vrrp add interface=ether1 vrid=77 priority=254
/ip address add address=192.168.1.253/32 interface=vrrp1
/ip address add address=192.168.1.254/32 interface=vrrp2
Manual:VRRP-examples 154

VRRP without Preemption

Each time when router with higher priority becomes available it becomes Master router. Sometimes it is not desired
behavior which can be turned off by setting preemption-mode=no in vrrp configuration.

Configuraton
We will be using the same setup as in basic example. Only difference is during configuration set
preemption-mode=no. It can be done easily modifying existing configuration:

/interface vrrp set [find] preemption-mode=no

Testing
Try turning off R1 router, R2 will become Master router because it has highest priority among available routers.
Now turn R1 router on and you will see that R2 router continues to be Master even if R1 has higher priority.

VRRP and scripts

See Also
• VRRP
• Scripting
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Switch Chip Features

Applies to RouterOS: v4.0 +

Introduction
There are several types of switch chips on Routerboards and they have a different set of features. Most of them (from
now on "Other") have only basic "Port Switching" feature, but there are few with more features:
Capabilities of switch chips:

Feature Atheros8327 Atheros8316 Atheros8227 Atheros7240 ICPlus175D Other

Port Switching yes yes yes yes yes yes

Port Mirroring yes yes yes yes yes no

Host table 2048 entries 2048 entries 1024 entries 2048 entries no no

Vlan table 4096 entries 4096 entries 4096 entries 16 entries no no

Rule table 92 rules 32 rules no no no no

Atheros8316 is present on RB493G(ether1+ether6-ether9, ether2-ether5), RB1200(ether1-ether5), RB450G(all

ports with ether1 optional[more [1]]), RB435G(all ports with ether1 optional[more [1]]), RB750G and
RB1100(ether1-ether5, ether6-ether10).
Manual:Switch Chip Features 155

Atheros8327 is present on RB2011 series(ether1-ether5+sfp1) RB750GL, RB751G-2HnD, RB951G-2HnD and

RB1100AH, RB1100AHx2(ether1-ether5, ether6-ether10).
Atheros8227 is present on RB2011 series(ether6-ether10).
Atheros7240 is present on RB750(ether2-ether5), RB750UP(ether2-ether5), RB751U-2HnD(ether2-ether5),
RB951-2n(ether2-ether5) and RB951Ui-2HnD(ether2-ether5).
ICPlus175D is present on newest versions of RB450(ether2-ether5) and RB433 series(ether2-ether3).
ICPlus175C is present on some RB450(ether2-ether5) and some RB433 series(ether2-ether3).
ICPlus178C is present on RB493 series(ether2-ether9) and RB816.
Command line config is under /interface ethernet switch menu. This menu contains a list of all switch
chips present in system, and some sub-menus as well. /interface ethernet switch menu list item
represents a switch chip in system:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet switch> print

Flags: I - invalid
# NAME TYPE MIRROR-SOURCE MIRROR-TARGET
0 switch1 Atheros-8316 ether2 none

Depending on switch type there might be available or not available some configuration capabilities.
Atheros8316 packet flow diagram [2]

Features

Port Switching
Switching feature allows wire speed traffic passing among a group of ports, like the ports were a regular ethernet
switch. You configure this feature by setting a "master-port" property to one ore more ports in /interface
ethernet menu. A 'master' port will be the port through which the RouterOS will communicate to all ports in the
group. Interfaces for which the 'master' port is specified become inactive - no traffic is received on them and no
traffic can be sent out.
For example consider a router with five ethernet interfaces:

[admin@MikroTik] > interface ethernet print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP MASTER-PORT SWITCH
0 R ether1 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BB enabled
1 ether2 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BC enabled none switch1
2 ether3 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BD enabled none switch1
3 ether4 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BE enabled none switch1
4 R ether5 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BF enabled none switch1

And you configure a switch containing three ports ether3, ether4 and ether5:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> set ether4,ether5 master-port=ether3

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP MASTER-PORT SWITCH
0 R ether1 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BB enabled
1 ether2 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BC enabled none switch1
2 R ether3 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BD enabled none switch1
Manual:Switch Chip Features 156

3 S ether4 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BE enabled ether3 switch1

4 RS ether5 1500 00:0C:42:3E:5D:BF enabled ether3 switch1

ether3 is now the master port of the group. Note: you can see that previously a link was detected only on ether5, but
now as the ether3 is a 'master' the running flag is propagated to master port.

In essence this configuration is the same as if you had a RouterBoard with 3 ethernet interfaces with ether3
connected to ethernet switch that has 4 ports:

A more general diagram of RouterBoard with switch chip that has 5 port switch chip:
Manual:Switch Chip Features 157

Here you can see that, a packet that gets received by one of the ports always passes through the switch logic at first.
Switch logic decides to which ports the packet should be going to. Passing packet 'up' or giving it to RouterOS is
also called sending it to switch chips 'cpu' port. That means that at the point switch forwards the packet to cpu port
the packet starts to get processed by RouterOS as some interfaces incoming packet. While the packet does not have
to go to cpu port it is handled entirely by switch logic and does not require any cpu cycles and happen at wire speed
for any frame size.
Ether1 port on RB450G has a feature that allows it to be removed/added to the default switch group. By default
ether1 port will be included in the switch group. This configuration can be changed with /interface
ethernet switch set switch1 switch-all-ports=no
• switch-all-ports=yes/no -
"yes" means ether1 is part of switch and supports switch grouping, and all other advanced Atheros8316 features
including extended statistics (/interface ethernet print stats).
"no" means ether1 is not part of switch, effectivly making it as stand alone ethernet port, this way increasing its
troughtput to other ports in bridged, and routed mode, but removing the switching possibility on this port.
Manual:Switch Chip Features 158

Port Mirroring
Port mirroring lets switch 'sniff' all traffic that is going in and out of one port (mirror-source) and send a copy of
those packets out of some other port (mirror-target). This feature can be used to easily set up a 'tap' device that
receives all traffic that goes in/out of some specific port. Note that mirror-source and mirror-target ports have to
belong to same switch. (See which port belong to which switch in /interface ethernet switch port
menu). Also mirror-target can have a special 'cpu' value, which means that 'sniffed' packets should be sent out of
switch chips cpu port. Port mirroring happens independently of switching groups that have or have not been set up.

Host Table
Basically the table represents switch chips internal mac address to port mapping. It can contain two kinds of entries:
dynamic and static. Dynamic entries get added automatically, this is also called a learning process: when switch chip
receives a packet from certain port, it adds the packets source mac address X and port it received the packet from to
host table, so when a packet comes in with destination mac address X it knows to which port it should forward the
packet. If the destination mac address is not present in host table then it forwards the packet to all ports in the group.
Dynamic entries take about 5 minutes to time out. Learning is enabled only on ports that are configured as part of
switch group. So you won't see dynamic entries if you have not specified some 'master-ports'. Also you can add
static entries that take over dynamic if dynamic entry with same mac-address already exists. Also by adding a static
entry you get access to some more functionality that is controlled via following params:
• copy-to-cpu=yes/no - a packet can be cloned and sent to cpu port
• redirect-to-cpu=yes/no - a packet can be redirected to cpu port
• mirror=yes/no - a packet can be cloned and sent to mirror-target port configured in "/interface ethernet switch"
• drop=yes/no - a packet with certain mac address coming from certain ports can be dropped
copy-to-cpu, redirect-to-cpu, mirror actions are performed for packets which destination mac matches mac address
specified in entry drop action is performed for packets which source mac address matches mac address specified in
entry
Another possibility for static entries is that mac address can be mapped to more that one port, including 'cpu' port.

Vlan Table
Vlan tables specifies certain forwarding rules for packets that have specific 802.1q tag. Those rules are of higher
priority than switch groups configured using 'master-port' property. Basically the table contains entries that map
specific vlan tag ids to a group of one or more ports. Packets with vlan tags leave switch chip through one or more
ports that are set in corresponding table entry. The exact logic that controls how packets with vlan tags are treated is
controlled by vlan-mode parameter that is changeable per switch port in /interface ethernet switch
port menu. Vlan-mode can take following values:
• disabled - ignore vlan table, treat packet with vlan tags just as if they did not contain a vlan tag;
• fallback - the default mode - handle packets with vlan tag that is not present in vlan table just like packets without
vlan tag. Packets with vlan tags that are present in vlan table, but incoming port does not match any port in vlan
table entry does not get dropped.
• check - drop packets with vlan tag that is not present in vlan table. Packets with vlan tags that are present in vlan
table, but incoming port does not match any port in vlan table entry does not get dropped.
• secure - drop packets with vlan tag that is not present in vlan table. Packets with vlan tags that are present in vlan
table, but incoming port does not match any port in vlan table entry get dropped.
Vlan tag id based forwarding also take into account the mac addresses learned or manually added in host table.
Packets without vlan tag are treated just like if they had a vlan tag with vlan id = 0. This means that if
"vlan-mode=check or secure" to be able to forward packets without vlan tags you have to add a special entry to vlan
Manual:Switch Chip Features 159

table with vlan id set to 0.

Vlan-header option (configured in /interface ethernet switch port) sets the VLAN tag mode on
egress port. Starting from RouterOS version 6 this option works with AR8316, AR8327, AR8227 and AR7240
switch chips and takes the following values:
• leave-as-is - packet remains unchanged on egress port;
• always-strip - if VLAN header is present it is removed from the packet;
• add-if-missing - if VLAN header is not present it is added to the packet.

Rule Table
Rule table is very powerful tool allowing wire speed packet filtering, forwarding and vlan tagging based on
L2,L3,L4 protocol header field condition.
Each rule contains a conditions part and an action part. Action part is controlled by following parameters:
• copy-to-cpu=yes/no - clones matching packets and sends them to cpu port;
• redirect-to-cpu=yes/no - redirects matching packets to cpu port;
• mirror=yes/no - clones matching packets and send them to mirror-target port;
• new-dst-ports - if set forces the destination port to be as specified, multiple ports allowed, including cpu port.
Non obvious feature of this parameter is to pass empty list of ports to drop matching packets;
• new-vlan-id (only applies to Atheros8316) - if specified changes the vlan tag id, or add new vlan tag if one was
not present;
• new-vlan-priority - if specified changes the vlan tag priority bits;
• rate (only applies to Atheros8327) - Sets limitation (bits per second) for all matched traffic. Can only be applied
to first 32 rule slots.
Conditions part is controlled by rest of parameters:
• ports - match port that packet came in from (multiple ports allowed);
• mac layer conditions
• dst-mac-address - match by destination mac address and mask;
• src-mac-address - ...;
• vlan-header - match by vlan header presence;
• vlan-id (only applies to Atheros8316) - match by vlan tag id;
• vlan-priority (only applies to Atheros8316) - match by priority in vlan tag;
• mac-protocol - match by mac protocol (skips vlan tags if any);
• ip conditions
• dst-address - match by destination ip and mask;
• src-address - match by source ip and mask;
• dscp - match by ip dscp field;
• protocol - match by ip protocol;
• ipv6 conditions
• dst-address6 - match by destination ip and mask;
• src-address6 - match by source ip and mask;
• flow-label - match by ipv6 flow label;
• traffic-class - match by ipv6 traffic class;
• protocol - match by ip protocol;
• L4 conditions
• src-port - match by tcp/udp source port range;
Manual:Switch Chip Features 160

• dst-port - match by tcp/udp destination port range;

IPv4 and IPv6 specific conditions cannot be present in same rule. Menu contains ordered list of rules just like in
/ip firewall filter. Due to the fact that the rule table is processed entirely in switch chips hardware there is
limitation to how many rules you may have. Depending on the amount of conditions (MAC layer, IP layer, IPv6, L4
layer) you use in your rules the amount of active rules may vary from 8 to 32 for Atheros8316 switch chip and from
24 to 96 for Atheros8327 switch chip. You can always do /interface ethernet switch rule print
after modifying your rule set to see that no rules at the end of the list are 'invalid' which means those rules did not fit
into the switch chip.

Example - 802.1Q Trunking with Atheros switch chip in RouterOS v6

Routerboards with Atheros switch chips can be used for 802.1Q Trunking. This
feature in RouterOS version 6 is supported on AR8316, AR8327, AR8227 and
AR7240 switch chips. In this example ether2,ether3 and ether4 interfaces are
access ports, while ether5 is trunk port. VLAN IDs for each access port: ether2 -
200, ether3 - 300, ether4 - 400.
• Create a group of switched ports.

/interface ethernet
set ether3 master-port=ether2
set ether4 master-port=ether2
set ether5 master-port=ether2

• Assign "vlan-mode" and "vlan-header" mode for each port and "default-vlan-id" on ingress for each access port.
Set "vlan-mode=secure" to ensure strict use of VLAN table. Set "vlan-header=always-strip" for access ports - it
removes VLAN header from frame when it leaves the switch chip. Set "vlan-header=add-if-missing" for trunk
port - it adds VLAN header to untagged frames. "Default-vlan-id" specifies what VLAN ID is added for ingress
traffic of the access port.

/interface ethernet switch port

set ether2 vlan-mode=secure vlan-header=always-strip default-vlan-id=200
set ether3 vlan-mode=secure vlan-header=always-strip default-vlan-id=300
set ether4 vlan-mode=secure vlan-header=always-strip default-vlan-id=400
set ether5 vlan-mode=secure vlan-header=add-if-missing
Manual:Switch Chip Features 161

• Add VLAN table entries to allow frames with specific VLAN IDs between ports.

/interface ethernet switch vlan

add ports=ether2,ether5 switch=switch1 vlan-id=200
add ports=ether3,ether5 switch=switch1 vlan-id=300
add ports=ether4,ether5 switch=switch1 vlan-id=400

Management IP Configuration
This example will show one of the possible management IP address configurations. Management IP will be
accessible only through trunk port and it will have a separate VLAN with ID 99.
• Configure the port which connects switch-chip with CPU, set "vlan-header=leave-as-is" because management
traffic already should be tagged.

/interface ethernet switch port

set switch1_cpu vlan-mode=secure vlan-header=leave-as-is

• Add VLAN table entry to allow management traffic through switch-cpu port and the trunk port.

/interface ethernet switch vlan

add ports=ether5,switch1_cpu switch=switch1 vlan-id=99

• Add VLAN 99 and assign IP address to it. Since the master-port receives all the traffic coming from switch-cpu
port, VLAN has to be configured on master-port, in this case "ether2" port.

/interface vlan
add name=vlan99 vlan-id=99 interface=ether2
/ip address
add address=192.168.88.1/24 interface=vlan99 network=192.168.88.0

References
[1] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ Manual:Switch_Chip_Features#switch-all-ports
[2] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ Manual:Packet_flow_through_Atheros8316
Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards 162

Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on

RouterBoards
Background
It is sole responsibility of administrator to configure MTUs such that intended services and applications can be
successfully implemented in network. In other words - administrator must make sure that MTUs are configured in a
way that packet sizes does not exceed the capabilities of network equipment.
Originally MTU was introduced because of the high error rates and low speed of communications. Fragmentation of
the data stream gives ability to correct corruption errors only by resending corrupted fragment, not the whole stream.
Also on low speed connections such as modems it can take too much time to send a big fragment, so in this case
communication is possible only with smaller fragments.
But in present days we have much lower error rates and higher speed of communication, this opens a possibility to
increase the value of MTU. By increasing value of MTU we will result in less protocol overhead and reduce CPU
utilization mostly due to interrupt reduction.
This way some non-standard frames started to emerge:
• Giant or Jumbo frames - frames that are bigger than standard (IEEE) Ethernet MTU
• Baby Giant or Baby Jumbo frames - frames that are just slightly bigger that standard (IEEE) Ethernet MTU
It is common now for Ethernet interfaces to support physical MTU above standard, but this can not be taken for
granted. Abilities of other network equipment must be taken into account as well - for example, if 2 routers with
Ethernet interfaces supporting physical MTU 1526 are connected through Ethernet switch, in order to successfully
implement some application that will produce this big Ethernet frames, switch must also support forwarding such
frames.

MTU on RouterOS
Mikrotik RouterOS recognizes several types
of MTU:
• IP/Layer-3/L3 MTU
• MPLS/Layer-2.5/L2.5 MTU
• MAC/Layer-2/L2 MTU
• Full frame MTU

Full frame MTU

Full frame MTU indicates the actual size of
the frame that are sent by particular
interface. Frame Checksum is not included
as it is removed by Ethernet driver as soon as frame reach its destination.
Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards 163

MAC/Layer-2/L2 MTU
L2MTU indicates the maximum size of the frame without MAC header that can be sent by this interface.
Starting from the RouterOS v3.25 L2MTU values can be seen in "/interface" menu. L2MTU support is added for all
Routerboard related Ethernet interfaces, VLANs, Bridge, VPLS and wireless interfaces. Some of them support
configuration of L2MTU value. All other Ethernet interfaces might indicate L2MTU only if the chip set is the same
as Routerboard Ethernets.
This will allow users to check if desired setup is possible. Users will be able to utilize additional bytes for VLAN
and MPLS tags, or simple increase of interface MTU to get rid of the some unnecessary fragmentation.
This table shows max-l2mtu supported by Mikrotik RouterBoards (Starting from the RouterOS v5.3 also available in
"/interface print" menu as value of read-only "max-l2mtu" option):
Integrated Solutions

RouterBoard MTU description

RB Groove series ether1:2028

RB Metal series ether1:2028

RB SXT series ether1:2028

RB SXT Lite series ether1:2028

RB SXT G series ether1:4076

RB750 ether1:4076; ether2-ether5:2028

RB750UP ether1:4076; ether2-ether5:2028

RB751U-2HnD ether1:4076; ether2-ether5:2028

RB OmniTik series ether1:4076; ether2-ether5:2028

RB951-2n ether1:4076; ether2-ether5:2028

RB951Ui-2HnD ether1:4076; ether2-ether5:2028

RB750GL ether1-ether5:4074

RB751G-2HnD ether1-ether5:4074

RB951G-2HnD ether1-ether5:4074

RB1200 ether1-ether5:4078, ether6-ether8:4080, ether9-ether10:9116

RB1100AH ether1-ether10:9498, ether11:, ether12-ether13:9116

RB1100Hx2 ether1-ether10:9498, ether11:9500, ether12-ether13:9116

RB1100AHx2 ether1-ether10:9498, ether11:9500, ether12-ether13:9116

CCR series ether1-ether12:10226

CRS125-24G-1S ether1-ether24:4064, sfp1:4064

RouterBOARD
Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards 164

RouterBoard MTU description

RB411 series ether1:1526

RB433 series ether1:1526; ether2-ether3:1522

RB450 ether1:1526; ether2-ether5:1522

RB493 series ether1:1526; ether2-ether9:1522

RB411GL ether1:1524

RB433GL ether1-ether3:1524

RB435G ether1-ether3:1520

RB450G ether1-ether5:1520

RB493G ether1-ether9:1520

RB711 series ether1:2028

RB711G series ether1:4076

RB800 ether1-ether2:9500; ether3:9116

RB911G ether1:4076

RB912UAG ether1:4076

RB2011 series ether1-ether5:4074; ether6-ether10:2028; sfp1:4074

RB44Ge ether1-ether4:9116

Old Products

RouterBoard MTU description

RB600 series ether1-ether3:9500

RB1000 ether1-ether4:9500

RB1100 ether1-ether10:9498; ether11-ether13:9116

RB750G ether1-ether5:1524

RB333 ether1-ether3:1632

RB1xx ether1-ether5:1518; ether6-ether9:1514

RB532, CrossRoads ether1-ether3:1600

RB44G ether1-ether4:7200

RB44GV ether1-ether4:9000

All wireless interfaces in RouterOS (including Nstreme2) support 2290 byte L2MTU.

MPLS/Layer-2.5/L2.5 MTU
Configured in "/mpls interface" menu, specifies maximal size of packet, including MPLS labels, that is allowed to
send out by the particular interface (default is 1508).
Make sure that MPLS MTU is smaller or equal to L2MTU
MPLS MTU affects packets depending on what action MPLS router is performing. It is strongly recommended that
MPLS MTU is configured to the same value on all routers forming MPLS cloud because of effects MPLS MTU has
on MPLS switched packets. This requirement means that all interfaces participating in MPLS cloud must be
configured to the smallest MPLS MTU values among participating interfaces, therefore care must be taken to
properly select hardware to be used.
Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards 165

MPLS Switching
If packet with labels included is bigger than MPLS MTU, MPLS tries to guess protocol that is carried inside MPLS
frame.
If this is IP packet, MPLS produces ICMP Need Fragment error. This behavior mimics IP protocol behavior. Note
that this ICMP error is not routed back to originator of packet but is switched towards end of LSP, so that egress
router can route it back.
If this is not IP packet, MPLS simply drops it, because it does not know how to interpret the contents of packet. This
feature is very important in situations where MPLS applications such as VPLS are used (where frames that are
MPLS tagged are not IP packets, but e.g. encapsulated Ethernet frames as in case of VPLS) - if somewhere along the
LSP MPLS MTU will be less than packet size prepared by ingress router, frames will simply get dropped.

IP ingress
When router first introduces label (or labels) on IP packet, and resulting packet size including MPLS labels exceeds
MPLS MTU, router behaves as if interface MTU was exceeded - either fragments packet in fragments that does not
exceed MPLS MTU when labels are attached (if IP Dont Fragment is not set), or generates ICMP Need
Fragmentation error that is sent back to originator.

VPLS ingress
When router encapsulates Ethernet frame for forwarding over VPLS pseudowire, it checks if packet size with VPLS
Control Word (4 bytes) and any necessary labels (usually 2 labels - 8 bytes), exceeds MPLS MTU of outgoing
interface. If it does, VPLS fragments packet so that it honours MPLS MTU of outgoing interface. Packet is
defragmented at egress point of VPLS pseudowire.

IP/Layer-3/L3 MTU
Configured as interface MTU setting (/interface <type> <name> set mtu=X). Specifies how big IP packets router is
allowed to send out the particular interface.
If router receives IP packet of size 1500, but MTU for outgoing interface is set to 1400, router will either fragment
the packet (if "Don't Fragment" bit is not set in IP header) or drop the packet and send ICMP "Need Fragmentation"
error back to originator (this is essential for Path MTU Discovery to work).
Sometimes it can be bad idea to change IP MTU from its default 1500 bytes on router interfaces if complete path
end-to-end is not in administrators control. Although IP fragmentation and end-to-end Path MTU Discovery is
intended to handle this situation, if ICMP Need Fragmentation errors are filtered somewhere along the path, Path
MTU Discovery will not work.
There are several features in MikroTik RouterOS that can benefit from possibility to exceed standard MTU
Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards 166

Simple Examples
In these examples we will take a look at frames entering and leaving router via Ethernet interfaces.

Simple Routing
The image shows the packet MTU size for simple routing, packets size is not modified.

Routing with VLAN Encap

Each VLAN tag is 4 bytes long, VLAN tag is added by router. L2-MTU is increased by 4 bytes.

Simple MPLS with tags

When MPLS is used as plain replacement for IP routing, only one label is attached to every packet, therefore packet
size increases by 4 bytes, we have the situation with two MPLS labels. In order to be able to forward standard size
(1500 bytes) IP packet without fragmentation, MPLS MTU must be set to at least 1508 for two MPLS labels.
Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards 167

VPLS Tunnel
Two MPLS labels are present, when remote endpoint is not directly attached. One MPLS label is used to get to
remote endpoint, second label is used to identify VPLS tunnel.

L2MTU advanced example

In this example we will take a closer look at required L2MTU of all Ethernet like interfaces including Bridge,
VLAN, VPLS interfaces.
In this setup we will have 3 routers:
• Q-in-Q router - this router will receive standard 1500 byte Ethernet frame and will add two VLAN tags to the
packet. Then packet will be sent out via Ethernet network to the second router
• VPLS router - this router will remove outer VLAN tag and will bridge packet with the remaining VLAN tag with
VPLS tunnel. VPLS tunnel will take packet through the MPLS network to the third router.
• MPLS Edge router - will remove VPLS and VLAN tags and bridge packet to the client Ethernet network.

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Interface/Wireless 168

Manual:Interface/Wireless
Overview
Standards:
Package: wireless
RouterOS wireless comply with IEEE 802.11 standards, it provides complete support for 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g
and 802.11n as long as additional features like WPA, WEP, AES encryption, Wireless Distribution System (WDS),
Dynamic Frequency selection (DFS), Virtual Access Point, Nstreme and NV2 proprietary protocols and many more.
Wireless features compatibility table for different wireless protocols.
Wireless can operate in several modes: client (station), access point, wireless bridge etc. Client/station also can
operate in different modes, complete list of supported modes can be found here.

General interface properties

Sub-menu: /interface wireless

Property Description

adaptive-noise-immunity (ap-and-client-mode | client-mode | This property is only effective for cards based on Atheros chipset.
none; Default: none)

allow-sharedkey (yes | no; Default: no) Allow WEP Shared Key cilents to connect. Note that no authentication is
done for these clients (WEP Shared keys are not compared to anything) -
they are just accepted at once (if access list allows that)

antenna-gain (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Antenna gain in dBi, used to calculate maximum transmit power according
to country regulations.

antenna-mode (ant-a | ant-b | rxa-txb | txa-rxb; Default: ) Select antenna to use for transmitting and for receiving
• ant-a - use only 'a' antenna
• ant-b - use only 'b' antenna
• txa-rxb - use antenna 'a' for transmitting, antenna 'b' for receiving
• rxa-txb - use antenna 'b' for transmitting, antenna 'a' for receiving

area (string; Default: ) Identifies group of wireless networks. This value is announced by AP, and
can be matched in connect-list by area-prefix.
This is a proprietary extension.

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; Default: enabled) Read more >>

band (2ghz-b | 2ghz-b/g | 2ghz-b/g/n | 2ghz-onlyg | 2ghz-onlyn | Defines set of used data rates, channel frequencies and widths.
5ghz-a | 5ghz-a/n | 5ghz-onlyn; Default: )

basic-rates-a/g (12Mbps | 18Mbps | 24Mbps | 36Mbps | Similar to the basic-rates-b property, but used for 5ghz, 5ghz-10mhz,
48Mbps | 54Mbps | 6Mbps | 9Mbps; Default: 6Mbps) 5ghz-5mhz, 5ghz-turbo, 2.4ghz-b/g, 2.4ghz-onlyg, 2ghz-10mhz,
2ghz-5mhz and 2.4ghz-g-turbo bands.

basic-rates-b (11Mbps | 1Mbps | 2Mbps | 5.5Mbps; Default: List of basic rates, used for 2.4ghz-b, 2.4ghz-b/g and 2.4ghz-onlyg bands.
1Mbps) Client will connect to AP only if it supports all basic rates announced by
the AP. AP will establish WDS link only if it supports all basic rates of the
other AP.
This property has effect only in AP modes, and when value of rate-set is
configured.

bridge-mode (disabled | enabled; Default: enabled) Allows to use station-bridge mode. Read more >>
Manual:Interface/Wireless 169

burst-time (integer | disabled; Default: disabled) Time in microseconds which will be used to send data without stopping.
Note that no other wireless cards in that network will be able to transmit
data during burst-time microseconds. This setting is available only for
AR5000, AR5001X, and AR5001X+ chipset based cards.

channel-width (10mhz | 20/40mhz-ht-above | 20/40mhz-ht-below ht above and ht below allows to use additional 20MHz extension channel
| 20mhz | 40mhz-turbo | 5mhz; Default: 20mhz) and if it should be located below or above control (main) channel.
Extension channel allows 11n device to use 40MHz of spectrum in total
thus increasing max throughput.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the interface

compression (yes | no; Default: no) Setting this property to yes will allow use of the hardware compression.
Wireless interface must have support for hardware compression.
Connections with devices that do not use compression will still work.

country (name of the country | no_country_set; Default: Limits available bands, frequencies and maximum transmit power for each
no_country_set) frequency. Also specifies default value of scan-list. Value no_country_set
is an FCC compliant set of channels.

default-ap-tx-limit (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) This is the value of ap-tx-limit for clients that do not match any entry in
the access-list. 0 means no limit.

default-authentication (yes | no; Default: yes) For AP mode, this is the value of authentication for clients that do not
match any entry in the access-list. For station mode, this is the value of
connect for APs that do not match any entry in the connect-list

default-client-tx-limit (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: This is the value of client-tx-limit for clients that do not match any entry in
0) the access-list. 0 means no limit

default-forwarding (yes | no; Default: yes) This is the value of forwarding for clients that do not match any entry in
the access-list

dfs-mode (no-radar-detect | none | radar-detec; Default: none) Controls DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection).
• none - disables DFS.
• no-radar-detect - Select channel from scan-list with the lowest number
of detected networks. In 'wds-slave' mode this setting has no effect.
• radar-detect - Select channel with the lowest number of detected
networks and use it if no radar is detected on it for 60 seconds.
Otherwise, select different channel. This setting may be required by the
country regulations.
This property has effect only in AP mode.

disable-running-check (yes | no; Default: no) When set to yes interface will always have running flag. If value is set to
no', the router determines whether the card is up and running - for AP one
or more clients have to be registered to it, for station, it should be
connected to an AP.

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled

disconnect-timeout (time [0s..15s]; Default: 3s) This interval is measured from third sending failure on the lowest data rate.
At this point 3 * (hw-retries + 1) frame transmits on the lowest data rate
had failed.
During disconnect-timeout packet transmission will be retried with
on-fail-retry-time interval. If no frame can be transmitted successfully
during diconnect-timeout, connection is closed, and this event is logged as
"extensive data loss". Successful frame transmission resets this timer.

distance (integer | dynamic | indoors; Default: dynamic) How long to wait for confirmation of unicast frames before considering
transmission unsuccessful. Value 'dynamic' causes AP to detect and use
smallest timeout that works with all connected clients. Acknowledgements
are not used in Nstreme protocol.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 170

frame-lifetime (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Discard frames that have been queued for sending longer than
frame-lifetime. By default, when value of this property is 0, frames are
discarded only after connection is closed.

frequency (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: ) Channel frequency value in MHz on which AP will operate. Allowed
values depend on selected band, and are restricted by country setting and
wireless card capabilities. This setting has no effect if interface is in any of
station modes, or in wds-slave mode, or if DFS is active.
Note: If using mode "superchannel", any frequency supported by the card
will be accepted, but on the RouterOS client, any non-standard frequency
must be configured in the scan-list, otherwise it will not be scanning in
non-standard range. In Winbox, scanlist frequencies are in bold, any other
frequency means the clients will need scan-list configured.

frequency-mode (manual-txpower | regulatory-domain | Three frequency modes are available:

superchannel; Default: manual-txpower) • regulatory-domain - Limit available channels and maximum transmit
power for each channel according to the value of country
• manual-txpower - Same as above, but do not limit maximum transmit
power.
• superchannel - Conformance Testing Mode. Allow all channels
supported by the card.
List of available channels for each band can be seen in /wireless info print.
This mode allows you to test wireless channels outside the default scan-list
and/or regulatory domain. This mode should only be used in controlled
environments, or if you have a special permission to use it in your region.
Before v4.3 this was called Custom Frequency Upgrade, or Superchannel.
Since RouterOS v4.3 this mode is available without special key upgrades to
all installations.

frequency-offset (integer [-2147483648..2147483647]; Allows to specify offset if the used wireless card operates at a different
Default: 0) frequency than is shown in RouterOS, in case a frequency converter is used
in the card. So if your card works at 4000MHz but RouterOS shows
5000MHz, set offset to 1000MHz and it will be displayed correctly. The
value is in MHz and can be positive or negative.

hide-ssid (yes | no; Default: no) .

• yes - AP does not include SSID the beacon frames, and does not reply
to probe requests that have broadcast SSID.
• no - AP includes SSID in the beacon frames, and replies to probe
requests that have broadcast SSID.
This property has effect only in AP mode. Setting it to yes can remove this
network from the list of wireless networks that are shown by some client
software. Changing this setting does not improve security of the wireless
network, because SSID is included in other frames sent by the AP.

ht-ampdu-priorities (list of integer [0..7]; Default: 0) Frame priorities for which AMPDU sending (aggregating frames and
sending using block acknowledgement) should get negotiated and used.
Using AMPDUs will increase throughput, but may increase latency
therefore may not be desirable for real-time traffic (voice, video). Due to
this, by default AMPDUs are enabled only for best-effort traffic.

ht-amsdu-limit (integer [0..8192]; Default: 8192) Max AMSDU that device is allowed to prepare when negotiated. AMSDU
aggregation may significantly increase throughput especially for small
frames, but may increase latency in case of packet loss due to
retransmission of aggregated frame. Sending and receiving AMSDUs will
also increase CPU usage.

ht-amsdu-threshold (integer [0..8192]; Default: 8192) Max frame size to allow including in AMSDU.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 171

ht-basic-mcs (list of (mcs-0 | mcs-1 | mcs-2 | mcs-3 | mcs-4 | [1]

Modulation and Coding Schemes that every connecting client must
mcs-5 | mcs-6 | mcs-7 | mcs-8 | mcs-9 | mcs-10 | mcs-11 | mcs-12 | support (refer to 802.11n for MCS specification).
mcs-13 | mcs-14 | mcs-15 | mcs-16 | mcs-17 | mcs-18 | mcs-19 |
mcs-20 | mcs-21 | mcs-22 | mcs-23); Default: mcs-0; mcs-1; mcs-2;
mcs-3; mcs-4; mcs-5; mcs-6; mcs-7)

ht-guard-interval (any | long; Default: any) Whether to allow use of short guard interval (refer to 802.11n MCS
specification to see how this may affect throughput). "any" will use either
short or long, depending on data rate, "long" will use long.

ht-rxchains (list of integer [0..2]; Default: 0) Which antennas to use for receive.

ht-supported-mcs (list of (mcs-0 | mcs-1 | mcs-2 | mcs-3 | mcs-4 Modulation and Coding Schemes that this device advertises as supported.
| mcs-5 | mcs-6 | mcs-7 | mcs-8 | mcs-9 | mcs-10 | mcs-11 | mcs-12 |
mcs-13 | mcs-14 | mcs-15 | mcs-16 | mcs-17 | mcs-18 | mcs-19 |
mcs-20 | mcs-21 | mcs-22 | mcs-23); Default: mcs-0; mcs-1; mcs-2;
mcs-3; mcs-4; mcs-5; mcs-6; mcs-7; mcs-8; mcs-9; mcs-10;
mcs-11; mcs-12; mcs-13; mcs-14; mcs-15; mcs-16; mcs-17;
mcs-18; mcs-19; mcs-20; mcs-21; mcs-22; mcs-23)

ht-txchains (list of integer [0..2]; Default: 0) Which antetnnas to use for transmit.

hw-fragmentation-threshold (integer[256..3000] | disabled; Specifies maximum fragment size in bytes when transmitted over wireless
Default: 0) medium. 802.11 standard packet (MSDU in 802.11 terminology)
fragmentation allows packets to be fragmented before transmiting over
wireless medium to increase probability of successful transmission (only
fragments that did not transmit correctly are retransmitted). Note that
transmission of fragmented packet is less efficient than transmitting
unfragmented packet because of protocol overhead and increased resource
usage at both - transmitting and receiving party.

hw-protection-mode (cts-to-self | none | rts-cts; Default: none) Frame protection support property read more >>

hw-protection-threshold (integer [0..65535]; Default: 0) Frame protection support property read more >>

hw-retries (integer [0..15]; Default: 7) Number of times sending frame is retried without considering it a
transmission failure.
Data rate is decreased upon failure and frame is sent again. Three
sequential failures on lowest supported rate suspend transmission to this
destination for the duration of on-fail-retry-time. After that, frame is sent
again. The frame is being retransmitted until transmission success, or until
client is disconnected after disconnect-timeout. Frame can be discarded
during this time if frame-lifetime is exceeded.

l2mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: 2290)

mac-address (MAC; Default: )

master-interface (string; Default: ) Name of wireless interface that has virtual-ap capability. Virtual AP
interface will only work if master interface is in ap-bridge, bridge or
wds-slave mode. This property is only for virtual AP interfaces.

max-station-count (integer [1..2007]; Default: 2007) Maximum number of associated clients. WDS links also count toward this
limit.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 172

mode (station | station-wds | ap-bridge | bridge | alignment-only | Selection between different station and access point (AP) modes. Station
nstreme-dual-slave | wds-slave | station-pseudobridge | modes:
station-pseudobridge-clone | station-bridge; Default: station) • station - Basic station mode. Find and connect to acceptable AP.
• station-wds - Same as station, but create WDS link with AP, using
proprietary extension. AP configuration has to allow WDS links with
this device. Note that this mode does not use entries in wds.
• station-pseudobridge - Same as station, but additionally perform MAC
address translation of all traffic. Allows interface to be bridged.
• station-pseudobridge-clone - Same as station-pseudobridge, but use
station-bridge-clone-mac address to connect to AP.
AP modes:
• ap-bridge - Basic access point mode.
• bridge - Same as ap-bridge, but limited to one associated client.
• wds-slave - Same as ap-bridge, but scan for AP with the same ssid and
establishes WDS link. If this link is lost or cannot be established, then
continue scanning. If dfs-mode is radar-detect, then APs with enabled
hide-ssid will not be found during scanning.
Special modes:
• alignment-only - Put interface in a continuous transmit mode that is
used for aiming remote antenna.
• nstreme-dual-slave - allow this interface to be used in nstreme-dual
setup.

MAC address translation in pseudobridge modes works by

inspecting packets and building table of corresponding IP and MAC
addresses. All packets are sent to AP with the MAC address used
by pseudobridge, and MAC addresses of received packets are
restored from the address translation table. There is single entry in
address translation table for all non-IP packets, hence more than
one host in the bridged network cannot reliably use non-IP
protocols. Note: Currently IPv6 doesn't work over Pseudobridge
Virtual AP interfaces do not have this property, they follow the
mode of their master interface.

mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: 1500)

multicast-helper (default | disabled | full; Default: default) When set to full multicast packets will be sent with unicast destination
MAC address, resolving multicast problem on wireless link. This option
should be enabled only on access point, clients should be configured in
station-bridge mode. Available starting from v5.15.
• disabled - disables the helper and sends multicast packets with multicast
destination MAC addresses
• full - all multicast packet mac address are changed to unicast mac
addresses prior sending them out
• default - default choice that currently is set to disabled. Value can be
changed in future releases.

name (string; Default: ) name of the interface

noise-floor-threshold (default | integer [-128..127]; Default: This property is only effective for cards based on AR5211 chipset.
default)
Manual:Interface/Wireless 173

nv2-cell-radius (integer [10..200]; Default: 30) Setting affects the size of contention time slot that AP allocates for clients
to initiate connection and also size of time slots used for estimating
distance to client. When setting is too small, clients that are farther away
may have trouble connecting and/or disconnect with "ranging timeout"
error. Although during normal operation the effect of this setting should be
negligible, in order to maintain maximum performance, it is advised to not
increase this setting if not necessary, so AP is not reserving time that is
actually never used, but instead allocates it for actual data transfer.
• on AP: distance to farthest client in km
• on station: no effect

nv2-noise-floor-offset (default | integer [0..20]; Default:

default)

nv2-preshared-key (string; Default: )

nv2-qos (default | frame-priority; Default: default) Sets the packet priority mechanism, firstly data from high priority queue is
sent, then lower queue priority data until 0 queue priority is reached. When
link is full with high priority queue data, lower priority data is not sent. Use
it very carefully, setting works on AP
• frame-priority - manual setting that can be tuned with Mangle rules.
• default - default setting where small packets receive priority for best
latency

nv2-queue-count (integer [2..8]; Default: 2)

nv2-security (disabled | enabled; Default: disabled)

on-fail-retry-time (time [100ms..1s]; Default: 100ms) After third sending failure on the lowest data rate, wait for specified time
interval before retrying.

periodic-calibration (default | disabled | enabled; Default: Setting default enables periodic calibration if info
default) default-periodic-calibration property is enabled. Value of that property
depends on the type of wireless card.
This property is only effective for cards based on Atheros chipset.

periodic-calibration-interval (integer [1..10000]; This property is only effective for cards based on Atheros chipset.
Default: 60)

preamble-mode (both | long | short; Default: both) Short preamble mode is an option of 802.11b standard that reduces
per-frame overhead.
• On AP:
• long - Do not use short preamble.
• short - Announce short preamble capability. Do not accept
connections from clients that do not have this capability.
• both - Announce short preamble capability.
• On station:
• long - do not use short preamble.
• short - do not connect to AP if it does not support short preamble.
• both - Use short preamble if AP supports it.

prism-cardtype (100mW | 200mW | 30mW; Default: ) Specify type of the installed Prism wireless card.

proprietary-extension (post-2.9.25 | pre-2.9.25; Default: RouterOS includes proprietary information in an information element of
post-2.9.25) management frames. This parameter controls how this information is
included.
• pre-2.9.25 - This is older method. It can interoperate with newer
versions of RouterOS. This method is incompatible with some clients,
for example, Centrino based ones.
• post-2.9.25 - This uses standardized way of including vendor specific
information, that is compatible with newer wireless clients.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 174

radio-name (string; Default: MAC address of an interface) Descriptive name of the device, that is shown in registration table entries
on the remote devices.
This is a proprietary extension.

rate-selection (advanced | legacy; Default: advanced) Starting from v5.9 default value is advanced since legacy mode was
inefficient.

rate-set (configured | default; Default: default) Two options are available:

• default - default basic and supported rate sets are used. Values from
basic-rates and supported-rates parameters have no effect.
• configured - use values from basic-rates, supported-rates, basic-mcs,
mcs. Read more >>.

scan-list The default value is all channels from selected band that are supported by
(Comma separated list of frequencies and frequency ranges | default; card and allowed by the country and frequency-mode settings (this list
Default: default) can be seen in info). For default scan list in 5ghz band channels are taken
with 20MHz step, in 5ghz-turbo band - with 40MHz step, for all other
bands - with 5MHz step. If scan-list is specified manually, then all
matching channels are taken. (Example:
scan-list=default,5200-5245,2412-2427 - This will use the default value of
scan list for current band, and add to it supported frequencies from
5200-5245 or 2412-2427 range.)

security-profile (string; Default: default) Name of profile from security-profiles

ssid (string (0..32 chars); Default: value of system/identity) SSID (service set identifier) is a name that identifies wireless network.

station-bridge-clone-mac (MAC; Default: ) This property has effect only in the station-pseudobridge-clone mode.
Use this MAC address when connection to AP. If this value is
00:00:00:00:00:00, station will initially use MAC address of the wireless
interface.
As soon as packet with MAC address of another device needs to be
transmitted, station will reconnect to AP using that address.

supported-rates-a/g (list of rates [12Mbps | 18Mbps | 24Mbps List of supported rates, used for all bands except 2ghz-b.
| 36Mbps | 48Mbps | 54Mbps | 6Mbps | 9Mbps]; Default: 6Mbps;
9Mbps; 12Mbps; 18Mbps; 24Mbps; 36Mbps; 48Mbps; 54Mbps)

supported-rates-b (list of rates [11Mbps | 1Mbps | 2Mbps | List of supported rates, used for 2ghz-b, 2ghz-b/g and 2ghz-b/g/n bands.
5.5Mbps]; Default: 1Mbps; 2Mbps; 5.5Mbps; 11Mbps) Two devices will communicate only using rates that are supported by both
devices. This property has effect only when value of rate-set is configured.

tdma-debug (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0)

tdma-hw-test-mode (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: )

tdma-override-rate (12mbps | 18mbps | 24mbps | 36mbps |

48mbps | 54mbps | 6mbps | 9mbps | disabled | ht20-mcs... |
ht40-mcs...; Default: disabled)

tdma-override-size (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: )

tdma-period-size (integer [1..10]; Default: 2) Specifies TDMA period in milliseconds. It could help on the longer
distance links, it could slightly increase bandwidth, while latency is
increased too.

tdma-test-mode (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0)

tx-power (integer [-30..30]; Default: )

Manual:Interface/Wireless 175

tx-power-mode (default, card-rates, all-rated-fixed, manual-table; sets up tx-power mode for wireless card
Default: default) • default - use values stored in the card
• card-rates - use transmit power as defined by tx-power setting
• all-rated-fixed - use same transmit power for all data rates. Can damage
the card if transmit power is set above rated value of the card for used
rate
• manual-table - define transmit power for each rate separately. Can
damage the card if transmit power is set above rated value of the card
for used rate.

update-stats-interval (; Default: ) How often to request update of signals strength and ccq values from clients.
Access to registration-table also triggers update of these values.
This is proprietary extension.

wds-cost-range (start [-end] integer[0..4294967295]; Default: Bridge port cost of WDS links are automatically adjusted, depending on
50-150) measured link throughput. Port cost is recalculated and adjusted every 5
seconds if it has changed by more than 10%, or if more than 20 seconds
have passed since the last adjustment.
Setting this property to 0 disables automatic cost adjustment. Automatic
adjustment does not work for WDS links that are manually configured as a
bridge port.

wds-default-bridge (string | none; Default: none) When WDS link is established and status of the wds interface becomes
running, it will be added as a bridge port to the bridge interface specified
by this property. When WDS link is lost, wds interface is removed from the
bridge. If wds interface is already included in a bridge setup when WDS
link becomes active, it will not be added to bridge specified by , and will
(needs editing)

wds-default-cost (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 100) Initial bridge port cost of the WDS links.

wds-ignore-ssid (yes | no; Default: no) By default, WDS link between two APs can be created only when they
work on the same frequency and have the same SSID value. If this property
is set to yes, then SSID of the remote AP will not be checked. This property
has no effect on connections from clients in station-wds mode. It also does
not work if wds-mode is static-mesh or dynamic-mesh.

wds-mode (disabled | dynamic | dynamic-mesh | static | static-mesh; Controls how WDS links with other devices (APs and clients in station-wds
Default: disabled) mode) are established.
• disabled does not allow WDS links.
• static only allows WDS links that are manually configured in wds
• dynamic also allows WDS links with devices that are not configured in
wds, by creating required entries dynamically. Such dynamic WDS
entries are removed automatically after the connection with the other
AP is lost.
-mesh modes use different (better) method for establishing link
between AP, that is not compatible with APs in non-mesh mode.
This method avoids one-sided WDS links that are created only by
one of the two APs. Such links cannot pass any data.
When AP or station is establishing WDS connection with another
AP, it uses connect-list to check whether this connection is allowed.
If station in station-wds mode is establishing connection with AP,
AP uses access-list to check whether this connection is allowed.
If mode is station-wds, then this property has no effect.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 176

wireless-protocol (802.11 | any | nstreme | nv2 | nv2-nstreme | Specifies protocol used on wireless interface;
nv2-nstreme-802.11 | unspecified; Default: unspecified) • unspecified - protocol mode used on previous RouterOS versions (v3.x,
v4.x). Nstreme is enabled by old enable-nstreme setting, Nv2
configuration is not possible.
• any : on AP - regular 802.11 Access Point or Nstreme Access Point; on
station - selects Access Point without specific sequence, it could be
changed by connect-list rules.
• nstreme - enables Nstreme protocol (the same as old enable-nstreme
setting).
• nv2 - enables Nv2 protocol.
• nv2 nstreme : on AP - uses first wireless-protocol setting, always Nv2;
on station - searches for Nv2 Access Point, then for Nstreme Access
Point.
• nv2 nstreme 802.11 - on AP - uses first wireless-protocol setting,
always Nv2; on station - searches for Nv2 Access Point, then for
Nstreme Access Point, then for regular 802.11 Access Point.

wmm-support (disabled | enabled | required; Default: disabled) Specifies whether to enable WMM.

Basic and MCS Rate table

Default basic and supported rates, depending on selected band

band basic rates basic-mcs mcs supported rates

2.4ghz-b 1 - - 1-11

2.4ghz-onlyg 6 - - 1-11,6-54

2.4ghz-onlyn 6 0-7 0-23 1-11,6-54

2.4ghz-b/g 1-11 - - 1-11,6-54

2.4ghz-b/g/n 1-11 none 0-23 1-11,6-54

2.4ghz-g-turbo 6 - - 6-54

5ghz-a 6 - - 6-54

5ghz-a/n 6 none 0-23 6-54

5ghz-onlyn 6 0-7 0-23 6-54

Used settings when rate-set=configured

band used settings

2.4ghz-b basic-b, supported-b

2.4ghz-b/g, 2.4ghz-onlyg basic-b, supported-b, basic-a/g, supported-a/g

2.4ghz-onlyn, 2.4ghz-b/g/n basic-b, supported-b, basic-a/g, supported-a/g, basic-mcs, supported-mcs

5ghz-a basic-a/g,supported-a/g

5ghz-a/n, 5ghz-onlyn basic-a/g,supported-a/g,basic-mcs,supported-mcs

Settings independent from rate-set:

1. allowed mcs depending on number of chains:
• 1 chain: 0-7
• 2 chains: 0-15
• 3 chains: 0-23
Manual:Interface/Wireless 177

2. if standard channel width (20Mhz) is not used, then 2ghz modes (except 2.4ghz-b) are not using b rates (1-11)

Frame protection support (RTS/CTS)

802.11 standard provides means to protect transmission against other device transmission by using RTS/CTS
protocol. Frame protection helps to fight "hidden node" problem. There are several types of protection:
• RTS/CTS based protection - device willing to send frame at first sends RequestToSend frame and waits for
ClearToSend frame from intended destination. By "seeing" RTS or CTS frame 802.11 compliant devices know
that somebody is about to transmit and therefore do not initiate transmission themselves
• "CTS to self" based protection - device willing to send frame sends CTS frame "to itself". As in RTS/CTS
protocol every 802.11 compliant device receiving this frame know not to transmit. "CTS to self" based protection
has less overhead, but it must be taken into account that this only protects against devices receiving CTS frame
(e.g. if there are 2 "hidden" stations, there is no use for them to use "CTS to self" protection, because they will not
be able to receive CTS sent by other station - in this case stations must use RTS/CTS so that other station knows
not to transmit by seeing CTS transmitted by AP).
Protection mode is controlled by hw-protection-mode setting of wireless interface. Possible values: none - for no
protection (default), rts-cts for RTS/CTS based protection or cts-to-self for "CTS to self" based protection.
Frame size threshold at which protection should be used is controlled by hw-protection-threshold setting of
wireless interface.
For example, to enable "CTS-to-self" based frame protection on AP for all frames, not depending on size, use
command:
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> set 0 hw-protection-mode=cts-to-self hw-protection-threshold=0

To enable RTS/CTS based protection on client use command:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> set 0 hw-protection-mode=rts-cts hw-protection-threshold=0

Nv2
MikroTik has developed a new wireless protocol based on TDMA technology (Time Division Multiple Access) -
(Nstreme version 2). See the Nv2 documentation: NV2
TDMA is a channel access method for shared medium networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency
channel by dividing the signal into different time slots. The users transmit in rapid succession, one after the other,
each using his own time slot. This allows multiple stations to share the same transmission medium (e.g. radio
frequency channel) while using only a part of its channel capacity.
The most important benefits of Nv2 are:
• Increased speed
• More client connections in PTM environments
• Lower latency
• No distance limitations
• No penalty for long distances
Starting from RouterOS v5.0beta5 you can configure Nv2 in the Wireless menu. Please take a look at the NV2
protocol implementation status. Nv2 protocol limit is 511 clients.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 178

Nv2 Troubleshooting
Increase throughput on long distance with tdma-period-size. In Every "period", the Access Point leaves part of the
time unused for data transmission (which is equal to round trip time - the time in which the frame can be sent and
received from the client), it is used to ensure that client could receive the last frame from Access Point, before
sending it's own packets to it. The longer the distance, the longer the period is unused.
For example, the distance between Access Point and client is 30km. Frame is sent in 100us one direction,
respectively round-trip-time is ~200us. tdma-period-size default value is 2ms, it means 10% of the time is unused.
When tdma-period-size is increased to 4ms, only 5% of time is unused. For 60km wireless link, round-trip-time is
400ms, unused time is 20% for default tdma-period-size 2ms, and 10% for 4ms. Bigger tdma-period-size value
increases latency on the link.

Access List
Sub-menu: /interface wireless access-list
Access list is used by access point to restrict allowed connections from other devices, and to control connection
parameters.
Operation:
• Access list rules are checked sequentially.
• Disabled rules are always ignored.
• Only the first matching rule is applied.
• If there are no matching rules for the remote connection, then the default values from the wireless interface
configuration are used.
• If remote device is matched by rule that has authentication=no value, the connection from that remote device is
rejected.
Warning: If there is no entry in ACL about client which connects to AP (wireless,debug wlan2:
A0:0B:BA:D7:4D:B2 not in local ACL, by default accept), then ACL for this client is ignored during all
connection time.

For example, if client's signal during connection is -41 and we have ACL rule

/interface wireless access-list

add authentication=no forwarding=no interface=wlan2 signal-range=..-55

Then connection is not matched to any ACL rule and if signal drops to -70..-80, client will not be disconnected.
To make it work correctly it is required that client is matched by any of ACL rules.
If we modify ACL rules in previous example to:

/interface wireless access-list

add interface=wlan2 signal-range=-55
add authentication=no forwarding=no interface=wlan2 signal-range=..-56

Then if signal drops to -56, client will be disconnected.

Manual:Interface/Wireless 179

Properties

Property Description

ap-tx-limit (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Limit rate of data transmission to this client. Value 0 means no limit.
Value is in bits per second.

authentication (yes | no; Default: yes) .

• no - Client association will always fail.
• yes - Use authentication procedure that is specified in the
security-profile of the interface.

client-tx-limit (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Ask client to limit rate of data transmission. Value 0 means no limit.
This is a proprietary extension that is supported by RouterOS clients.
Value is in bits per second.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an entry

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

forwarding (yes | no; Default: yes) .

• no - Client cannot send frames to other station that are connected
to same access point.
• yes - Client can send frames to other stations on the same access
point.

interface (string | all; Default: all) Rules with interface=all are used for all wireless interfaces. To
make rule that applies only to one wireless interface, specify that
interface as a value of this property.

mac-address (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) Rule matches client with the specified MAC address. Value
00:00:00:00:00:00 matches always.

management-protection-key (string; Default: "")

private-algo (104bit-wep | 40bit-wep | aes-ccm | none | tkip; Default: Only for WEP modes.
none)

private-key (string; Default: "") Only for WEP modes.

private-pre-shared-key (string; Default: "") Used in WPA PSK mode.

signal-range (NUM..NUM - both NUM are numbers in the range Rule matches if signal strength of the station is within the range.
-120..120; Default: -120..120) If signal strength of the station will go out of the range that is
specified in the rule, access point will disconnect that station.

time (TIME-TIME,sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat - TIME is time interval Rule will match only during specified time.
0..86400 seconds; all day names are optional; value can be unset; Default: ) Station will be disconnected after specified time ends. Both start and
end time is expressed as time since midnight, 00:00.
Rule will match only during specified days of the week.

Align
Sub-menu: /interface wireless align
Manual:Interface/Wireless 180

Property Description

active-mode (yes | no; Default: yes) If in active mode, station will send out frames for align.

audio-max (integer [-2147483648..2147483647]; Default: Maxumum signal strength for beeper

-20)

audio-min (integer [-2147483648..2147483647]; Default: Minimum signal strength for beeper

-100)

audio-monitor (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) Which MAC address to use for audio monitoring

filter-mac (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) Filtered out MAC address that will be shown in monitor screen.

frame-size (integer [200..1500]; Default: 300) Size of the frames used by monitor.

frames-per-second (integer [1..100]; Default: 25) Frame transmit interval

receive-all (yes | no; Default: no) If set to "no", monitoring will work only if both wireless stations are in align
mode.

ssid-all (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to show all SSIDs in the monitor or only one configured in wireless
settings.

Menu Specific Commands

Property Description

monitor (interface name) Start align monitoring

test-audio (integer [-2147483648..2147483647]) Test the beeper

Connect List
Sub-menu: /interface wireless connect-list
connect-list is used to assign priority and security settings to connections with remote access points, and to restrict
allowed connections. connect-list is an ordered list of rules. Each rule in connect-list is attached to specific wireless
interface, specified in the interface property of that rule (this is unlike access-list, where rules can apply to all
interfaces). Rule can match MAC address of remote access point, it's signal strength and many other parameters.
Operation:
• connect-list rules are always checked sequentially, starting from the first.
• disabled rules are always ignored.
• Only the first matching rule is applied.
• If connect-list does not have any rule that matches remote access point, then the default values from the wireless
interface configuration are used.
• If access point is matched by rule that has connect=no value, connection with this access point will not be
attempted.
• If access point is matched by rule that has connect=yes value, connection with this access point will be attempted.
• In station mode, if several remote access points are matched by connect list rules with connect=yes value,
connection will be attempted with access point that is matched by rule higher in the connect-list.
• If no remote access points are matched by connect-list rules with connect=yes value, then value of
default-authentication interface property determines whether station will attempt to connect to any access
point. If default-authentication=yes, station will choose access point with best signal and compatible security.
• In access point mode, connect-list is checked before establishing WDS link with remote device. If access point is
not matched by any rule in the connect list, then the value of default-authentication determines whether WDS
Manual:Interface/Wireless 181

link will be established.

Properties

Property Description

area-prefix (string; Default: ) Rule matches if area value of AP (a proprietary extension) begins with specified value.area value
is a proprietary extension.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an entry

connect (yes | no; Default: yes) Available options:

• yes - Connect to access point that matches this rule.
• no - Do not connect to any access point that matches this rule.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

mac-address (MAC; Default: Rule matches only AP with the specified MAC address. Value 00:00:00:00:00:00 matches always.
00:00:00:00:00:00)

security-profile (string | none; Name of security profile that is used when connecting to matching access points, If value of this
Default: none) property is none, then security profile specified in the interface configuration will be used.
In station mode, rule will match only access points that can support specified security profile.
Value none will match access point that support security profile that is specified in the interface
configuration. In access point mode value of this property will not be used to match remote
devices.

signal-range (NUM..NUM - both NUM Rule matches if signal strength of the access point is within the range.
are numbers in the range -120..120; Default: If station establishes connection to access point that is matched by this rule, it will disconnect from
-120..120) that access point when signal strength goes out of the specified range.

ssid (string; Default: "") Rule matches access points that have this SSID. Empty value matches any SSID.
This property has effect only when station mode interface ssid is empty, or when access point
mode interface has wds-ignore-ssid=yes

wireless-protocol (802.11 | any |

nstreme | tdma; Default: any)

interface (string; Default: ) Each rule in connect list applies only to one wireless interface that is specified by this setting.

Usage

Restrict station connections only to specific access points

• Set value of default-authentication interface property to no.
/interface wireless set station-wlan default-authentication=no
• Create rules that matches allowed access points. These rules must have connect=yes and interface equal to the
name of station wireless interface.
/interface wireless connect-list add interface=station-wlan
connect=yes mac-address=00:11:22:33:00:01
/interface wireless connect-list add interface=station-wlan connect=yes mac-address=00:11:22:33:00:02
Manual:Interface/Wireless 182

Disallow connections to specific access points

• Set value of default-authentication interface property to yes.
/interface wireless set station-wlan default-authentication=yes
• Create connect=no rules that match those access points that station should not connect to. These rules must have
connect=no and interface equal to the name of station wireless interface.
/interface wireless connect-list add interface=station-wlan
connect=no mac-address=00:11:22:33:44:55

Select preferred access points

• Create rules that match preferred access points. These rules must have connect=yes and interface equal to the
name of station wireless interface.
• Put rules that match preferred access points higher in the connect-list, in the order of preference.

Restrict WDS link establishment

• Place rules that match allowed access points at the top.
• Add deny-all rule at the end of connect list.

Info
Sub-menu: /interface wireless info

Property Description

2ghz-10mhz-power-channels ()

2ghz-11n-channels ()

2ghz-5mhz-power-channels ()

2ghz-b-channels ()

2ghz-g-channels ()

2ghz-g-turbo-channels ()

5ghz-10mhz-power-channels ()

5ghz-11n-channels ()

5ghz-5mhz-power-channels ()

5ghz-channels ()

5ghz-turbo-channels ()

capabilities ()

chip-info ()

default-periodic-calibration ()

firmware ()

ht-chains ()

interface-type ()

name ()

pci-info ()

supported-bands ()
Manual:Interface/Wireless 183

Manual TX Power Table

Sub-menu: /interface wireless manual-tx-power-table

Property Description

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an entry

manual-tx-powers (list of [Rate:TxPower]; Rate ::= 11Mbps | 12Mbps | 18Mbps | 1Mbps |

24Mbps | ... TxPower ::= integer [-30..30]; Default: )

name (string) Name of the wireless interface to which tx

powers will be applied.

Nstreme
Sub-menu: /interface wireless nstreme
This menu allows to switch a wireless card to the nstreme mode. In this case the card will work only with nstreme
clients.

Property Description

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an entry

disable-csma (yes | no; Default: Disable CSMA/CA when polling is used (better performance)
no)

enable-nstreme (yes | no; Whether to switch the card into the nstreme mode
Default: no)

enable-polling (yes | no; Whether to use polling for clients

Default: yes)

framer-limit (integer Maximal frame size

[100..4000]; Default: 3200)

framer-policy (best-fit | The method how to combine frames. A number of frames may be combined into a bigger one to reduce the
dynamic-size | exact-size | none; amount of protocol overhead (and thus increase speed). The card is not waiting for frames, but in case a
Default: none) number of packets are queued for transmitting, they can be combined. There are several methods of
framing:
• none - do nothing special, do not combine packets (framing is disabled)
• best-fit - put as much packets as possible in one frame, until the framer-limit limit is met, but do not
fragment packets
• exact-size - put as much packets as possible in one frame, until the framer-limit limit is met, even if
fragmentation will be needed (best performance)
• dynamic-size - choose the best frame size dynamically

name (string) Name of an interface, to which setting will be applied. Read only.

Note: The settings here (except for enabling nstreme) are relevant only on Access Point, they are ignored for
client devices! The client automatically adapts to the AP settings.
WDS for Nstreme protocol requires using station-wds mode on one of the peers. Configurations with WDS
between AP modes (bridge and ap-bridge) will not work.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 184

Nstreme Dual
Sub-menu: /interface wireless nstreme-dual
Two radios in nstreme-dual-slave mode can be grouped together to make nstreme2 Point-to-Point connection. To put
wireless interfaces into a nstreme2 group, you should set their mode to nstreme-dual-slave. Many parameters from
/interface wireless menu are ignored, using the nstreme2, except:
• frequency-mode
• country
• antenna-gain
• tx-power
• tx-power-mode
• antenna-mode

Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; Default: Read more >>

enabled)

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an entry

disable-csma (yes | no; Default: no) Disable CSMA/CA (better performance)

disable-running-check (yes | no; Default: no) Whether the interface should always be treated as running even if there is no
connection to a remote peer

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes)

framer-limit (integer [64..4000]; Default: 2560) Maximal frame size

framer-policy (best-fit | exact-size | none; Default: none) The method how to combine frames. A number of frames may be combined into
one bigger one to reduce the amout of protocol overhead (and thus increase
speed). The card are not waiting for frames, but in case a number packets are
queued for transmitting, they can be combined. There are several methods of
framing:
• none - do nothing special, do not combine packets
• best-fit - put as much packets as possible in one frame, until the framer-limit
limit is met, but do not fragment packets
• exact-size - put as much packets as possible in one frame, until the
framer-limit limit is met, even if fragmentation will be needed (best
performance)

ht-channel-width (2040mhz | 20mhz | 40mhz; Default:

20mhz)

ht-guard-interval (both | long | short; Default: long)

ht-rates (list of rates [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]; Default:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

ht-streams (both | double | single; Default: single)

l2mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: )

mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: 1500)

name (string; Default: ) Name of an entry

rates-a/g (list of rates [6Mbps,9Mbps, 12Mbps, 18Mbps, Rates to be supported in 802.11a or 802.11g standard
24Mbps, 36Mbps, 48Mbps, 54Mbps]; Default:
6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps, 18Mbps, 24Mbps, 36Mbps,
48Mbps, 54Mbps)

rates-b (list of rates [1Mbps, 2Mbps, 5.5Mbps, 11Mbps]; Rates to be supported in 802.11b standard
Default: 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 5.5Mbps, 11Mbps)
Manual:Interface/Wireless 185

remote-mac (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) Which MAC address to connect to (this would be the remote receiver card's MAC
address)

rx-band (2ghz-b | 2ghz-g | 2ghz-n | 5ghz-a | 5ghz-n; Default: Operating band of the receiving radio
)

rx-channel-width (10mhz; Default: 20mhz)

rx-frequency (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: ) RX card operation frequency in Mhz.

rx-radio (string; Default: ) Name of the interface used for receive.

tx-band (2ghz-b | 2ghz-g | 2ghz-n | 5ghz-a | 5ghz-n; Default: Operating band of the transmitting radio
)

tx-channel-width (10mhz; Default: 20mhz)

tx-frequency (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: ) TX card operation frequency in Mhz.

tx-radio (string; Default: ) Name of the interface used for transmit.

Warning: WDS cannot be used on Nstreme-dual links.

Note: The difference between tx-freq and rx-freq should be about 200MHz (more is recommended) because
of the interference that may occur!

Note: You can use different bands for rx and tx links. For example, transmit in 2ghz-g and receive data, using
2ghz-b band.

Registration Table
Sub-menu: /interface wireless registration-table
In the registration table you can see various information about currently connected clients. It is used only for Access
Points.
All properties are read-only.

Property Description

802.1x-port-enabled (yes whether the data exchange is allowed with the peer (i.e., whether 802.1x authentication is completed, if needed)
| no)

ack-timeout (integer) current value of ack-timeout

ap (yes | no) Shows whether registered device is configured as access point.

ap-tx-limit (integer) transmit rate limit on the AP, in bits per second

authentication-type () authentication method used for the peer

bridge (yes | no)

bytes (integer , integer) number of sent and received packet bytes

client-tx-limit (integer) transmit rate limit on the AP, in bits per second
Manual:Interface/Wireless 186

comment (string) Description of an entry. comment is taken from appropriate Access List entry if specified.

compression (yes | no) whether data compresson is used for this peer

distance (integer)

encryption (aes-ccm | tkip) unicast encryption algorithm used

evm-ch0 ()

evm-ch1 ()

evm-ch2 ()

frame-bytes (integer,integer) number of sent and received data bytes excluding header information

frames (integer,integer) Number of frames that need to be sent over wireless link. This value can be compared to hw-frames to check
wireless retransmits. Read more >>

framing-current-size current size of combined frames

(integer)

framing-limit (integer) maximal size of combined frames

framing-mode () the method how to combine frames

group-encryption () group encryption algorithm used

hw-frame-bytes number of sent and received data bytes including header information
(integer,integer)

hw-frames (integer,integer) Number of frames sent over wireless link by the driver. Tihs value can be compared to frames to check
wireless retransmits. Read more >>

interface (string) Name of the wireless interface to which wireless client is associated

last-activity (time) last interface data tx/rx activity

last-ip (IP Address) IP address found in the last IP packet received from the registered client

mac-address (MAC) MAC address of the registered client

management-protection
(yes | no)

nstreme (yes | no) Shows whether nstreme is enabled

p-throughput (integer) estimated approximate throughput that is expected to the given peer, taking into account the effective transmit
rate and hardware retries. Calculated once in 5 seconds

packed-bytes (integer, number of bytes packed into larger frames for transmitting/receiving (framing)
integer)

packed-frames (integer, number of frames packed into larger ones for transmitting/receiving (framing)
integer)

packets (integer.integer) number of sent and received network layer packets

radio-name (string) radio name of the peer

routeros-version (string) RouterOS version of the registered client

rx-ccq () Client Connection Quality (CCQ) for receive. Read more >>

rx-rate (integer) receive data rate

signal-strength (integer) average strength of the client signal recevied by the AP

signal-strength-ch0 ()

signal-strength-ch1 ()

signal-strength-ch2 ()

signal-to-noise ()
Manual:Interface/Wireless 187

strength-at-rates () signal strength level at different rates together with time how long were these rates used

tdma-retx ()

tdma-rx-size ()

tdma-timing-offset () tdma-timing-offset is proportional to distance and is approximately two times the propagation delay. AP
measures this so that it can tell clients what offset to use for their transmissions - clients then subtract this offset
from their target transmission time such that propagation delay is accounted for and transmission arrives at AP
when expected. You may occasionally see small negative value (like few usecs) there for close range clients
because of additional unaccounted delay that may be produced in transmitter or receiver hardware that varies
from chipset to chipset.

tdma-tx-size (integer) Value in bytes that specifies the size of data unit whose loss can be detected (data unit over which CRC is
calculated) sent by device. In general - the bigger the better, because overhead is less. On the other hand, small
value in this setting can not always be considered a signal that connection is poor - if device does not have
enough pending data that would enable it to use bigger data units (e.g. if you are just pinging over link), this
value will not go up.

tdma-windfull ()

tx-ccq () Client Connection Quality (CCQ) for transmit. Read more >>

tx-evm-ch0 ()

tx-evm-ch1 ()

tx-evm-ch2 ()

tx-frames-timed-out ()

tx-rate ()

tx-signal-strength ()

tx-signal-strength-ch0
()

tx-signal-strength-ch1
()

tx-signal-strength-ch2
()

uptime (time) time the client is associated with the access point

wds (yes | no) whether the connected client is using wds or not

wmm-enabled (yes | no) Shows whether WMM is enabled.

Security Profiles
Sub-menu: /interface wireless security-profiles
Security profiles are configured under the /interface wireless security-profiles path in the console, or in the
"Security Profiles" tab of the "Wireless" window in the WinBox. Security profiles are referenced by the wireless
interface security-profile parameter and security-profile parameter of the connect lists.

Basic properties
• mode (one of none, static-keys-optional, static-keys-required or dynamic-keys; default value: none) :
• none - Encryption is not used. Encrypted frames are not accepted.
• static-keys-required - WEP mode. Do not accept and do not send unencrypted frames.
Station in static-keys-required mode will not connect to an access point in static-keys-optional mode.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 188

• static-keys-optional - WEP mode. Support encryption and decryption, but allow also to receive and send
unencrypted frames. Device will send unencrypted frames if encryption algorithm is specified as none.
Station in static-keys-optional mode will not connect to an access point in static-keys-required mode.
See also: static-sta-private-algo, static-transmit-key
• dynamic-keys - WPA mode.
• name : see generic properties

WPA properties
These properties have effect only when mode=dynamic-keys.
• authentication-types (multiple choice of wpa-psk, wpa2-psk, wpa-eap and wpa2-eap; default value is empty) :
Set of supported authentication types. Access point will advertise supported authentication types, and client will
connect to access point only if supports any of the advertised authentication types.
• unicast-ciphers (multiple choice of tkip, aes-ccm; default value is empty) : Access point advertises that it
supports specified ciphers. Client attempts connection only to access points that supports at least one of the
specified ciphers.
One of the ciphers will be used to encrypt unicast frames that are sent between access point and station.
• group-ciphers (multiple choice of tkip, aes-ccm; default value is empty) : Access point advertises one of these
ciphers, and uses it to encrypt all broadcast and multicast frames. Client attempts connection only to access points
that use one of the specified group ciphers.
• tkip - Temporal Key Integrity Protocol - encryption protocol, compatible with lagacy WEP equipment, but
enhanced to correct some of WEP flaws
• aes-ccm - more secure WPA encryption protocol, based on the reliable AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).
Networks free of WEP legacy should use only this
• group-key-update (time interval in the 30s..1h range; default value: 5m) : Controls how often access point
updates group key. This key is used to encrypt all broadcast and multicast frames.
This property has no effect in station mode.
• wpa-pre-shared-key, wpa2-pre-shared-key (text) : WPA and WPA2 pre-shared key mode requires all devices
in a BSS to have common secret key. Value of this key can be an arbitrary text.
RouterOS also allows to override pre-shared key value for specific clients, using either private-pre-shared-key
property in the access-list, or the Mikrotik-Wireless-Psk attribute in the RADIUS MAC authentication response.
This is an extension.
These properties have effect only when authentication-types contains either wpa-psk or wpa2-psk.
wpa-pre-shared-key is used for wpa-psk authentication type. wpa2-pre-shared-key is used for wpa2-psk.

WPA EAP properties

These properties have effect only when authentication-types contains wpa-eap or wpa2-eap, and
mode=dynamic-keys.
• eap-methods (array of eap-tls, passthrough) :
• eap-tls - Use built-in EAP TLS authentication. Both client and server certificates are supported. See
description of tls-mode and tls-certificate properties.
• passthrough - Access point will relay authentication process to the RADIUS server. This value is ignored in
station mode.
Order of values is significant for access point configuration, it is used by access point when offering specified
methods to clients.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 189

Example: Access point uses security-profile where eap-methods=eap-tls,passthrough:

Access point offers EAP-TLS method to the client.
Client refuses.
Access point starts relaying EAP communication to the radius server.
• supplicant-identity (text; default value is same as system/identity of router at the moment of profile creation) :
EAP identity that is sent by client at the beginning of EAP authentication. This value is used as a value for
User-Name attribute in RADIUS messages sent by RADIUS EAP accounting and RADIUS EAP pass-through
authentication.
• tls-mode (one of verify-certificate, dont-verify-certificate, no-certificates; default value: no-certificates) :
• verify-certificate - Require remote device to have valid certificate. Check that it is signed by known certificate
authority. No additional identity verification is done.
Note: Certificate may include information about time period during which it is valid. If router has incorrect
time and date, it may reject valid certificate because router's clock is outside that period.
See also: certificate configuration.
• dont-verify-certificate - Do not check certificate of the remote device. Access point will not require client to
provide certificate.
• no-certificates - Do not use certificates. TLS session is established using 2048 bit anonymous Diffie-Hellman
key exchange.
When using first two modes, remote device has to support one of the "RC4-MD5", "RC4-SHA" or
"DES-CBC3-SHA" TLS cipher suites. In the last mode remote device must support "ADH-DES-CBC3-SHA"
cipher suite.
This property has effect only when eap-methods contains eap-tls.
• tls-certificate (none or name of certificate; default value: none) : Access point always needs certificate when
configured with tls-mode=verify-certificate, or tls-mode=dont-verify-certificate. Client needs certificate only if
access point is configured with tls-mode=verify-certificate. In this case client needs valid certificate that is signed
by CA known to the access point.
This property has effect only if tls-mode≠no-certificates.
This property has effect only when eap-methods contains eap-tls.

RADIUS properties
• radius-mac-authentication (yes or no; default value: no) : This property affects the way how access point
processes clients that are not found in the access-list.
• no - allow or reject client authentication based on the value of default-authentication property of the wireless
interface.
• yes - Query RADIUS server using MAC address of client as user name. With this setting the value of
default-authentication has no effect.
• radius-mac-accounting (yes or no; default value: no) : (needs editing)
• radius-eap-accounting (yes or no; default value: no) : (needs editing)
• interim-update (time interval; default value: 0) : When RADIUS accounting is used, access point periodically
sends accounting information updates to the RADIUS server. This property specifies default update interval that
can be overridden by the RADIUS server using Acct-Interim-Interval attribute.
• radius-mac-format (one of XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX, XXXX:XXXX:XXXX, XXXXXX:XXXXXX,
XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX, XXXXXX-XXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXX, XX XX XX XX XX XX; default value:
XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX) : Controls how MAC address of the client is encoded by access point in the User-Name
attribute of the MAC authentication and MAC accounting RADIUS requests.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 190

• radius-mac-mode (one of as-username, as-username-and-password; default value: as-username) : By default

access point uses empty password, when sending Access-Request during MAC authentication. When this
property is set to as-username-and-password, access point will use the same value for User-Password attribute as
for the User-Name attribute.
• radius-mac-caching (either disabled or time interval; default value: disabled) : If this value is set to time interval,
the access point will cache RADIUS MAC authentication responses for specified time, and will not contact
RADIUS server if matching cache entry already exists. Value disabled will disable cache, access point will
always contact RADIUS server.

WEP properties
These properties have effect only when mode is static-keys-required or static-keys-optional. See section
"Wireless#Statically_configured_WEP_keys".
• static-key-0, static-key-1, static-key-2, static-key-3 (hexadecimal representation of the key. Length of key must
be appropriate for selected algorithm - see section "Statically configured WEP keys; default value is empty) :
(needs editing)
• static-algo-0, static-algo-1, static-algo-2, static-algo-3 (one of none, 40bit-wep, 104bit-wep, tkip or aes-ccm;
default value: none) : Encryption algorithm to use with the corresponding key.
• static-transmit-key (one of key-0, key-1, key-2 or key-3; default value: key-0) : Access point will use the
specified key to encrypt frames for clients that do not use private key. Access point will also use this key to
encrypt broadcast and multicast frames.
Client will use the specified key to encrypt frames if static-sta-private-algo=none.
If corresponding static-algo- property has value none, frame will be sent unencrypted (when
mode=static-keys-optional) or will not be sent at all (when mode=static-keys-required).
• static-sta-private-key (hexadecimal representation of the key. Length of key must be appropriate for selected
algorithm - see section "Statically configured WEP keys") : This property is used only in station mode. Access
point uses corresponding key either from private-key property of access-list, or from Mikrotik-Wireless-Enc-Key
attribute in RADIUS Access-Accept MAC authentication response.
• static-sta-private-algo (one of none, 40bit-wep, 104bit-wep, tkip or aes-ccm) : Encryption algorithm to use with
station private key. Value none disables use of the private key.
This property is used only in station mode. Access point has to get corresponding value either from
private-algo property of access-list, or from Mikrotik-Wireless-Enc-Algo attribute in RADIUS Access-Accept
MAC authentication response.
Station private key replaces key 0 for unicast frames. Station will not use private key to decrypt broadcast
frames.

Management frame protection

Used for: Deauthentication attack prevention, MAC address cloning issue.
RouterOS implements proprietary management frame protection algorithm based on shared secret. Management
frame protection means that RouterOS wireless device is able to verify source of management frame and confirm
that particular frame is not malicious. This feature allows to withstand deauthentication and disassociation attacks on
RouterOS based wireless devices.
Management protection mode is configured in security-profile with management-protection setting. Possible
values are: disabled - management protection is disabled (default), allowed - use management protection if
supported by remote party (for AP - allow both, non-management protection and management protection clients, for
client - connect both to APs with and without management protection), required - establish association only with
Manual:Interface/Wireless 191

remote devices that support management protection (for AP - accept only clients that support management
protection, for client - connect only to APs that support management protection).
Management protection shared secret is configured with security-profile management-protection-key setting.
When interface is in AP mode, default management protection key (configured in security-profile) can be overridded
by key specified in access-list or RADIUS attribute.

[admin@mikrotik] /interface wireless security-profiles> print

0 name="default" mode=none authentication-types="" unicast-ciphers=""
group-ciphers="" wpa-pre-shared-key="" wpa2-pre-shared-key=""
supplicant-identity="n-str-p46" eap-methods=passthrough
tls-mode=no-certificates tls-certificate=none static-algo-0=none
static-key-0="" static-algo-1=none static-key-1="" static-algo-2=none
static-key-2="" static-algo-3=none static-key-3=""
static-transmit-key=key-0 static-sta-private-algo=none
static-sta-private-key="" radius-mac-authentication=no
radius-mac-accounting=no radius-eap-accounting=no interim-update=0s
radius-mac-format=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX radius-mac-mode=as-username
radius-mac-caching=disabled group-key-update=5m
management-protection=disabled management-protection-key=""

[admin@mikrotik] /interface wireless security-profiles> set default management-protection=

allowed disabled required
Manual:Interface/Wireless 192

Operation details

RADIUS MAC authentication

Note: RAIDUS MAC authentication is used by access point for clients that are not found in the access-list, similarly
to the default-authentication property of the wireless interface. It controls whether client is allowed to proceed with
authentication, or is rejected immediately.
When radius-mac-authentication=yes, access point queries RADIUS server by sending Access-Request with the
following attributes:
• User-Name - Client MAC address. This is encoded as specified by the radius-mac-format setting. Default
encoding is "XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX".
• Nas-Port-Id - name of wireless interface.
• User-Password - When radius-mac-mode=as-username-and-password this is set to the same value as
User-Name. Otherwise this attribute is empty.
• Calling-Station-Id - Client MAC address, encoded as "XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX".
• Called-Station-Id - MAC address and SSID of the access point, encoded as "XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX:SSID"
(minus separated pairs of MAC address digits, followed by colon, followed by SSID value).
• Acct-Session-Id - Added when radius-mac-accounting=yes.
When access point receives Access-Accept or Access-Reject response from the RADIUS server, it stores the
response and either allows or rejects client. Access point uses following RADIUS attributes from the Access-Accept
response:
• Ascend-Data-Rate
• Ascend-Xmit-Rate
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Forward - Same as access-list forwarding.
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Enc-Algo - Same as access-list private-algo.
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Enc-Key - Same as access-list private-key.
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Psk - Same as access-list private-pre-shared-key.
• Session-Timeout - Time, after which client will be disconnected.
• Acct-Interim-Interval - Overrides value of interim-update.
• Class - If present, value of this attribute is saved and included in Accounting-Request messages.

Caching
Caching of RADIUS MAC authentication was added to support RADIUS authentication for clients that require from
the access point very quick response to the association request. Such clients time out before response from RADIUS
server is received. Access point caches authentication response for some time and can immediately reply to the
repeated association request from the same client.

RADIUS EAP pass-through authentication

When using WPA EAP authentication type, clients that have passed MAC authentication are required to perform
EAP authentication before being authorized to pass data on wireless network. With pass-through EAP method the
access point will relay authentication to RADIUS server, and use following attributes in the Access-Request
RADIUS message:
• User-Name - EAP supplicant identity. This value is configured in the supplicant-identity property of the client
security profile.
• Nas-Port-Id - name of wireless interface.
• Calling-Station-Id - Client MAC address, encoded as "XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX".
Manual:Interface/Wireless 193

• Called-Station-Id - MAC address and SSID of the access point, encoded as "XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX:SSID"
(pairs of MAC address digits separated by minus sign, followed by colon, followed by SSID value).
• Acct-Session-Id - Added when radius-eap-accounting=yes.
• Acct-Multi-Session-Id - MAC address of access point and client, and unique 8 byte value, that is shared for all
accounting sessions that share single EAP authentication. Encoded as
AA-AA-AA-AA-AA-AA-CC-CC-CC-CC-CC-CC-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX.
Added when radius-eap-accounting=yes.
Access point uses following RADIUS attributes from the Access-Accept server response:
• Class - If present, value of this attribute is saved and included in Accounting-Request messages.
• Session-Timeout - Time, after which client will be disconnected. Additionally, access point will remember
authentication result, and if during this time client reconnects, it will be authorized immediately, without
repeating EAP authentication.
• Acct-Interim-Interval - Overrides value of interim-update.

Statically configured WEP keys

Different algorithms require different length of keys:
• 40bit-wep - 10 hexadecimal digits (40 bits). If key is longer, only first 40 bits are used.
• 104bit-wep - 26 hexadecimal digits (104 bits). If key is longer, only first 104 bits are used.
• tkip - At least 64 hexadecimal digits (256 bits).
• aes-ccm - At least 32 hexadecimal digits (128 bits).
Key must contain even number of hexadecimal digits.

WDS security configuration

WDS links can use all available security features. However, they require careful configuration of security
parameters.
It is possible to use one security profile for all clients, and different security profiles for WDS links. Security profile
for WDS link is specified in connect-list. Access point always checks connect list before establishing WDS link with
another access point, and used security settings from matching connect list entry. WDS link will work when each
access point will have connect list entry that matches the other device, has connect=yes and specifies compatible
security-profile.

WDS and WPA/WPA2

If access point uses security profile with mode=dynamic-keys, then encryption will be used for all WDS links. Since
WPA authentication and key exchange is not symmetrical, one of the access points will act as a client for the purpose
of establishing secure connection. This is similar to how static-mesh and dynamic-mesh WDS modes work. Some
problems, like single sided WDS link between two incorrectly configured access points that use non-mesh mode, is
not possible if WPA encryption is enabled. However, non-mesh modes with WPA still have other issues (like
constant reconnection attempts in case of configuration mismatch) that are solved by use of the -mesh WDS modes.
In general, WPA properties on both access points that establish WPA protected WDS link have to match. These
properties are authentication-types, unicast-ciphers, group-ciphers. For non-mesh WDS mode these properties
need to have the same values on both devices. In mesh WDS mode each access point has to support the other one as
a client.
Theoretically it is possible to use RADIUS MAC authentication and other RADIUS services with WDS links.
However, only one access point will interact with the RADIUS server, the other access point will behave as a client.
Manual:Interface/Wireless 194

Implementation of eap-tls EAP method in RouterOS is particularly well suited for WDS link encryption.
tls-mode=no-certificates requires no additional configuration, and provides very strong encryption.

WDS and WEP

mode, static-sta-private-key and static-sta-private-algo parameters in the security profile assigned to the WDS
link need to have the same values on both access points that establish WDS link with WPA encryption.

Security profile and access point matching in the connect list

Client uses value of connect-list security-profile property to match only those access points that support necessary
security.
• mode=static-keys-required and mode=static-keys-optional matches only access points with the same mode in
interface security-profile.
• If mode=dynamic-keys, then connect list entry matches if all of the authentication-types, unicast-ciphers and
group-ciphers contain at least one value that is advertised by access point.

Sniffer
Sub-menu: /interface wireless sniffer
Wireless sniffer allows to capture frames including Radio header, 802.11 header and other wireless related
information.

Property Description

channel-time (; Default: 200ms)

file-limit (integer [10..4294967295]; Default: 10) Allocated file size in bytes which will be used to store captured data. Applicable if
file-name is specified.

file-name (string; Default: ) Name of the file where to store captured data.

memory-limit (integer [10..4294967295]; Default: Allocated memory buffer in bytes used to store captured data.
10)

multiple-channels (yes | no; Default: no)

only-headers (yes | no; Default: no) If set to yes, then sniffer will capture only information stored in frame headers.

receive-errors (yes | no; Default: no)

streaming-enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to stream captured data to specified streaming server

streaming-max-rate (integer [0..4294967295];

Default: 0)

streaming-server (IPv4; Default: 0.0.0.0) IP address of the streaming server.

Manual:Interface/Wireless 195

Packets
Sub-menu: /interface wireless sniffer packet
Sub-menu shows captured packets.

Snooper
This tool monitors surrounding frequency usage, and displays which devices occupy each frequency. It's available
both in console, and also in Winbox.
Sub-menu: /interface wireless snooper
Manual:Interface/Wireless 196

Settings

Spectral scan
• See separate document Manual:Spectral_scan

WDS
Sub-menu: /interface wireless wds
Properties:
Manual:Interface/Wireless 197

Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; Default: enabled)

comment (string; Default: )

disable-running-check (yes | no; Default: no)

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes)

l2mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: )

master-interface (string; Default: )

mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: 1500)

name (string; Default: )

wds-address (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00)

Read-only properties:

Property Description

dynamic (yes | no)

mac-address (MAC)

running (yes | no)

[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ IEEE_802. 11n-2009#Data_rates
Manual:Wireless AP Client 198

Manual:Wireless AP Client
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
Configuration example shows how to establish simple wireless network by using MikroTik RouterOS. MikroTik
RouterOS is fully compliant with IEEE802.11a/b/g/n standards, MikroTik RouterOS device [1] can be used as
wireless access-point and wireless station (other modes [2] are supported too).

Configuration setup
Our basic configuration setup is
Manual:Wireless AP Client 199

Access Point Configuration

• Connect to the router via Winbox [3]
• Setup Wireless interface, necessary configuration options are mode=ap-bridge band=ap_operated_band
frequency=ap_operated_frequency ssid=network_identification

• These settings are enough to establish wireless connection, additionally you need to add IP address for the
wireless interface for IP routing, optionally add security and other settings.
Manual:Wireless AP Client 200

Station Configuration
• Wireless client configuration example is for MikroTik RouterOS, other vendor OS configuration should be
looked in the appropriate documentation/forum/mailing list etc.
• Connect to the client router via the same way and proceed to the Wireless interface configuration.
• Necessary configuration options are mode=station band=band_ap_operates_on ssid=ap_network_ssid

• These settings are enough to establish wireless connection, additionally you need to set IP address for the wireless
interface to establish IP routing communication with access point, optionally use security and other settings.
Manual:Wireless AP Client 201

Additional Configuration

IP Configuration
• Add IP address to Access Point router, like 192.168.0.1/24

• Add IP address to Client router, address should be from the same subnet like 192.168.0.2/24

• Check IP communication by ping from station (for example),

Manual:Wireless AP Client 202

Additional Access Point Configuration

• All the necessary settings for the simple Access Point are showed here [4].
• Security profiles are used for WPA/WPA2 protection, configuration options are explained here [5]. Usually all
wireless clients share the same security configuration as access point.
• mode=ap-bridge allows 2007 clients, max-station-count is used to limit the number of wireless client per Access
Point. Wireless mode=bridge is used for point-to-point wireless links and allows connection for one station only.
• MikroTik RouterOS license level4 is minimum for mode=ap-bridge
• Other wireless settings are (http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Category:Wireless explained here)

Additional Station Configuration

• Station adapts to wireless access point frequency, despite of the frequency configuration in Wireless menu.
Station uses scan-list to select available Access Point, when superchannel mode is used on wireless Access Point,
set custom Access Point frequency to mode=station scan-list.

References
[1] http:/ / routerboard. com/
[2] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ Manual:Interface/ Wireless#Wireless_interface_configuration
[3] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ First_time_startup
[4] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ Manual:Making_a_simple_wireless_AP
[5] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ Manual:Interface/ Wireless#Security_profiles
Manual:Wireless Station Modes 203

Manual:Wireless Station Modes

Overview
Wireless interface in any of station modes will search for acceptable access point (AP) and connect to it. The
connection between station and AP will behave in slightly different way depending on type of station mode used, so
correct mode must be chosen for given application and equipment. This article attempts to describe differences
between available station modes.
Primary difference between station modes is in how L2 addresses are processed and forwarded across wireless link.
This directly affects the ability of wireless link to be part of L2 bridged infrastructure.
If L2 bridging over wireless link is not necessary - as in case of routed or MPLS switched network, basic
mode=station setup is suggested and will provide highest efficiency.
Availability of particular station mode depends on wireless-protocol that is used in wireless network. Please refer to
applicability matrix for information on mode support in protocols. It is possible that connection between station and
AP will be established even if particular mode is not supported for given protocol. Beware that such connection will
not behave as expected with respect to L2 bridging.

802.11 limitations for L2 bridging

Historically 802.11 AP devices were supposed to be able to bridge frames between wired network segment and
wireless, but station device was not supposed to do L2 bridging.
Consider the following network:

[X]---[AP]-( )-[STA]---[Y]

where X-to-AP and STA-to-Y are ethernet links, but AP-to-STA are connected wirelessly. According to 802.11, AP
can transparently bridge traffic between X and STA, but it is not possible to bridge traffic between AP and Y, or X
and Y.
802.11 standard specifies that frames between station and AP device must be transmitted in so called 3 address
frame format, meaning that header of frame contains 3 MAC addresses. Frame transmitted from AP to station has
the following addresses:
• destination address - address of station device, also radio receiver address
• radio transmitter address - address of AP
• source address - address of originator of particular frame
Frame transmitted from station to AP has the following addresses:
• radio receiver address - address of AP
• source address - address of station device, also radio transmitter address
• destination address
Considering that every frame must include radio transmitter and receiver address, it is clear that 3 address frame
format is not suitable for transparent L2 bridging over station, because station can not send frame with source
address different from its address - e.g. frame from Y, and at the same time AP can not format frame in a way that
would include address of Y.
802.11 includes additional frame format, so called 4 address frame format, intended for "wireless distribution
system" (WDS) - a system to interconnect APs wirelessly. In this format additional address is added, producing
header that contains the following addresses:
• radio receiver address
Manual:Wireless Station Modes 204

• radio transmitter address

• destination address
• source address
This frame format includes all necessary information for transparent L2 bridging over wireless link. Unluckily
802.11 does not specify how WDS connections should be established and managed, therefore any usage of 4 address
frame format (and WDS) is implementation specific.
Different station modes attempt to solve shortcomings of standard station mode to provide support for L2 bridging.

Applicability Matrix
The following matrix specifies station modes available for each wireless-protocol. Note that there are 2 columns for
802.11 protocol: 802.11 specifies availability of mode in "pure" 802.11 network (when connecting to any vendor
AP) and ROS 802.11 specifies availability of mode when connecting to RouterOS AP that implements necessary
proprietary extensions for mode to work.
Table applies to RouterOS v5rc11 and above:

802.11 ROS 802.11 nstreme nv2

station V V V V

station-wds V V V

station-pseudobridge V V V

station-pseudobridge-clone V V V

station-bridge V V V

Mode station
This is standard mode that does not support L2 bridging on station - attempts to put wireless interface in bridge will
not produce expected results. On the other hand this mode can be considered the most efficient and therefore should
be used if L2 bridging on station is not necessary - as in case of routed or MPLS switched network. This mode is
supported for all wireless protocols.

Mode station-wds
This mode works only with RouterOS APs. As a result of negotiating connection, separate WDS interface is created
on AP for given station. This interface can be thought of point-to-point connection between AP and given station -
whatever is sent out WDS interface is delivered to station (and only to particular station) and whatever station sends
to AP is received from WDS interface (and not subject to forwarding between AP clients), preserving L2 addresses.
This mode is supported for all wireless protocols except when 802.11 protocol is used in connection to
non-RouterOS device. Mode uses 4 address frame format when used with 802.11 protocol, for other protocols (such
as nstreme or nv2), protocol internal means are used.
This mode is safe to use for L2 bridging and gives most administrative control on AP by means of separate WDS
interface, for example use of bridge firewall, RSTP for loop detection and avoidance, etc.
Manual:Wireless Station Modes 205

Mode station-pseudobridge
This mode from wireless connection point of view is the same as standard station mode. It has limited support for L2
bridging by means of some services implemented in station:
• MAC address translation for IPv4 packets - station maintains IPv4-to-MAC mapping table and replaces source
MAC address with its own address when sending frame to AP (in order to be able to use 3 address frame format),
and replaces destination MAC address with address from mapping table for frames received from AP.
IPv4-to-MAC mappings are built also for VLAN encapsulated frames.
• single MAC address translation for the rest of protocols - station learns source MAC address from first forwarded
non-IPv4 frame and uses it as default for reverse translation - this MAC address is used to replace destination
MAC address for frames received from AP if IPv4-to-MAC mapping can not be performed (e.g. - non-IPv4 frame
or missing mapping).
This mode is limited to complete L2 bridging of data to single device connected to station (by means of single MAC
address translation) and some support for IPv4 frame bridging - bridging of non-IP protocols to more than one
device will not work. Also MAC address translation limits access to station device from AP side to IPv4 based
access - the rest of protocols will be translated by single MAC address translation and will not be received by station
itself.
This mode is available for all protocols except nv2 and should be avoided when possible. The usage of this node
can only be justified if AP does not support better mode for L2 bridging (e.g. when non-RouterOS AP is used) or if
only one end-user device must be connected to network by means of station device.

Mode station-pseudobridge-clone
This mode is the same as station-pseudobridge mode, except that it connects to AP using "cloned" MAC address -
that is either address configured in station-bridge-clone-mac parameter (if configured) or source address of first
forwarded frame. This essentially appears on AP as if end-user device connected to station connected to AP.

Mode station-bridge
This mode works only with RouterOS APs and provides support for transparent protocol-independent L2 bridging on
station device. RouterOS AP accepts clients in station-bridge mode when enabled using bridge-mode parameter. In
this mode AP maintains forwarding table with information on what MAC addresses are reachable over which station
device.
This mode is MikroTik proprietary and can't be used to connect other brand devices.
This mode is safe to use for L2 bridging and should be used whenever there are sufficient reasons to not use
station-wds mode.
Manual:Nv2 206

Manual:Nv2
Overview of Nv2 protocol
Nv2 protocol is proprietary wireless protocol developed by MikroTik for use with Atheros 802.11 wireless chips.
Nv2 is based on TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) media access technology instead of CSMA (Carrier Sense
Multiple Access) media access technology used in regular 802.11 devices.
TDMA media access technology solves hidden node problem and improves media usage, thus improving throughput
and latency, especially in PtMP networks.
Nv2 is supported for Atheros 802.11n chips and legacy 802.11a/b/g chips starting from AR5212, but not supported
on older AR5211 and AR5210 chips. This means that both - 11n and legacy devices can participate in the same
network and it is not required to upgrade hardware to implement Nv2 in network.
Media access in Nv2 network is controlled by Nv2 Access Point. Nv2 AP divides time in fixed size "periods" which
are dynamically divided in downlink (data sent from AP to clients) and uplink (data sent from clients to AP)
portions, based on queue state on AP and clients. Uplink time is further divided between connected clients based on
their requirements for bandwidth. At the begginning of each period AP broadcasts schedule that tells clients when
they should transmit and the amount of time they can use.
In order to allow new clients to connect, Nv2 AP periodically assigns uplink time for "unspecified" client - this time
interval is then used by fresh client to initiate registration to AP. Then AP estimates propagation delay between AP
and client and starts periodically scheduling uplink time for this client in order to complete registration and receive
data from client.
Nv2 implements dynamic rate selection on per-client basis and ARQ for data transmissions. This enables reliable
communications across Nv2 links.
For QoS Nv2 implements variable number of priority queues with builtin default QoS scheduler that can be
accompanied with fine grained QoS policy based on firewall rules or priority information propagated across network
using VLAN priority or MPLS EXP bits.
Nv2 protocol limit is 511 clients.

Nv2 protocol implementation status

As of version 5.0rc1 Nv2 has the following features:
• TDMA media access
• WDS support
• QoS support with variable number or priority queues
As of version 5.0rc2:
• data encryption
As of version 5.0rc3
• RADIUS authentication features
As of version 5.0rc4
• added missing statistics fields
Features that Nv2 DOES NOT HAVE YET:
• administrator controlled media access policy
• synchronization between Nv2 APs
• some other features...
Manual:Nv2 207

Compatibility and coexistence with other wireless protocols

Nv2 protocol is not compatible to or based on any other available wireless protocols or implementations, either
TDMA based or any other kind. This implies that only Nv2 supporting and enabled devices can participate in
Nv2 network.
Regular 802.11 devices will not recognize and will not be able to connect to Nv2 AP. RouterOS devices that have
Nv2 support (that is - have RouterOS version 5.0rc1 or higher) will see Nv2 APs when issuing scan command, but
will only connect to Nv2 AP if properly configured.
As Nv2 does not use CSMA technology it may disturb any other network in the same channel. In the same way other
networks may disturb Nv2 network, because every other signal is considered noise.
The key points regarding compatibility and coexistence:
• only RouterOS devices will be able to participate in Nv2 network
• only RouterOS devices will see Nv2 AP when scanning
• Nv2 network will disturb other networks in the same channel
• Nv2 network may be affected by any (Nv2 or not) other networks in the same channel
• Nv2 enabled device will not connect to any other TDMA based network

How Nv2 compares with Nstreme and 802.11

Nv2 vs 802.11
The key differences between Nv2 and 802.11:
• Media access is scheduled by AP - this eliminates hidden node problem and allows to implement centralized
media access policy - AP controls how much time is used by every client and can assign time to clients according
to some policy instead of every device contending for media access.
• Reduced propagation delay overhead - There are no per-frame ACKs in Nv2 - this significantly improves
throughput, especially on long distance links where data frame and following ACK frame propagation delay
significantly reduces the effectiveness of media usage.
• Reduced per frame overhead - Nv2 implements frame aggregation and fragmentation to maximize assigned media
usage and reduce per-frame overhead (interframe spaces, preambles).

Nv2 vs Nstreme
The key differences between Nv2 and Nstreme:
• Reduced polling overhead - instead of polling each client, Nv2 AP broadcasts uplink schedule that assigns time to
multiple clients, this can be considered "group polling" - no time is wasted for polling each client individually,
leaving more time for actual data transmission. This improves throughput, especially in PtMP configurations.
• Reduced propagation delay overhead - Nv2 must not poll each client individually, this allows to create uplink
schedule based on estimated distance (propagation delay) to clients such that media usage is most effective. This
improves throughput, especially in PtMP configurations.
• More control over latency - reduced overhead, adjustable period size and QoS features allows for more control
over latency in the network.
Manual:Nv2 208

Configuring Nv2
As of version 5.0rc1 new wireless interface setting wireless-protocol has been introduced. This setting controls
which wireless protocol selects and uses. Note that meaning of this setting depends on interface role (either it is AP
or client) that depends on interface mode setting. Find possible values of wireless-protocol and their meaning in
table below.

value AP client

unspecified establish nstreme or 802.11 connect to nstreme or 802.11 network based on old nstreme setting
network based on old nstreme
setting

any same as unspecified scan for all matching networks, no matter what protocol, connect using protocol of
chosen network

802.11 establish 802.11 network connect to 802.11 networks only

nstreme establish Nstreme network connect to Nstreme networks only

Nv2 establish Nv2 network connect to Nv2 networks only

Nv2-nstreme-802.11 establish Nv2 network scan for Nv2 networks, if suitable network found - connect, otherwise scan for Nstreme
networks, if suitable network found - connect, otherwise scan for 802.11 network and if
suitable network found - connect.

Nv2-nstreme establish Nv2 network scan for Nv2 networks, if suitable network found - connect, otherwise scan for Nstreme
networks and if suitable network found - connect

Note that wireless-protocol values Nv2-nstreme-802.11 and Nv2-nstreme DO NOT specify some hybrid or special
kind of protocol - these values are implemented to simplify client configuration when protocol of network that client
must connect to can change. Using these values can help in migrating network to Nv2 protocol.
Most of Nv2 settings are significant only to Nv2 AP - Nv2 client automatically adapts necessary settings from AP.
The following settings are relevant to Nv2 AP:
• Nv2-queue-count - specifies how many priority queues are used in Nv2 network. For more details see
Manual:Nv2#QoS_in_Nv2_network
• Nv2-qos - controls frame to priority queue mapping policy. For more details see
Manual:Nv2#QoS_in_Nv2_network
• Nv2-cell-radius - specifies distance to farthest client in Nv2 network in km. This setting affects the size of
contention time slot that AP allocates for clients to initiate connection and also size of time slots used for
estimating distance to client. If this setting is too small, clients that are farther away may have trouble connecting
and/or disconnect with "ranging timeout" error. Although during normal operation the effect of this setting should
be negligible, in order to maintain maximum performance, it is advised to not increase this setting if not
necessary, so AP is not reserving time that is actually never used, but instead allocates it for actual data transfer.
• tdma-period-size - specifies size in ms of time periods that Nv2 AP uses for media access scheduling. Smaller
period can potentially decrease latency (because AP can assign time for client sooner), but will increase protocol
overhead and therefore decrease throughput. On the other hand - increasing period will increase throughput but
also increase latency. It may be required to increase this value for especially long links to get acceptable
throughput. This necessity can be caused by the fact that there is "propagation gap" between downlink (from AP
to clients) and uplink (from clients to AP) data during which no data transfer is happening. This gap is necessary
because client must receive last frame from AP - this happens after propagation delay after AP's transmission, and
only then client can transmit - as a result frame from client arrives at AP after propagation delay after client's
transmission (so the gap is propagation delay times two). The longer the distance, the bigger is necessary
propagation gap in every period. If propagation gap takes significant portion of period, actual throughput may
become unacceptable and period size should get increased at the expense of increased latency. Basically value of
Manual:Nv2 209

this setting must be carefully chosen to maximize throughput but also to keep latency at acceptable levels.
The follwing settings are significant on both - Nv2 AP and Nv2 client:
• Nv2-security - specifies Nv2 security mode, for more details see Manual:Nv2#Security_in_Nv2_network
• Nv2-preshared-key - specifies preshared key to be used, for more details see
Manual:Nv2#Security_in_Nv2_network

Migrating to Nv2
Using wireless-protocol setting aids in migration or evaluating Nv2 protocol in existing networks really simple and
reduce downtime as much as possible. These are the recommended steps:
• upgrade AP to version that supports Nv2, but do not enable Nv2 on AP yet.
• upgrade clients to version that supports Nv2
• configure all clients with wireless-protocol=Nv2-nstreme-802.11. Clients will still connect to AP using protocol
that was used previously, because AP is not changed over to Nv2 yet
• configure Nv2 related settings on AP
• if it is necessary to use data encryption and secure authentication, configure Nv2 security related settings on AP
and clients (refer to Manual:Nv2#Security_in_Nv2_network).
• set wireless-protocol=Nv2 on AP. This will make AP to change to Nv2 protocol. Clients should now connect
using Nv2 protocol.
• in case of some trouble you can easily switch back to previous protocol by simply changing it back to whatever
was used before on AP.
• fine tune Nv2 related settings to get acceptable latency and throughput
• implement QoS policy for maximum performance.
The basic troubleshooting guide:
• clients have trouble connecting or disconnect with "ranging timeout" error - check that Nv2-cell-radius setting is
set appropriately
• unexpectedly low throughput on long distance links although signal and rate is fine - try to increase
tdma-period-size setting

QoS in Nv2 network

QoS in Nv2 is implemented by means of variable number of priority queues. Queue is considered for transmission
based on rule recommended by 802.1D-2004 - only if all higher priority queues are empty. In practice this means
that at first all frames from queue with higher priority will be sent, and only then next queue is considered. Therefore
QoS policy must be designed with care so that higher priority queues do not make lower priority queues starve.
QoS policy in Nv2 network is controlled by AP, clients adapt policy from AP. On AP QoS policy is configured with
Nv2-queue-count and Nv2-qos parameters. Nv2-queue-count parameter specifies number of priority queues used.
Mapping of frames to queues is controlled by Nv2-qos parameter.
Manual:Nv2 210

Nv2-qos=default
In this mode outgoing frame at first is inspected by built-in QoS policy algorithm that selects queue based on packet
type and size. If built-in rules do not match, queue is selected based on frame priority field, as in
Nv2-qos=frame-priority mode.

Nv2-qos=frame-priority
In this mode QoS queue is selected based on frame priority field. Note that frame priority field is not some field in
headers and therefore it is valid only while packet is processed by given device. Frame priority field must be set
either explicitly by firewall rules or implicitly from ingress priority by frame forwarding process, for example, from
MPLS EXP bits. For more information on frame priority field see:
• Manual:MPLS/EXP_bit_behaviour
• Manual:WMM
Queue is selected based on frame priority according to 802.1D recommended user priority to traffic class mapping.
Mapping depends on number of available queues (Nv2-queue-count parameter). For example, if number of queues
is 4, mapping is as follows (pay attention how this mapping resembles mapping used by WMM):
• priority 0,1 -> queue 0
• priority 2,3 -> queue 1
• priority 4,5 -> queue 2
• priority 6,7 -> queue 3
If number of queues is 2 (default), mapping is as follows:
• priority 0,1,2,3 -> queue 0
• priority 4,5,6,7 -> queue 1
If number of queues is 8 (maximum possible), mapping is as follows:
• priority 0 -> queue 0
• priority 1 -> queue 1
• priority 2 -> queue 2
• priority 3 -> queue 3
• priority 4 -> queue 4
• priority 5 -> queue 5
• priority 6 -> queue 6
• priority 7 -> queue 7
For other mappings, discussion on rationale for these mappings and recommended practices please see 802.1D-2004.

Security in Nv2 network

Nv2 security implementation has the following features:
• hardware accelerated data encryption using AES-CCM with 128 bit keys;
• 4-way handshake for key management (similar to that of 802.11i);
• preshared key authentication method (similar to that of 802.11i);
• periodically updated group keys (used for broadcast and multicast data).
Being proprietary protocol Nv2 does not use security mechanisms of 802.11, therefore security configuration is
different. Interface using Nv2 protocol ignores security-profile setting. Instead, security is configured by the
following interface settings:
• Nv2-security - this setting enables/disables use of security in Nv2 network. Note that when security is enabled on
AP, it will not accept clients with disabled security. In the same way clients with enabled security will not connect
Manual:Nv2 211

to unsecure APs.
• Nv2-preshared-key - preshared key to use for authentication. Data encryption keys are derived from preshared
key during 4-way handshake. Preshared key must be the same in order for 2 devices to establish connection. If
preshared key will differ, connection will time out because remote party will not be able to correctly interpret key
exchange messages.

NV2 skin
WebFig skin that has all wireless options removed but ones that has any impact on NV2 configuration. nv2 wireless
skin [1]

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download/ nv2. json

Manual:WMM
How WMM works
WMM works by dividing traffic into 4 access categories: background, best effort, video, voice. QoS policy (different
handling of access categories) is applied on transmitted packets, therefore it is transmitting device is treating
different packets differently - that is - e.g. AP does not have control over how clients are transmitting packets, and
clients do not have control over how AP transmits packets.
Mikrotik AP and client classifies packets based on priority assigned to them, according to table (as per WMM spec):
1,2 - background 0,3 - best effort 4,5 - video 6,7 - voice
To be able to use multiple WMM access categories, not just best effort where all packets with default priority 0 go,
priority must be set for those packets. By default all packets (incoming and locally generated) inside router have
priority 0.
"Better" access category for packet does not necessarily mean that it will be sent over the air before all other packets
with "worse" access category. WMM works by executing DCF method for medium access with different settings for
each access category (EDCF), which basically means that "better" access category has higher probability of getting
access to medium - WMM enabled station can be considered to be 4 stations, one per access category, and the ones
with "better" access category use settings that make them more likely to get chance to transmit (by using shorter
backoff timeouts) when all are contending for medium. Details can be studied in 802.11e and WMM specification

How to set priority

Priority of packets can be set using "set priority" action of ip firewall mangle rules and/or bridge firewall filter rules.
Priority can be set to specific value or to "ingress priority". Ingress priority is priority value that was detected on
incoming packet, if available. Currently there are 2 sources of ingress priority - priority in VLAN header and priority
from WMM packets received over wireless interface. For all other packets ingress priority is 0.
Note: Starting from v6.x priority can be set from DSCP by setting from-dscp-high-3-bits

Note that ingress priority value is not automatically copied to priority value, correct rule needs to
be set up to do this!
Manual:WMM 212

So there are basically 2 ways to control/set priority (remember, that both require setting up correct rule(s)!): - assign
priority with rules with particular matchers (protocol, addresses, etc), - set it from ingress priority.
This essentialy means that if it is not possible or wanted to classify packets by rules, configuration of network must
be such that router can extract ingress priority from incoming frames. Remember there are currently 2 sources for
this - VLAN tag in packets and received WMM packets.
Do not mix priority of queues with priority assigned to packets. Priorities of queues work separately and specify
"importance" of queue and has meaning only within particular queue setup. Think of packet priority as of some kind
of mark, that gets attached to packet by rules. Also take into account that this mark currently is only used for
outgoing packets when going over WMM enabled link, and in case VLAN tagged packet is sent out (no matter if that
packet is tagged locally or bridged).

Example
For example, in setup
PPPoE server -> WMM AP -> client,
if AP is just forwarding PPPoE traffic (therefore inspecting encapsulated IP packets to match e.g. by protocol is not
possible, as packets can be encrypted and compressed), priority must come to AP from PPPoE server in VLAN tag,
so you have to use VLAN (between PPPoE server and AP) for this, just to communicate priority information.
Note that you do not have to forward VLAN encapsulated traffic to client - VLAN can be terminated at AP, VLAN
tag is needed only when entering AP.
In case AP is PPPoE server itself, there is no need to use VLAN - priority can be set by rules before it is
encapsulated in PPPoE.

Priority from DSCP

Another way of setting priority is by using DSCP field in IP header, this can only be done by firewall mange rule
"set priority" action. Note that DSCP in IP header can have values 0-63, but priority only 0-7. Effective priority after
set from DSCP value will be 3 low bits of DSCP value which is the same as reminder of division by 8. So for
example, priority from DSCP values 0,8,16,etc will be 0, from DSCP values 7,15,...,63 - 7.
Remember that DSCP can only be accessed on IP packets!
Note, that to use this feature, DSCP value in IP header should be set somewhere.
It is best to set DSCP value in IP header of packets on some border router (e.g. main router used for connection to
internet), based on traffic type. E.g. set DSCP value for packets coming from internet belonging to sip connections to
7, and 0 for the rest. This way packets must be marked only at one place. Then all APs in network set packet priority
from DSCP value with just one rule.
In setup:
<internet> - border router - <network> - WMM AP - client
border router sets DSCP value for sip traffic, and WMM AP sets priority from DSCP value. Note that in this setup
DSCP is set only for traffic _to_ client. Sometimes it can be useful to set also DSCP on traffic coming _from_ client
(e.g. if 2 clients connected to different APs are talking between themselves) - this can be done on APs.
Manual:WMM 213

Combining priority setting and handling solutions

Complex networks and different situations can be handled by combining different approaches of carrying priority
information to ensure QoS and optimize use of resources, based on "building blocks" described above. Several
suggestions:
- the less number of filter rules in whole network, the better (faster) - try to classify packets only when necessary,
prefer to do that on fast routers as most probably connection tracking will be required.
- use DSCP to carry priority information in IP packets forwarded in your network, this way you can use it when
needed.
- use VLANs where necessary, as they also carry priority information, make sure ethernet bridges and switches in
the way, if any, are not clearing priority information in VLAN tag. In MT bridges you have to setup bridge firewall
rule to set priority from ingress priority for this!
- remember that QoS does not improve throughput of links, it just treats different packets differently, and also that
WMM traffic over wireless link will discriminate regular traffic in the air.

Manual:Spectral scan
Applies to RouterOS: v4.3+

The spectral scan can scan all frequencies supported by your wireless card, and plot them directly in
console. Exact frequency span depends on card. Allowed ranges on r52n: [4790; 6085], [2182; 2549].
Wireless card can generate 4us long spectral snapshots for any 20mhz wide channel. This is considered
a single spectral sample.
To improve data quality spectrum is scanned with 10mhz frequency increments, which means doubled sample
coverage at each specific frequency (considering 20mhz wide samples).
Currently this feature is supported only for Atheros Merlin chips. (ie. AR9220, AR9280, AR9223).
Currently tested models: RouterBOARD R52N and R2N only.

Console

Spectral History

/interface wireless spectral-history <wireless interface name>

Plots spectrogram. Legend and frequency ruler is printed every 24 lines. Numbers in the ruler correspond to the
value at their leftmost character position. Power values that fall in different ranges are printed as different colored
Manual:Spectral scan 214

characters with the same foreground and background color, so it is possible to copy and paste terminal output of this
command.
• value -- select value that is plotted on the output. 'interference' is special as it shows detected interference sources
(affected by 'classify-samples' parameter) instead of power readings, and cannot be made audible.
• interval -- interval at which spectrogram lines are printed.
• duration -- terminate command after specified time. default is indefinite.
• buckets -- how many values to show in each line of spectrogram. This value is limited by the number of columns
in terminal. It is useful to reduce this value if using 'audible'.
• average-samples -- Number of 4us spectral snapshots to take at each frequency, and calculate average and
maximum energy over them. (default 10)
• classify-samples -- Number of spectral snapshots taken at each frequency and processed by interference
classification algorithm. Generally more samples gives more chance to spot certain type of interference (default
50)
• range --
• 2.4ghz - scan whole 2.4ghz band
• 5ghz - scan whole 5ghz band
• current-channel - scan current channel only (20 or 40 mhz wide)
• range - scan specific range
• audible=yes -- play each line as it is printed. There is a short silence between lines. Each line is played from left
to right, with higher frequencies corresponding to higher values in the spectrogram.

Spectral Scan

/interface wireless spectral-scan <wireless interface name>

Manual:Spectral scan 215

Continuously monitor spectral data. This command uses the same data source as 'spectral-history', and thus shares
many parameters.
Each line displays one spectrogram bucket -- frequency, numeric value of power average, and a character graphic
bar. Bar shows average power value with ':' characters and average peak hold with '.' characters. Maximum is
displayed as a lone floating ':' character.
• show-interference -- add column that shows detected interference sources.
Types of possibly classified interference:
• bluetooth-headset
• bluetooth-stereo
• cordless-phone
• microwave-oven
• cwa
• video-bridge
• wifi

The Dude
The Dude is a free network monitoring and management program by MikroTik. You can download it here [1].
The Dude has a built-in capability to run graphical Spectral Scan from any of your RouterOS devices with a
supported wireless card. Simply select this device in your Dude map, right click and choose Tools -> Spectral Scan.

This will bring up the Spectral Scan GUI with various options and different view modes:
Manual:Spectral scan 216

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ thedude. php
Manual:Wireless Advanced Channels 217

Manual:Wireless Advanced Channels

Applies to RouterOS: v6

Overview
Note: This article describes features not yet available to general public. It's expected to be released in
RouterOS v6

Advanced Channels feature provides extended opportunities in wireless interface configuration:

• scan-list that covers multiple bands and channel widths;
• non-standard channel center frequencies (specified with KHz granularity) for hardware that
allows that;
• non-standard channel widths (specified with KHz granularity) for hardware that allows that.

Configuring Advanced Channels

Advanced Channels are configured in interface wireless channels menu. This menu contains ordered list of
user-defined channels that can be grouped by means of list property. Channels have the following properties:
• name - name by which this channel can be referred to. If name is not specified when adding channel, it will be
automatically generated from channel frequency and width;
• list - name of list this channel is part of. Lists can be used to group channels;
• frequency - channel center frequency in MHz, allowing to specify fractional MHz part, e.g. 5181.5;
• width - channel width in MHz, allowing to specify fractional MHz part, e.g. 14.5;
• band - defines default set of data rates when using this channel;
• extension-channel - specifies placement of 11n extension channel.

Using Advanced Channels

In order to use Advanced Channels in wireless interface configuration, several interface settings accept channel
names or list names as arguments. It is possible to configure interface with channel that interface does not support. In
this case interface will not become operational. It is sole responsibility of administrator to configure channels in
proper way.

frequency
To use particular Advanced Channel for wireless interface (applies to modes that make use of interface frequency
setting) specify channel name in interface frequency setting. For example, to configure interface to operate with
center frequency 5500MHz and channel width 14MHz, use the following commands:
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add name=MYCHAN frequency=5500 width=14 band=5ghz-onlyn

list=MYLIST

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> set wlan1 frequency=MYCHAN

Manual:Wireless Advanced Channels 218

scan-list
Interface scan-list is used in multiple modes that either gather information for list of channels (like interactive scan
command) or selects channel to work on (like any of station modes or AP modes performing DFS). Interface
scan-list can be configured with comma-separated list of the following items:
• default - default .11 channel list for given country and interface band and channel width;
• numeric frequency ranges in MHz;
• Advanced Channel, referred to by name;
• Advanced Channel list, referred to by list name.
For example, to configure interface to scan 5180MHz, 5200MHz and 5220MHz at first using channel width 20MHz
and then using channel width 10MHz, the following commands can be issued:
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5180 width=20 band=5ghz-a list=20MHz-list

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5200 width=20 band=5ghz-a list=20MHz-list

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5220 width=20 band=5ghz-a list=20MHz-list

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5180 width=10 band=5ghz-a list=10MHz-list

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5200 width=10 band=5ghz-a list=10MHz-list

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5220 width=10 band=5ghz-a list=10MHz-list

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> set wlan1 scan-list=20MHz-list,10MHz-list

Hardware support
Non standard center frequency and width channels can only be used with interfaces that support it.
Currently only Atheros AR92xx based chips support non-standard center frequencies and widths with the following
ranges:
• center frequency range: 2200MHz-2500MHz with step 0.5MHz (500KHz), width range: 2.5MHz-30MHz width
step 0.5MHz (500KHz);
• center frequency range: 4800MHz-6100MHz with step 0.5MHz (500KHz), width range: 2.5MHz-30MHz width
step 0.5MHz (500KHz);
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 219

Manual:Interface/HWMPplus
Applies to RouterOS: 3, v4

• Prerequisites for this article: you understand what WDS is and why to use it
• Software versions: 3.28+ (earlier versions are incompatible)

Overview
HWMP+ is a MikroTik specific layer-2 routing protocol for wireless mesh networks. It is based on Hybrid Wireless
Mesh Protocol (HWMP) from IEEE 802.11s draft standard. It can be used instead of (Rapid) Spanning Tree
protocols in mesh setups to ensure loop-free optimal routing.
The HWMP+ protocol however is not compatible with HWMP from IEEE 802.11s draft standard.
Note that the distribution system you use for your network need not to be Wireless Distribution System (WDS).
HWMP+ mesh routing supports not only WDS interfaces, but also Ethernet interfaces inside the mesh. So you can
use simple Ethernet based distribution system, or you can combine both WDS and Ethernet links!

Configuration

/interface mesh
Configure mesh interface.
admin-mac (MAC address, default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) -- administratively assigned MAC address, used when
auto-mac setting is disabled
arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; default: enabled) - address resolution protocol setting
auto-mac (boolean, default: no) -- if disabled, then value from admin-mac will be used as the MAC address of the
mesh interface; else address of some port will be used if ports are present
hwmp-default-hoplimit (integer: 1..255) -- maximum hop count for generated routing protocol packets; after a
HWMP+ packet is forwarded "hoplimit" times, it is dropped
hwmp-prep-lifetime (time, default: 5m) -- lifetime for routes created from received PREP or PREQ messages
hwmp-preq-destination-only (boolean, default: yes) -- whether only destination can respond to HWMP+ PREQ
message
hwmp-preq-reply-and-forward (boolean, default: yes) -- whether intermediate nodes should forward HWMP+
PREQ message after responding to it. Useful only when hwmp-preq-destination-only is disabled
hwmp-preq-retries (integer, default: 2) -- how much times to retry route discovery to a specific MAC address
before the address is considered unreachable
hwmp-preq-waiting-time (time, default: 4s) -- how long to wait for a response to the first PREQ message. Note that
for subsequent PREQs the waiting time is increased exponentially
hwmp-rann-interval (time, default: 10s) -- how often to send out HWMP+ RANN messages
hwmp-rann-lifetime (time, default: 1s) -- lifetime for routes created from received RANN messages
hwmp-rann-propagation-delay (number, default: 0.5) -- how long to wait before propagating a RANN message.
Value in seconds
mesh-portal (boolean, default: no) -- whether this interface is a portal in the mesh network
mtu (number, default: 1500) -- maximum transmit units
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 220

name (string) -- interface name

reoptimize-paths (boolean, default: no) -- whether to send out periodic PREQ messages asking for known MAC
addresses. Turing on this setting is useful if network topology is changing often. Note that if no reply is received to a
reoptimization PREQ, the existing path is kept anyway (until it timeouts itself)

/interface mesh port

Configure mesh interface ports.
hello-interval (time, default: 10s) -- maximum interval between sending out HWMP+ Hello messages. Used only
for Ethernet type ports
interface (interface name) -- interface name, which is to be included in a mesh
mesh (interface name) -- mesh interface this port belongs to
path-cost (integer: 0..65535; default: 10) -- path cost to the interface, used by routing protocol to determine the 'best'
path
port-type (WDS | auto | ethernet | wireless) -- port type to use
• auto - port type is determined automatically based on the underlying interface's type
• WDS - a Wireless Distribution System interface, kind of point-to-point wireless link. Remote MAC address is
known from wireless connection data
• ethernet - Remote MAC addresses are learned either from HWMP+ Hello messages or from source MAC
addresses in received or forwarded traffic
• wireless - Remote MAC addresses are known from wireless connection data
active-port-type (read-only, wireless | WDS | ethernet-mesh | ethernet-bridge | ethernet-mixed) -- port type and state
actually used

/interface mesh fdb

Read-only status of the mesh interface Forwarding Database (FDB).
mac-address (MAC address) -- MAC address corresponding for this FDB entry
seq-number (integer) -- sequence number used in routing protocol to avoid loops
type (local | outsider | direct | mesh | neighbor | larval | unknown) -- type of this FDB entry
• local -- MAC address belongs to the local router itself
• outsider -- MAC address belongs to a device external to the mesh network
• direct -- MAC address belongs to a wireless client on an interface that is in the mesh network
• mesh -- MAC address belongs to a device reachable over the mesh network; it can be either internal or external to
the mesh network
• neighbor -- MAC address belongs to a mesh router that is direct neighbor to this router
• larval -- MAC address belongs to an unknown device that is reachable over the mesh network
• unknown -- MAC address belongs to an unknown device
mesh (interface name) -- the mesh interface this FDB entry belongs to
on-interface (interface name) -- mesh port used for traffic forwarding, kind of a next-hop value
lifetime (time) -- time remaining to live if this entry is not used for traffic forwarding
age (time) -- age of this FDB entry
metric (integer) -- metric value used by routing protocol to determine the 'best' path
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 221

Additional wireless configuration

Use wds-default-cost and wds-cost-range wireless interface parameters for controlling the metric that is used in the
routing protocol. The WDS cost will be used as path-cost for ports dynamically added to the mesh interface.

Example

This example uses static WDS links that are dynamically added as mesh ports when they become active. Two
different frequencies are used: one for AP interconnections, and one for client connections to APs, so the AP must
have at least two wireless interfaces. Of course, the same frequency for all connections also could be used, but that
might not work as good because of potential interference issues.
Repeat this configuration on all APs:
/interface mesh add disabled=no

/interface mesh port add interface=wlan1 mesh=mesh1

/interface mesh port add interface=wlan2 mesh=mesh1

# interface used for AP interconnections

/interface wireless set wlan1 disabled=no ssid=mesh frequency=2437 band=2.4ghz-b/g mode=ap-bridge \

wds-mode=static-mesh wds-default-bridge=mesh1

# interface used for client connections

/interface wireless set wlan2 disabled=no ssid=mesh-clients frequency=5180 band=5ghz mode=ap-bridge

# a static WDS interface for each AP you want to connect to

Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 222

/interface wireless wds add disabled=no master-interface=wlan1 name=<descriptive name of remote end> \

wds-address=<MAC address of remote end>

Here WDS interface is added manually, because static WDS mode is used. If you are using
wds-mode=dynamic-mesh, all WDS interfaces will be created automatically. The frequency and band parameters
are specified here only to produce valid example configuration; mesh protocol operations is by no means limited to,
or optimized for, these particular values.
Note: You may want to increase disconnect-timeout wireless interface option to make the protocol more
stable.

In real world setups you also should take care of securing the wireless connections, using
/interface wireless security-profile. For simplicity that configuration it's not shown here.
Results on router A (there is one client is connected to wlan2):

[admin@A] > /interface mesh pr

Flags: X - disabled, R - running

0 R name="mesh1" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:0C:42:0C:B5:A4 auto-mac=yes

admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 mesh-portal=no hwmp-default-hoplimit=32

hwmp-preq-waiting-time=4s hwmp-preq-retries=2 hwmp-preq-destination-only=yes

hwmp-preq-reply-and-forward=yes hwmp-prep-lifetime=5m hwmp-rann-interval=10s

hwmp-rann-propagation-delay=1s hwmp-rann-lifetime=22s

[admin@A] > interface mesh port p detail

Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic

0 interface=wlan1 mesh=mesh1 path-cost=10 hello-interval=10s port-type=auto port-type-used=wireless

1 interface=wlan2 mesh=mesh1 path-cost=10 hello-interval=10s port-type=auto port-type-used=wireless

2 D interface=router_B mesh=mesh1 path-cost=105 hello-interval=10s port-type=auto port-type-used=WDS

3 D interface=router_D mesh=mesh1 path-cost=76 hello-interval=10s port-type=auto port-type-used=WDS

The FDB (Forwarding Database) at the moment contains information only about local MAC addresses, non-mesh
nodes reachable through local interface, and direct mesh neighbors:

[admin@A] /interface mesh> fdb print

Flags: A - active, R - root
MESH TYPE MAC-ADDRESS ON-INTERFACE LIFETIME AGE
A mesh1 local 00:0C:42:00:00:AA 3m17s
A mesh1 neighbor 00:0C:42:00:00:BB router_B 1m2s
A mesh1 neighbor 00:0C:42:00:00:DD router_D 3m16s
A mesh1 direct 00:0C:42:0C:7A:2B wlan2 2m56s
A mesh1 local 00:0C:42:0C:B5:A4 2m56s

[admin@A] /interface mesh> fdb print detail

Flags: A - active, R - root
A mac-address=00:0C:42:00:00:AA type=local age=3m21s mesh=mesh1 metric=0
seqnum=4294967196
A mac-address=00:0C:42:00:00:BB type=neighbor on-interface=router_B age=1m6s
mesh=mesh1 metric=132 seqnum=4294967196
A mac-address=00:0C:42:00:00:DD type=neighbor on-interface=router_D age=3m20s
mesh=mesh1 metric=79 seqnum=4294967196
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 223

A mac-address=00:0C:42:0C:7A:2B type=direct on-interface=wlan2 age=3m mesh=mesh1

metric=10 seqnum=0
A mac-address=00:0C:42:0C:B5:A4 type=local age=3m mesh=mesh1 metric=0 seqnum=0

Test that ping works:

[admin@A] > /ping 00:0C:42:00:00:CC

00:0C:42:00:00:CC 64 byte ping time=108 ms
00:0C:42:00:00:CC 64 byte ping time=51 ms
00:0C:42:00:00:CC 64 byte ping time=39 ms
00:0C:42:00:00:CC 64 byte ping time=43 ms
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 39/60.2/108 ms

Router A had to discover path to Router C first, hence the slightly larger time for the first ping. Now the FDB also
contains an entry for 00:0C:42:00:00:CC, with type "mesh".
Also test that ARP resolving works and so does IP level ping:

[admin@A] > /ping 10.4.0.3

10.4.0.3 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=163 ms
10.4.0.3 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=46 ms
10.4.0.3 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=48 ms
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 46/85.6/163 ms

Mesh traceroute
There is also mesh traceroute command, that can help you to determine which paths are used for routing.
For example, for this network:

[admin@1] /interface mesh> fdb print

Flags: A - active, R - root
MESH TYPE MAC-ADDRESS ON-INTERFACE LIFETIME AGE
A mesh1 local 00:0C:42:00:00:01 7m1s
A mesh1 mesh 00:0C:42:00:00:02 wds4 17s 4s
A mesh1 mesh 00:0C:42:00:00:12 wds4 4m58s 1s
A mesh1 mesh 00:0C:42:00:00:13 wds4 19s 2s
A mesh1 neighbor 00:0C:42:00:00:16 wds4 7m1s
A mesh1 mesh 00:0C:42:00:00:24 wds4 18s 3s

Traceroute to 00:0C:42:00:00:12 shows:

[admin@1] /interface mesh> traceroute mesh1 00:0C:42:00:00:12

ADDRESS TIME STATUS
00:0C:42:00:00:16 1ms ttl-exceeded
00:0C:42:00:00:02 2ms ttl-exceeded
00:0C:42:00:00:24 4ms ttl-exceeded
00:0C:42:00:00:13 6ms ttl-exceeded
00:0C:42:00:00:12 6ms success
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 224

Protocol description

Reactive mode

Router A wants to discover path to C

Router C sends unicast response to A

Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 225

In reactive mode HWMP+ is very much like AODV (Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector). All path are discovered
on demand, by flooding Path Request (PREQ) message in the network. The destination node or some router that has
a path to the destionation will reply with a Path Response (PREP). Note that if the destination address belongs to a
client, the AP this client is connected to will serve as proxy for him (i.e. reply to PREQs on his behalf).
This mode is best suited for mobile networks, and/or when most of the communication happens between intra-mesh
nodes.

Proactive mode

The root announces itself by flooding RANN

Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 226

Internal nodes respond with PREGs

In proactive mode there are some routers configured as portals. In general being a portal means that router has
interfaces to some other network,, i.e. it is entry/exit point to the mesh network.
The portals will announce their presence by flooding Root Announcement (RANN) message in the network. Internal
nodes will reply with a Path Registration (PREG) message. The result of this process will be routing trees with roots
in the portal.
Routes to portals will serve as a kind of default routes. If an internal router does not know path to a particular
destination, it will forward all data to its closest portal. The portal will then discover path on behalf of the router, if
needed. The data afterwards will flow through the portal. This may lead to suboptimal routing, unless the data is
addressed to the portal itself or some external network the portals has interfaces to.
Proactive mode is best suited when most of traffic goes between internal mesh nodes and a few portal nodes.
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 227

Topology change detection

Data flow path

After link disappears, error is propagated upstream

HWMP+ uses Path Error (PERR) message to notify that a link has disappeared. The message is propagated to all
upstream nodes up to the data source. The source on PERR reception restarts path discovery process.

FAQ
Q. How is this better than RSTP?
A. It gives you optimal routing. RSTP is only for loop prevention.
Q. How the route selection is done?
A. The route with best metric is always selected after the discovery process. There is also a configuration option to
periodically reoptimize already known routes.
Route metric is calculated as sum of individual link metrics.
Link metric is calculated in the same way as for (R)STP protocols:
• For Ethernet links the metric is configured statically (like for OSPF, for example).
• For WDS links the metric is updated dynamically depending on actual link bandwidth, which in turn is influenced
by wireless signal strength, and the selected data transfer rate.
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 228

Currently the protocol does not take in account the amount of bandwidth being used on a link, but that might be also
used in future.
Q. How is this better than OSPF/RIP/layer-3 routing in general?
A. WDS networks usually are bridged, not routed. The ability to self-configure is important for mesh networks; and
routing generally requires much more configuration than bridging. Of you course, you always can run any L3 routing
protocol over a bridged network, but for mesh networks that usually makes little sense.
Note: Since optimized layer-2 multicast forwarding is not included mesh protocol, it is better to avoid
forwarding any multicast traffic (including OSPF) over meshed networks. If you need OSPF, then you have
to configure OSPF NBMA neighbors that uses unicast instead.

Q. What about performance/CPU requirements?

A. The protocol itself, when properly configured, will take much less resources than OSPF (for
example) would. Data forwarding performance on an individual router should be close to that of bridging.
Q. How does it work together with existing mesh setups that are using RSTP?
A. The internal structure of a RSTP network is transparent to the mesh protocol (because mesh hello packets are
forwarded inside RSTP network). The mesh will see the path between two entry points in the RSTP network as a
single segment. On the other hand, a mesh network is not transparent to the RSTP, since RSTP hello packets are not
be forwarded inside the mesh network. (This is the behaviour since 3.26)
Warning: Routing loops are possible, if a mesh network is attached to a RSTP network in two or more
points!

Note that if you have a WDS link between two access points, then both ends must have the same
configuration (either as ports in a mesh on both ends, or as ports in a bridge interface on both
ends).
You can also put a bridge interface as a mesh port (to be able to use bridge firewall, for example).
Q. Can I have multiple entry/exit points to the network?
A. If the entry/exit points are configured as portals (i.e. proactive mode is used), each router inside the mesh network
will select its closest portal and forward all data to it. The portal will then discover path on behalf of the router, if
needed.
Q. How to control or filter mesh traffic?
A. At the moment the only way is to use bridge firewall. Create a bridge interface, put the WDS interfaces and/or
Ethernets in that bridge, and put that bridge in a mesh interface. Then configure bridge firewall rules.
To match MAC protocol used for mesh traffic encapsulation, use MAC protocol number 0x9AAA, and to mathc
mesh routing tafffic, use MAC protocol number 0x9AAB. Example:

interface bridge settings set use-ip-firewall=yes

interface bridge filter add chain=input action=log mac-protocol=0x9aaa
interface bridge filter add chain=input action=log mac-protocol=0x9aab

Note that it is perfectly possible to create mixed mesh/bridge setups that will not work (e.g. Problematic example 1
with bridge instead of switch). The recommended fail-safe way that will always work is to create a separate bridge
interface per each physical interfaces; then add all these bridge interfaces as mesh ports.
Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 229

Advanced topics

We all know that it's easy to make problematic layer-2 bridging or routing setups and hard to debug them. (Compared to layer-3 routing setups.)
So there are a few bad configuration examples which could create problems for you. Avoid them!

Problematic example 1: Ethernet switch inside a mesh

Router A is outside the mesh, all the rest of routers: inside. For routers B, C, D all interfaces are added as mesh ports.

Router A will not be able to communicate reliably with router C. The problem manifests itself when D is the designated router for Ethernet; if B
takes this role, everything is OK. The main cause of the problem is MAC address learning on Ethernet switch.

Consider what happens when router A wants to send something to C. We suppose router A either knowns or floods data to all interfaces. Either
way, data arrives at switch. The switch, not knowing anything about destination's MAC address, forwards to data both to B and D.

What happens now:

1. B receives the packet on a mesh interface. Since the MAC address is not local for B, and B knows that he is not the designated router for the
Ethernet network, he simply ignores the packet.
2. D receives the packet on a mesh interface. Since the MAC address is not local for B, and D is the designated router for the Ethernet network,
he initiates path discovery process to C.

After path discovery is completed, D has information that C is reachable over B. Now D encapsulates the packet and forwards back to Ethernet
network. The encapsulated packet forwarded by switch, received and forwarded by B, and received by C. So far everything is good.

Now C is likely to respond to the packet. Since B already knows where A is, he will decapsulate and forward the reply packet. But now switch
will learn that the MAC address of C is reachable through B! That means, next time when something arrives from A addressed to C, the switch
will forward data only to B. (And B, of course, will silently ignore the packet).

In contrast, if B took up the role of designated router, everything would be OK, because traffic would not have to go through the Ethernet switch
twice.

Troubleshooting: either avoid such setup or disable MAC address learning on the switch. Note that on many switches it's not possible.

Also note that there will be no problem, if either:

• router A supports and is configured to use HWMP+;

Manual:Interface/HWMPplus 230

• or Ethernet switch is replaced with and router that supports HWMP+ and has Ethernet interfaces added as mesh ports.

Problematic example 2: wireless modes

Consider this setup (invalid):

Routers A and B are inside the mesh, routers C: outside. For routers A and B all interfaces are added as mesh ports.

It is not possible to bridge wlan1 and wlan2 on router B now. The reason for this is pretty obvious if you understand how WDS works. For WDS
communications four address frames are used. This is because for wireless multihop forwarding you need to know both the addresses of
intermediate hops, as well as the original sender and final receiver. In contrast, non-WDS 802.11 communication includes only three MAC
addresses in a frame. That's why it's not possible to do multihop forwarding in station mode.

Troubleshooting: depends on what you want to achieve:

1. If you want to router C as a repeater either for wireless or Ethernet traffic, configure WDS link between router B and router C, and run mesh
routing protocol on all nodes.
2. In other cases configure wlan2 on router B in AP mode, and wlan on router C in station mode.

See also:
• A presentation about mesh networks and MikroTik (in Portuguese) [1]

References
[1] http:/ / mum. mikrotik. com/ presentations/ BR08/ Brasil_Mesh_Maia. pdf
Manual:Making a simple wireless AP 231

Manual:Making a simple wireless AP

This article will show a very quick overview for beginners on setting up a Wireless Access Point in RouterOS
Winbox graphical configuration tool.

Requirements
• a router running RouterOS loaded with supported miniPCI wireless cards
• a connection to the router via the Winbox utility

Instructions
Start by opening the Wireless Interface window in Winbox. You will see some wireless cards listed here, they might
be disabled - to turn them on, click on the blue Enable button. Make sure that the interface is configured and the
antennas are connected before you enable an interface.

•
To configure an interface, double-click it's name, and the config window will appear. To set the device as an AP,
choose "ap bridge" mode. You can also set other things, like the desired band, frequency, SSID (the AP identifier)
and the security profile.
Manual:Making a simple wireless AP 232

•
You probably want your AP to be secure, so you need to configure WPA2 security. Close the wireless setting
window with OK if you are done, and move to the Security Profiles tab of the Wireless interface window. There,
make a new profile with the Add button and set desired WPA2 settings. You can choose this new security profile
back in the Interface configuration.

•
Manual:Making a simple wireless AP 233

To see if any stations are connected to your AP, go to the Registration Table tab in the Wireless Interface window.

•
Just connecting is probaly not enough, as your AP needs an IP address. This can be configured in the IP menu. Make
sure that your stations also have IP addresses from the same subnet, or set up a DHCP server in this Router (not
covered in this tutorial).

•
If your ISP doesn't know about your new local network and hasn't set up proper routes to it, you need to configure
SRC-NAT so that your stations have access to the internet via their private IP addresses. They will be masqueraded
by the router's NAT functionality (not covered in this tutorial)
Manual:Making a simple wireless AP 234

Manual:Wireless FAQ
Settings
Why I can't connect to MikroTik 802.11n AP with Apple Mac devices?
This problem is only seen on Mac devices based on Broadcom wireless chipsets. In order to connect with such
wireless device to MikroTik 802.11n AP make sure that you don't use 'short' preamble-mode. Use 'long' or 'both'
preamble-mode and Mac wireless devices will be able to connect.

By changing some wireless settings the wireless link works unstable

Sometimes when you change some wireless setting for tuning the links you got so far that the link isn't establishing
any more or works unstable and you don't remember what settings you had in the beginning. In this case you can use
the reset-configuration command in the wireless menu - it will reset the all the wireless settings for the specific
wireless interface and you will be able to configure the interface from the start. Note that executing this command
also disables the interface, so please be careful not to execute this command if you are configuring router remotely
using that wireless link that you want to reset the configuration.

What are wireless retransmits and where to check them?

Wireless retransmission is when the card sends out a frame and you don't receive back the acknowledgment (ACK),
you send out the frame once more till you get back the acknowledgment. Wireless retransmits can increase the
latency and also lower the throughput of the wireless link. To check if the wireless connection has wireless
retransmissions you need to compare two fields in the wireless registration table: frames and hw-frames. If the
hw-frames value is bigger than frames value then it means that the wireless link is making retransmissions. If the
difference is not so big, it can be ignored, but if the hw-frames count it two, three or four times or even bigger than
the frames count then you need to troubleshoot this wireless connection.
Manual:Wireless FAQ 235

Can I compare frames with hw-frames also on Nstreme links?

The frames counts only those which contain actual data. In case of Nstreme, only the ACK can be transmitted in a
single frame, if there is no other data to send. These ACK frames will not be added to the frames count, but they will
appear at hw-frames. If there is traffic on both directions at maximum speed (eg. there will be no only-ack frames),
then you can't compare frames to hw-frames as in case of regular wireless links.

What TX-power values can I use?

The tx-power default setting is the maximum tx-power that the card can use and is taken from the cards eeprom. If
you want to use larger tx-power values, you are able to set them, but do it at your own risk, as it will probably
damage your card eventually! Usually, one should use this parameter only to reduce the tx-power.
In general tx-power controlling properties should be left at the default settings. Changing the default setting may
help with some cards in some situations, but without testing, the most common result is degradation of range and
throughput. Some of the problems that may occur are:
• overheating of the power amplifier chip and the card which will cause lower efficiency and more data errors;
• overdriving the amplifier which will cause more data errors;
• excessive power usage for the card and this may overload the 3.3V power supply of the board that the card is
located on resulting in voltage drop and reboot or excessive temperatures for the board.

What TX-power-mode is the best?

TX-power-mode tells the wireless card which tx-power values should be used. By default this setting is set to default.
• default means that the card will use the tx-power values from the cards eeprom and will ignore the setting what is
specified by the user in the tx-power field.
• card-rates means that for different data rates the tx-power is calculated according the cards transmit power
algorithm from the cards eeprom and as an argument it takes tx-power value specified by the user.
• all-rates-fixed means that that the card will use one tx-power value for all data rates which is specified by the
user in tx-power field.
Note that it is not recommended to use 'all-rates-fixed' mode as the wireless card tx-power for the higher data rates is
lower and by forcing to use the fixed tx-power rates also for the higher data rates might results the same problems
like in the previous question about tx-power setting. For most of the cases if you want to change the tx-power
settings it is recommended to use the tx-power-mode=card-rates and it is recommended to lower and not to raise
tx-power.

What is CCQ and how are the values determined?

Client Connection Quality (CCQ) is a value in percent that shows how effective the bandwidth is used regarding the
theoretically maximum available bandwidth. CCQ is weighted average of values Tmin/Treal, that get calculated for
every transmitted frame, where Tmin is time it would take to transmit given frame at highest rate with no retries and
Treal is time it took to transmit frame in real life (taking into account necessary retries it took to transmit frame and
transmit rate).

What is hw-retries setting?

Number of times sending frame is retried without considering it a transmission failure. Data rate is decreased upon
failure and frame is sent again. Three sequential failures on lowest supported rate suspend transmission to this
destination for the duration of on-fail-retry-time. After that, frame is sent again. The frame is being retransmitted
until transmission success, or until client is disconnected after disconnect-timeout. Frame can be discarded during
this time if frame-lifetime is exceeded. In case of Nstreme "on-fail-retry-time", "disconnect-timeout" and
"frame-lifetime" settings are not used. So after three sequential failures on lowest supported rate the wireless link is
Manual:Wireless FAQ 236

disconnected with "extensive data loss" message.

What is disconnect-timeout setting?

This interval is measured from third sending failure on the lowest data rate. At this point 3 * (hw-retries + 1) frame
transmits on the lowest data rate had failed. During disconnect-timeout packet transmission will be retried with
on-fail-retry-time interval. If no frame can be transmitted successfully during disconnect-timeout, connection is
closed, and this event is logged as "extensive data loss". Successful frame transmission resets this timer.

What is adaptive-noise-immunity setting?

Adaptive Noise Immunity (ANI) adjusts various receiver parameters dynamically to minimize interference and noise
effect on the signal quality [1] This setting is added in the wireless driver for Atheros AR5212 and newer chipset
cards

How does wireless device measure signal strength, when access-list or connect-list are used ?
Reported signal level is exponentially weighted moving average with smoothing factor 50%.

What error correction methods are supported in the RouterOS wireless?

ARQ method is supported in nstreme protocols. Regular 802.11 standard does not include ARQ - retrasmission of
corrupt frames is based on acknowledgement protocol. RouterOS supports forward error correction coding
(convolutional coding) with coding rates: 1/2, 2/3, or 3/4.

Setups
Will an amplifier improve the speed on my link?
It depends on your signal quality and noise. Remember that you can probably get a better link with low output power
setting, and a good antenna. Amplifier increases the noise and will only cause problems with the link.
The amplifier gets a boost on both the transmitted and received signal. Thus, in "silent" areas, where you are alone
or with very few "noise" or "competition", you might get excellent results. On the other side, in crowded areas, with
lots of wireless activity, you will also increase signal received from every other competitor or noise source, which
may dramatically lower the overall quality of the link. Also, take in account the EIRP to see if your link remains in
legal limits.
You could also get better signal on "11b only" radios, which see most of 802.11g as "noise", thus filtering better the
usable signal.

How to fine-tune the wireless link with hw-retries?

You should understand that for 802.11 devices there is really limited amount of information (or "feedback" from the
environment) that devices can use to tune their behavior:
• signal strength, which could be used to figure out best transmit rate knowing receiver sensitivity. Sill this is not
reliable taking into account that sensitivity for different receivers varies (e.g. changes over time), path conditions
are not symmetric (and device can only measure signal strength it receives), etc.
• by receiving/not receiving acknowledgment for frame sent.
Taking into account that using signal strength is not reliable, 802.11 device is essentially left with only one
"feedback" to tune its operation - success/failure of transmission. When transmission fails (ACK not received in
time), there is no way how sender can figure out why it failed - either because of noise, multipath, direct interference
(and wether that disturbed actual data frame or the ACK itself) - frame just did not make it and in general it does not
matter "why". All that matters is packet error rate.
Manual:Wireless FAQ 237

Therefore RouterOS implements algorithm to try to use medium most efficiently in any environment by using only
this limited information, giving users the ability to control how algorithm works and describing the algorithm. And
there are only a few usage guidelines, not a set of values you should use in particular situation.
In general - the larger hw-retries, the better "feedback" device gets about medium ability to deliver frame at
particular rate (e.g. if sending frame with rate 54mbps fails 16 times, it is telling you more than if it fails with 2
retries) and the better it can figure out optimal transmit rate, at the expense of latency it can introduce in network -
because during all those failing retries, other devices in this channel can not send. So bigger hw-retries can be
suggested for ptp backbone links - where it is known that link must be always on. Less hw-retries make rate
selection adapt faster at the expense of some accuracy (going below 2 is not reasonable in most cases), this can be
suggested for ptmp links, where it is normal for links to connect/disconnect and keeping latency down is important.
on-fail-retry-time and disconnect-timeout controls how hard device will try to consider remote party "connected".
Larger disconnect-timeout will make device not "disconnect" other party, even if there are lots of loss at the smallest
possible transmission rate. This again is most useful for "weak" links that are known that they "must" be established
(e.g. backbone links). In ptmp networks large disconnect-timeout will again increase latency in network during the
time e.g. AP will attempt to send data to some client that has just been disabled (AP will try to do this for whole
disconnect-timeout).
frame-lifetime allows to tune for how long AP is attempting to use frame for transmitting before considering that it is
not worth delivering it (for example, if sending frame fails at lowest possible rate, on-fail-retry-time timer is enabled,
if during this timer frame-lifetime expires, particular frame is dropped and next transmission attempt will happen
with next frame. Disabled frame-lifetime means that wireless will ensure in order delivery of "all" data frames, no
matter how long it takes, "or" will drop the connection if everything fails). This allows to optimize for different types
of traffic e.g. for real-time traffic - if primary use of wireless network is e.g. voip, then it can be reasonable to limit
frame-lifetime, because voip tolerates small loss better than high latency.

Is it possible to use the wireless repeater only with one radio interface?
This setup it possible by using WDS on the wireless interface which is running in ap-bridge mode.

Nv2 wireless link disconnects very often

When Nv2 wireless link experiences disconnections and in log section most of the messages are 'control frame
timeout', then make sure that the router's RouterOS version is at least v5.14. v5.14 introduced several improvements
for the Nv2 wireless protocol. Second suggestion is to lower the transmit output power of the wireless cards if the
signal of the link is strong. We suggest to use tx-power-mode=card-rates for lowering the tx-power of the wireless
card. If the problem continues try to use different wireless frequency that might have less interference. If that also
didn't help, please contact [email protected] with a support output file from the effected AP and the Station
which are made after those disconnections.

References
[1] http:/ / www. patentstorm. us/ patents/ 7349503. html
Manual:Wireless Debug Logs 238

Manual:Wireless Debug Logs

Debugging wireless problems using Logs.
By default RouterOS wireless log shows that client connects and disconnects as simple entries:

22:32:18 wireless,info 00:80:48:41:AF:2A@wlan1: connected

It is enough for regular users to know that the wireless client with MAC address "00:80:48:41:AF:2A" is connected
to wireless interface "wlan1". But actually there are more log entries available than are shown in standard logging.
They are called 'debug' logs which give more detailed information. In the following Debug Log example you will see
the same client connecting to the AP in more detail than found in typical logging:

22:33:20 wireless,debug wlan1: 00:80:48:41:AF:2A attempts to connect

22:33:20 wireless,debug wlan1: 00:80:48:41:AF:2A not in local ACL, by default accept
22:33:20 wireless,info 00:80:48:41:AF:2A@wlan1: connected

Debug Logs will give you more specific informantion on each step of the Client wireless connection and
disconnection. The first line shows that the wireless client tried to connect to the AP. On the second line the AP
checked to see if that client is allowed to connect to the AP and the resulting action. And only on the third line do
you see that the client is connected. This is merely one example of the debug log messages. The description of all
debug entries is written below.
To enable the wireless debug logs you should execute such commands:

[admin@MikroTik] > /system logging

[admin@MikroTik] system logging> add topics=wireless,debug action=memory

Or in Winbox:

This will help you understand and fix wireless problems with ease and with less interaction with the support team.
Manual:Wireless Debug Logs 239

STATION MODE
<MAC>@<DEV>: lost connection, <REASON>
Station has lost connection to AP because of <REASON>
<MAC>@<DEV>: failed to connect, <REASON>
Station attempted to connect to AP, but failed due to <REASON>
<MAC>@<DEV>: established connection on <FREQ>, SSID <SSID>
Station attempted and succesfully connected to AP with SSID <SSID> on frequency <FREQ>.
<MAC>@<DEV>: MIC failure!!!
TKIP message integrity check failure, somebody must be trying to break into or DOS network, If more than 1 MIC
failure is encountered during 60s period, "TKIP countermeasures" state is entered.
<MAC>@<DEV>: enter TKIP countermeasures
Entered TKIP countermeasures state, this means that Station will disconnect from AP and keep silence for 60s.

AP MODE
<DEV>: radar detected on <FREQ>
Radar detected on frequency <FREQ>, AP will look for other channel
<DEV>: data from unknown device <MAC>, sent deauth [(XXX events suppressed, YYY deauths
suppressed)]
Data frame from unknown device (read - not registered to this AP) with mac address <MAC> received, AP sent
deauthentication frame to it (as per 802.11). XXX is number of events that are not logged so that the log does not
become too large (logs are limited to 1 entry per 5s after first 5 entries), YYY is the number of deauthentication
frames that should have been sent, but were not sent, so that resources are not wasted sending too many
deauthentication frames (only 10 deauth frames per second are allowed).
The likely cause of such a message is that the Station previously connected to the AP, which does not yet know it has
been dropped from AP registration table, sending data to AP. Deauthentication message tells the Station that it is no
longer connected.
<DEV>: denying assoc to <MAC>, failed to setup compression
Failed to initialize compression on AP, most likely because there are too many clients attempting to connect and use
compression.
<DEV>: <MAC> is new WDS master
WDS slave has established connection to WDS master, this means that WDS slave starts accepting clients and acting
as AP.
<DEV>: <MAC> was WDS master
This message appears after connection with <MAC> is lost, means that WDS slave will disconnect all clients and
start scanning to find new WDS master.
<MAC>@<DEV>: connected [, is AP][, wants WDS]
Station with address <MAC> connected. if "is AP" present - remote device is AP, if "is WDS" presents, remote
device wants to establish WDS link.
<MAC>@<DEV>: disconnected, <REASON>
Connection with Station with address <MAC> terminated due to <REASON>
<DEV>: TKIP countermeasures over, resuming
Manual:Wireless Debug Logs 240

TKIP countermeasures (60s silence period) over, AP resumes acting as AP.

<DEV>: starting TKIP countermeasures
Entering TKIP countermeasures state (60s silence period), all clients will be lost.

<REASON>
"joining failed" - can only happen on Prism cards in station mode, failed to connect to AP due to some reason
"join timeout" - happens on Station, failed to synchronize to AP (receive first beacon frame). Most likely weak
signal, remote turned off, strong interference, some other RF related issue that makes communication impossible.
"no beacons" - no beacons received from remote end of WDS link. Most likely weak signal, remote turned off,
strong interference, some other RF related issue that makes communication impossible.
"extensive data loss" - local interface decided to drop connection to remote device because of inability to send data
to remote after multiple failures at lowest possible rate. Possible causes - too weak signal, remote device turned off,
strong interference, some other RF related issue that makes communication impossible.
"decided to deauth, <802.11 reason>" - local interface decided do deauthenticate remote device using 802.11
reason <802.11 reason>.
"inactivity" - remote device was inactive for too long
"device disabled" - local interface got disabled
"got deauth, <802.11 reason>" - received deauthentication frame from remote device, 802.11 reason code is
reported in <802.11 reason>
"got disassoc, <802.11 reason>" - received disassociation frame from remote device, 802.11 reason code is
reported in <802.11 reason>
"auth frame from AP" - authentication frame from remote device that is known to be AP, most likely mode
changes on remote device from AP to Station.
"bad ssid" - bad ssid for WDS link
"beacon from non AP" - received beacon frame from remote device that is known to be non-AP node, most likely
mode changes on remote device from Station to AP.
"no WDS support" - does not report WDS support
"failed to confirm SSID" - failed to confirm SSID of other end of WDS link.
"hardware failure" - some hardware failure or unexpected behaviour. Not likely to be seen.
"lost connection" - can only happen on Prism cards in station mode, connection to AP lost due to some reason.
"auth failed <802.11 status>" - happens on Station, AP denies authentication, 802.11 status code is reported in
<802.11 status>.
"assoc failed <802.11 status>" - happens on Station, AP denies association, 802.11 status code is reported in
<802.11 status>.
"auth timeout" - happens on Station, Station does not receive response to authentication frames, either bad link or
AP is ignoring this Station for some reason.
"assoc timeout" - happens on Station, Station does not receive response to association frames, either bad link or AP
is ignoring this Station for some reason.
"reassociating" - happens on AP: connection assumed to be lost, because Station that is considered already
associated attempts to associate again. All connection related information must be deleted, because during
association process connection parameters are negotiated (therefore "disconnected"). The reason why Station
reassociates must be looked for on Station (most likely cause is that Station for some reason dropped connection
Manual:Wireless Debug Logs 241

without telling AP - e.g. data loss, configuration changes).

"compression setup failure" - connection impossible, because not enough resources to do compression (too many
stations that want to use compression already connected)

<802.11 reason> and <802.11 status>

These are numeric reason/status codes encoded into 802.11 management messages. Log messages include numeric
code and textual description from appropriate standard in 802.11 standards group. Although these are intended to be
as descriptive as possible, it must be taken into account that actual reason/status code that appears in management
frames depends solely on equipment or software manufacturer - where one device sends 802.11 management frame
including proper reason/status code for situation that caused the frame, other may send frame with "unspecified"
reason/status code. Therefore reason/status code should only be considered informational.
As 802.11 standards evolve, RouterOS may miss textual descriptions for reason/status codes that some devices use.
In such case numeric value should be used to lookup meaning in 802.11 standards.
In order to properly interpret reason/status code, good understanding of 802.11 group standards is necessary. Most of
the textual descriptions are self-explaining. Explanation for some of most commonly seen reson/status codes follows.
class 2 frame received (6) - device received "class 2" frame (association/reassociation management frame) before
completing 802.11 authentication process;
class 3 frame received (7) - device received "class 3" frame (data frame) before completing association process;

See Also
• Management Frames and Connection/Disconnection messages [1] by GTHill.com

References
[1] http:/ / www. gthill. com/ managementframes. pdf
Manual:Interface/VLAN 242

Manual:Interface/VLAN
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface vlan
Standards: IEEE 802.1Q [1]
Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is layer 2 method that allows you to have multiple Virtual LANs on a single
physical interface (ethernet, wireless, etc.), giving the ability to segregate LANs efficiently.
You can use MikroTik RouterOS (as well as Cisco IOS, Linux and other router systems) to mark these packets as
well as to accept and route marked ones.
As VLAN works on OSI Layer 2, it can be used just as any other network interface without any restrictions. VLAN
successfully passes through regular Ethernet bridges.
You can also transport VLANs over wireless links and put multiple VLAN interfaces on a single wireless interface.
Note that as VLAN is not a full tunnel protocol (i.e., it does not have additional fields to transport MAC addresses of
sender and recipient), the same limitation applies to bridging over VLAN as to bridging plain wireless interfaces. In
other words, while wireless clients may participate in VLANs put on wireless interfaces, it is not possible to have
VLAN put on a wireless interface in station mode bridged with any other interface.

802.1Q
The most commonly used protocol for Virtual LANs (VLANs) is IEEE 802.1Q. It is standardized encapsulation
protocol that defines how to insert a four-byte VLAN identifier into Ethernet header. (see Figure 12.1.)

Each VLAN is treated as separate subnet. It means that, by default, host in specific VLAN cannot communicate with
host that is member of another VLAN, although they are connected in the same switch. So if you want inter-VLAN
communication you need a router. RouterOS supports up to 4095 VLAN interfaces, each with a unique VLAN ID,
per interface. VLAN priorites may also be used and manipulated.
When the VLAN extends over more than one switch, the inter-switch link have to become trunk, where packets are
tagged to indicate which VLAN they belong to. A trunk carries the traffic of multiple VLANs, it is like a
point-to-point link that carries tagged packets between switches or between a switch and router.
Manual:Interface/VLAN 243

Q-in-Q
Original 802.1Q allows only one vlan header, Q-in-Q in the other hand allows two or more vlan headers. In
RouterOS Q-in-Q can be configured by adding one vlan interface over another. Example:

/interface vlan
add name=vlan1 vlan-id=11 interface=ether1
add name=vlan2 vlan-id=12 interface=vlan1

If any packet is sent over "vlan2" interface, two vlan tags will be added to ethernet header - "11" and "12".

Properties
Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; Address Resolution Protocol mode

Default: enabled)

interface (name; Default: ) Name of physical interface on top of which VLAN will work

l2mtu (integer; Default: ) Layer2 MTU. For VLANS this value is not configurable. Read more>>

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Layer3 Maximum transmission unit

name (string; Default: ) Interface name

use-service-tag (yes | no; Default: ) 802.1ad compatible Service Tag

vlan-id (integer: 4095; Default: 1) Virtual LAN identifier or tag that is used to distinguish VLANs. Must be equal for all
computers that belong to the same VLAN.
Manual:Interface/VLAN 244

Note: MTU should be set to 1500 bytes as on Ethernet interfaces. But this may not work with some Ethernet
cards that do not support receiving/transmitting of full size Ethernet packets with VLAN header added (1500
bytes data + 4 bytes VLAN header + 14 bytes Ethernet header). In this situation MTU 1496 can be used, but
note that this will cause packet fragmentation if larger packets have to be sent over interface. At the same
time remember that MTU 1496 may cause problems if path MTU discovery is not working properly between
source and destination.

Setup examples

Simple Example
Lets assume that we have several MikroTik routers connected to a hub. Remember that hub is OSI physical layer
device (if there is a hub between routers, then from L3 point of view it is the same as Ethernet cable connection
between them). For simplification assume that all routers are connected to the hub using ether1 interface and has
assigned IP addresses as illustrated in figure below. Then on each of them the VLAN interface should be created.

Configuration for R2 and R4 is shown below:

R2:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface vlan> add name=VLAN2 vlan-id=2 interface=ether1 disabled=no

[admin@MikroTik] /interface vlan> print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME MTU ARP VLAN-ID INTERFACE
0 R VLAN2 1500 enabled 2 ether1

R4:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface vlan> add name=VLAN2 vlan-id=2 interface=ether1 disabled=no

[admin@MikroTik] /interface vlan> print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME MTU ARP VLAN-ID INTERFACE
0 R VLAN2 1500 enabled 2 ether1
Manual:Interface/VLAN 245

The next step is to assign IP addresses to the VLAN interfaces.

R2:

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> add address=10.10.10.3/24 interface=VLAN2

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.0.1.4/24 10.0.1.0 10.0.1.255 ether1
1 10.20.0.1/24 10.20.0.0 10.20.0.255 pc1
2 10.10.10.3/24 10.10.10.0 10.10.10.255 vlan2

[admin@MikroTik] ip address>

R4:

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> add address=10.10.10.5/24 interface=VLAN2

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.0.1.5/24 10.0.1.0 10.0.1.255 ether1
1 10.30.0.1/24 10.30.0.0 10.30.0.255 pc2
2 10.10.10.5/24 10.10.10.0 10.10.10.255 vlan2

[admin@MikroTik] ip address>

At this point it should be possible to ping router R4 from router R2 and vice versa:

'''Ping from R2 to R4:'''

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> /ping 10.10.10.5

10.10.10.5 64 byte ping: ttl=255 time=4 ms

10.10.10.5 64 byte ping: ttl=255 time=1 ms

2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max = 1/2.5/4 ms

'''From R4 to R2:'''

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> /ping 10.10.10.3

10.10.10.3 64 byte ping: ttl=255 time=6 ms
10.10.10.3 64 byte ping: ttl=255 time=1 ms
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 1/3.5/6 ms

To make sure if VLAN setup is working properly, try to ping R1 from R2. If pings are timing out then VLANs are
successfully isolated.
Manual:Interface/VLAN 246

'''From R2 to R1:'''

[admin@MikroTik] ip address> /ping 10.10.10.2

10.10.10.2 ping timeout
10.10.10.2 ping timeout
3 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Create trunks and implement routing between VLANs

If separate VLANs are implemented on a switch, then router is required to provide communication between VLANs.
Switch works at OSI layer 2 so it uses only Ethernet header to forward and does not check IP header. For this reason
we must use the router that is working as a gateway for each VLAN. Without a router host is unable to communicate
outside its own VLAN. Routing process between VLANs described above is called inter-VLAN communication.
To illustrate inter-VLAN communication, we will create a trunk that will carry traffic from three VLANs (VLAN2
and VLAN3, VLAN4) across a single link between Mikrotik router and a manageable switch that supports VLAN
trunking.

Each VLAN has its own separate subnet (broadcast domain) as we see in figure above:
• VLAN 2 – 10.10.20.0/24;
• VLAN 3 – 10.10.30.0/24;
• VLAN 4 – 10.10.40.0./24.
VLAN configuration on most of switches is straightforward, basically we need to define which ports are members of
VLAN and define "trunk" port that can carry tagged frames between switch and router.
Configuration example on MikroTik router:
Create VLAN interfaces:

/interface vlan
add name=VLAN2 vlan-id=2 interface=ether1 disabled=no
add name=VLAN3 vlan-id=3 interface=ether1 disabled=no
add name=VLAN4 vlan-id=4 interface=ether1 disabled=no
Manual:Interface/VLAN 247

Add IP addresses to VLANs:

/ip address
add address=10.10.20.1/24 interface=VLAN2
add address=10.10.30.1/24 interface=VLAN3
add address=10.10.40.1/24 interface=VLAN4

RouterOS /32 and IP unnumbered addresses

In RouterOS to create point-to-point tunnel with addresses you have to use address with network mask /32 that
effectively brings you same features as some vendors unnumbered IP address.
There are 2 routers RouterA and RouterB that each is part of networks 10.22.0.0/24 and 10.23.0.0/24 respectively, to
connect these router using VLAN as carrier with the following configuration:

RouterA:

/ip address add address=10.22.0.1/24 interface=ether1

/interface vlan add interface=ether2 vlan-id=1 name=vlan1
/ip address add address=10.22.0.1/32 interface=vlan1 network=10.23.0.1
/ip route add gateway=10.23.0.1 dst-address=10.23.0.0/24

RouterB:

/ip address add address=10.23.0.1/24 interface=ether1

/interface vlan add interface=ether2 vlan-id=1 name=vlan1
/ip address add address=10.23.0.1/32 interface=vlan1 network=10.22.0.1
/ip route add gateway=10.22.0.1 dst-address=10.22.0.0/24

[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / standards. ieee. org/ getieee802/ download/ 802. 1Q-1998. pdf
Manual:IP/IPsec 248

Manual:IP/IPsec
Applies to RouterOS: v5.0 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec
Package required: security
Standards: RFC 4301
Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a set of protocols defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to
secure packet exchange over unprotected IP/IPv6 networks such as Internet.
IpSec protocol suite can be divided in following groups:
• Authentication Header (AH) RFC 4302
• Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) RFC 4303
• Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocols. Dynamically generates and distributes cryptographic keys for AH and
ESP.

Authentication Header (AH)

AH is a protocol that provides authentication of either all or part of the contents of a datagram through the addition
of a header that is calculated based on the values in the datagram. What parts of the datagram are used for the
calculation, and the placement of the header, depends whether tunnel or transport mode is used.
The presence of the AH header allows to verify the integrity of the message, but doesn't encrypt it. Thus, AH
provides authentication but not privacy (Another protocol ESP is used to provide encryption).
RouterOS supports the following authentication algorithms for AH:
• SHA1
• MD5

Transport mode
In transport mode AH header is inserted after IP header. IP data and header is used to calculate authentication value.
IP fields that might change during transit, like TTL and hop count, are set to zero values before authentication.

Tunnel mode
In tunnel mode original IP packet is encapsulated within a new IP packet. All of the original IP packet is
authenticated.

Encapsulating Security Payload

Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) uses shared key encryption to provide data privacy. ESP also supports its own
authentication scheme like that used in AH, or can be used in conjunction with AH.
ESP packages its fields in a very different way than AH. Instead of having just a header, it divides its fields into
three components:
Manual:IP/IPsec 249

• ESP Header - Comes before the encrypted data and its placement depends on whether ESP is used in transport
mode or tunnel mode.
• ESP Trailer - This section is placed after the encrypted data. It contains padding that is used to align the
encrypted data.
• ESP Authentication Data - This field contains an Integrity Check Value (ICV), computed in a manner similar to
how the AH protocol works, for when ESP's optional authentication feature is used.

Transport mode
In transport mode ESP header is inserted after original IP header. ESP trailer and authentication value is added to the
end of the packet. In this mode only IP payload is encrypted and authenticated, IP header is not secured.

Tunnel mode
In tunnel mode original IP packet is encapsulated within a new IP packet thus securing IP payload and IP header.

Encryption algorithms
RouterOS ESP supports various encryption and authentication algorithms.
Authentication:
• SHA1
• MD5
Encryption:
• DES - 56-bit DES-CBC encryption algorithm;
• 3DES - 168-bit DES encryption algorithm;
• AES - 128, 192 and 256-bit key AES-CBC encryption algorithm;
• Blowfish - added since v4.5
• Twofish - added since v4.5
• Camellia - 128, 192 and 256-bit key Camellia encryption algorithm added since v4.5

Hardware encryption
Hardware encryption allows to do faster encryption process by using built-in encryption engine inside CPU. AES is
the only algorithm that will be accelerated in hardware.
List of RouterBoards with enabled hardware support:
• RB1000
• RB1100AHx2
For comparison RB1000 with enabled HW support can forward up to 550Mbps encrypted traffic. When HW support
is disabled it can forward only 150Mbps encrypted traffic in AES-128 mode.
Some configuration advices on how to get maximum ipsec throughput on multicore RB1100AHx2:
• Avoid using ether12 and ethet13. Since these prots are pci-x they will be slowest ones.
• Fastest forwarding is from switch chip ports (ether1-ether10) to ether11 (directly connected to CPU) and vice
versa.
• Set hardware queue on all interfaces

/queue interface set [find] queue=only-hardware-queue

• Disable RPS:

/system resource irq rps disable [find]

Manual:IP/IPsec 250

• Assign one CPU core to ether11 and other CPU core to everything else. Forwarding over ether11 requires more
CPU that is why we are giving one core only for that interface (in IRQ setting ether11 is listed as ether12 tx,rx
and error).

/system resource irq

set [find] cpu=1
set [find users="eth12 tx"] cpu=0
set [find users="eth12 rx"] cpu=0
set [find users="eth12 error"] cpu=0

• disable connection tracking

With all above recommendations it is possible to forward 820Mbps (1470byte packets two streams).
With enabled connection tracking 700Mbps (1470 byte packets two streams).

Internet Key Exchange Protocol

The Internet Key Exchange (IKE) is a protocol that provides authenticated keying material for Internet Security
Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) framework. There are other key exchange schemes that work
with ISAKMP, but IKE is the most widely used one. Together they provide means for authentication of hosts and
automatic management of security associations (SA).
Most of the time IKE daemon is doing nothing. There are two possible situations when it is activated:
There is some traffic caught by a policy rule which needs to become encrypted or authenticated, but the policy
doesn't have any SAs. The policy notifies IKE daemon about that, and IKE daemon initiates connection to remote
host. IKE daemon responds to remote connection. In both cases, peers establish connection and execute 2 phases:
• Phase 1 - The peers agree upon algorithms they will use in the following IKE messages and authenticate. The
keying material used to derive keys for all SAs and to protect following ISAKMP exchanges between hosts is
generated also. This phase should match following settings:
• authentication method
• DH group
• encryption algorithm
• exchange mode
• hash alorithm
• NAT-T
• DPD and lifetime (optional)
• Phase 2 - The peers establish one or more SAs that will be used by IPsec to encrypt data. All SAs established by
IKE daemon will have lifetime values (either limiting time, after which SA will become invalid, or amount of
data that can be encrypted by this SA, or both). This phase should match following settings:
• Ipsec protocol
• mode (tunnel or transport)
• authentication method
• PFS (DH) group
• lifetime
Manual:IP/IPsec 251

Note: There are two lifetime values - soft and hard. When SA reaches it's soft lifetime treshold, the IKE
daemon receives a notice and starts another phase 2 exchange to replace this SA with fresh one. If SA reaches
hard lifetime, it is discarded.

Warning: Phase 1 is not re-keyed if DPD is disabled when lifetime expires, only phase 2 is re-keyed. To
force phase 1 re-key, enable DPD.

IKE can optionally provide a Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), which is a property of key
exchanges, that, in turn, means for IKE that compromising the long term phase 1 key will not
allow to easily gain access to all IPsec data that is protected by SAs established through this phase
1. It means an additional keying material is generated for each phase 2.
Generation of keying material is computationally very expensive. Exempli gratia, the use of modp8192 group can
take several seconds even on very fast computer. It usually takes place once per phase 1 exchange, which happens
only once between any host pair and then is kept for long time. PFS adds this expensive operation also to each phase
2 exchange.

Diffie-Hellman Groups
Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange protocol allows two parties without any initial shared secret to create one
securely. The following Modular Exponential (MODP) and Elliptic Curve (EC2N) Diffie-Hellman (also known as
"Oakley") Groups are supported:

Diffie-Hellman Group Name Reference

Group 1 768 bit MODP group RFC 2409

Group 2 1024 bits MODP group RFC 2409

Group 3 EC2N group on GP(2^155) RFC 2409

Group 4 EC2N group on GP(2^185) RFC 2409

Group 5 1536 bits MODP group RFC 3526

IKE Traffic
To avoid problems with IKE packets hit some SPD rule and require to encrypt it with not yet established SA (that
this packet perhaps is trying to establish), locally originated packets with UDP source port 500 are not processed
with SPD. The same way packets with UDP destination port 500 that are to be delivered locally are not processed in
incoming policy check.

Setup Procedure
To get IPsec to work with automatic keying using IKE-ISAKMP you will have to configure policy, peer and
proposal (optional) entries.
Warning: Ipsec is very sensitive to time changes. If both ends of the IpSec tunnel are not synchronizing time
equally(for example, different NTP servers not updating time with the same timestamp), tunnels will break
and will have to be established again.
Manual:IP/IPsec 252

Mode Config
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec mode-cfg
Note: If RouterOS client is initiator, it will always send CISCO UNITY extension, and RouterOS supports
only split-include from this extension.

Property Description

address-pool (none | string; Default: ) Name of the address pool from which responder will try to assign address if mode-cfg is enabled.

address-prefix-length (integer Prefix length (netmask) of assigned address from the pool.
[1..32]; Default: )

comment (string; Default: )

name (string; Default: )

split-include (list of ip prefix; Default: ) List of subnets in CIDR format, which will be sent to the peer using CISCO UNITY extension,
remote peer will create dynamic policy for these subnets.

Peer configuration
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec peer
Peer configuration settings are used to establish connections between IKE daemons ( phase 1 configuration). This
connection then will be used to negotiate keys and algorithms for SAs.
Starting from v6rc12 responder side now uses initiator exchange type for peer config selection. It means that you can
configure multiple ipsec peers with the same address but different exchange modes or encryption methods.
Note: exchange modes main and l2tp-main are treated the same, so these modes cannot be used select config
between multiple peers.

Property Description

address (IP/IPv6 Prefix; Default: 0.0.0.0/0) If remote peer's address matches this prefix, then the peer configuration is used in authentication
and establishment of Phase 1. If several peer's addresses match several configuration entries, the
most specific one (i.e. the one with largest netmask) will be used.

auth-method (pre-shared-key | Authentication method:

rsa-signature; Default: pre-shared-key) • pre-shared-key - authenticate by a password (secret) string shared between the peers
• rsa-signature - authenticate using a pair of RSA certificates
• rsa-key - authenticate using a RSA key imported in Ipsec key menu.
• pre-shared-key-xauth - mutual PSK authentication + xauth username/password.
passive parameter identifies server/client side
• rsa-signature-hybrid - responder certificate authentication with initiator Xauth.
passive parameter identifies server/client side

certificate (string; Default: ) Name of a certificate listed in certificate table (signing packets; the certificate must have private
key). Applicable if RSA signature authentication method (auth-method=rsa-signature) is used.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the peer.

Manual:IP/IPsec 253

dh-group (ec2n155 | ec2n185 | modp1024 | Diffie-Hellman group (cipher strength)

modp1536 | modp2048 | modp3072 |
modp4096 | modp6144 | modp768; Default:
modp1024)

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether peer is used to match remote peer's prefix.

dpd-interval (time | disable-dpd; Default: Dead peer detection interval. If set to disable-dpd, dead peer detection will not be used.
2m)

dpd-maximum-failures (integer: 1..100; Maximum count of failures until peer is considered to be dead. Applicable if DPD is enabled.
Default: 5)

enc-algorithm (3des | aes-128 | aes-192 | Encryption algorithm.

aes-256 | blowfish | camellia-128 |
camellia-192 | camellia-256 | des; Default:
aes-128)

exchange-mode (aggressive | base | main | Different ISAKMP phase 1 exchange modes according to RFC 2408. Do not use other modes then
main-l2tp; Default: main) main unless you know what you are doing. main-l2tp mode relaxes rfc2409 section 5.4, to allow
pre-shared-key authentication in main mode.

generate-policy (no | port-override | Allow this peer to establish SA for non-existing policies. Such policies are created dynamically
port-strict; Default: no) for the lifetime of SA. Automatic policies allows, for example, to create IPsec secured L2TP
tunnels, or any other setup where remote peer's IP address is not known at the configuration time.
• no - do not generate policies
• port-override -- generate policies and force policy to use any port (old behavior)
• port-strict -- use ports from peer's proposal, which should match peer's policy

hash-algorithm (md5 | sha1 | sha256 | Hashing algorithm. SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) is stronger, but slower.
sha512; Default: sha1)

key (string; Default: ) Name of the key from key menu. Applicable if auth-method=rsa-key.

lifebytes (Integer: 0..4294967295; Phase 1 lifetime: specifies how much bytes can be transferred before SA is discarded. If set to 0,
Default: 0) SA will not be discarded due to byte count excess.

lifetime (time; Default: 1d) Phase 1 lifetime: specifies how long the SA will be valid.

mode-cfg (none | string; Default: none) Name of the mode config parameters from mode-cfg menu. When parameter is set mode-cfg is
enabled.
• initiator peer on phase1 will send mode-cfg request and will set assigned IP address and DNS.
• responder will assign ip address if address-pool is specified, will send also DNS server
addresses and split-include subnets (if defined).

my-id-user-fqdn (string; Default: ) By default IP address is used as ID. This parameter replaces ID with specified value. Can be used,
for example, in cases if DNS name as ID is required.

nat-traversal (yes | no; Default: no) Use Linux NAT-T mechanism to solve IPsec incompatibility with NAT routers inbetween IPsec
peers. This can only be used with ESP protocol (AH is not supported by design, as it signs the
complete packet, including IP header, which is changed by NAT, rendering AH signature invalid).
The method encapsulates IPsec ESP traffic into UDP streams in order to overcome some minor
issues that made ESP incompatible with NAT.

passive (yes | no; Default: no) When passive mode is enabled will wait for remote peer to initiate IKE connection. Enabled
passive mode also indicates that peer is xauth responder, and disabled passive mode - xauth
initiator.

policy-group (none | string; Default: ) If generate-policy is enabled, responder checks against templates from the same group. If none of
the templates match, Phase2 SA will not be established.

port (integer:0..65535; Default: 500) Communication port used for ipsec traffic.
Manual:IP/IPsec 254

proposal-check (claim | exact | obey | Phase 2 lifetime check logic:

strict; Default: obey) • claim - take shortest of proposed and configured lifetimes and notify initiator about it
• exact - require lifetimes to be the same
• obey - accept whatever is sent by an initiator
• strict - if proposed lifetime is longer than the default then reject proposal otherwise accept
proposed lifetime

remote-certificate (string; Default: ) Name of a certificate (listed in certificate table) for authenticating the remote side (validating
packets; no private key required). Applicable if RSA signature authentication method is used. If
remote-certificate is not specified then received certificate from remote peer is used and checked
against CA in certificate store. Proper CA must be imported in certificate store.

secret (string; Default: ) Secret string (in case pre-shared key authentication is used). If it starts with '0x', it is parsed as a
hexadecimal value

send-initial-contact (yes | no; Specifies whether to send "initial contact" IKE packet or wait for remote side, this packet should
Default: yes) trigger removal of old peer SAs for current source address. Usually in road warrior setups clients
are initiators and this parameter should be set to no.

xauth-login (string; Default: ) initiator (client) XAuth username

xauth-password (string; Default: ) initiator (client) XAuth password

Note: IPSec phases information is erased, when /ip ipsec peer configuration is modified on the fly, however
packets are being encrypted/decrypted because of installed-sa (for example remote-peers information is
erased, when peer configuration is modified.

Keys
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec key
This submenu list all imported public/private keys, that can be used for peer authentication. Submenu also has
several commands to work with keys.
For example print below shows two imported 1024-bit keys, one public and one private.

[admin@PoETik] /ip ipsec key> print

Flags: P - private-key, R - rsa
# NAME KEY-SIZE
0 PR priv 1024-bit
1 R pub 1024-bit

Commands
Manual:IP/IPsec 255

Property Description

export-pub-key (file-name; Export public key to file from one of existing private keys.
key)

generate-key (key-size; name) Generate private key. Takes two parameters, name of newly generated key and key size 1024,2048 and
4096.

import (file-name; name) Import key from file.

Policy
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec policy
Policy table is used to determine whether security settings should be applied to a packet.

Property Description

action (discard | encrypt | none; Default: Specifies what to do with packet matched by the policy.
encrypt) • none - pass the packet unchanged
• discard - drop the packet
• encrypt - apply transformations specified in this policy and it's SA

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the policy

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether policy is used to match packets.

dst-address (IP/IPv6 prefix; Default: Destination address to be matched in packets.

0.0.0.0/32)

dst-port (integer:0..65535 | any; Default: any) Destination port to be matched in packets. If set to any all ports will be matched

group (string; Default: default) Name of the policy group to which this template is assigned.

ipsec-protocols (ah | esp; Default: esp) Specifies what combination of Authentication Header and Encapsulating Security Payload
protocols you want to apply to matched traffic

level (require | unique | use; Default: require) Specifies what to do if some of the SAs for this policy cannot be found:
• use - skip this transform, do not drop packet and do not acquire SA from IKE daemon
• require - drop packet and acquire SA
• unique - drop packet and acquire a unique SA that is only used with this particular
policy

manual-sa (string | none; Default: none) Name of the manual SA template

priority (integer:-2147483646..2147483647; Policy ordering classificator (signed integer). Larger number means higher priority.
Default: 0)

proposal (string; Default: default) Name of the proposal template that will be sent by IKE daemon to establish SAs for this
policy.

protocol (all | egp | ggp| icmp | igmp | ...; IP packet protocol to match.
Default: all)

sa-dst-address (ip/ipv6 address; Default: ::) SA destination IP/IPv6 address (remote peer).

sa-src-address (ip/ipv6 address; Default: ::) SA source IP/IPv6 address (local peer).

src-address (ip/ipv6 prefix; Default: Source IP prefix

0.0.0.0/32)

src-port (any | integer:0..65535; Default: any) Source Port of the packet

Manual:IP/IPsec 256

template (yes | no; Default: no) Creates a template and assigns it to specified policy group Following parameters are used by
template:
• src-address, dst-address - Requested subnet must match in both directions(for example
0.0.0.0/0 to allow all)
• protocol - protocol to match, if set to all, then any protocol is accepted
• proposal - SA parameters used for this template.

tunnel (yes | no; Default: no) Specifies whether to use tunnel mode

Note: All packets are IPIP encapsulated in tunnel mode, and their new IP header's src-address and dst-address
are set to sa-src-address and sa-dst-address values of this policy. If you do not use tunnel mode (id est you use
transport mode), then only packets whose source and destination addresses are the same as sa-src-address and
sa-dst-address can be processed by this policy. Transport mode can only work with packets that originate at
and are destined for IPsec peers (hosts that established security associations). To encrypt traffic between
networks (or a network and a host) you have to use tunnel mode.

Policy Stats
Command /ip ipsec policy print stats will show current status of the policy. Additional read-only
parameters will be printed.

Property Description

in-accepted (integer) How many incoming packets were passed by the policy without an attempt to decrypt.

in-dropped (integer) How many incoming packets were dropped by the policy without an attempt to decrypt

in-transformed (integer) How many incoming packets were decrypted (ESP) and/or verified (AH) by the policy

out-accepted (integer) How many outgoing packets were passed by the policy without an attempt to encrypt.

out-dropped (integer) How many outgoing packets were dropped by the policy without an attempt to encrypt.

out-transformed (integer) How many outgoing packets were encrypted (ESP) and/or verified (AH) by the policy.

ph2-state (expired | no-phase2 | established) Indication of the progress of key establishing.

Dumping Policies
It is possible to dump policies installed into the kernel for debugging purposes with command:

/ip ipsec policy dump-kernel-policies

After executing this command check the logs to see the result, there should be three policies in the kernel: forward,
in and out.

[admin@test-host] >/log print

07:28:34 ipsec,debug,packet policy ipsec fwd: 10.5.101.9[0] - 10.5.101.13[0]
07:28:34 ipsec,debug,packet policy ipsec in: 10.5.101.9[0] - 10.5.101.13[0]
07:28:34 ipsec,debug,packet policy ipsec out: 10.5.101.13[0] - 10.5.101.9[0]
 Manual:IP/IPsec 257

Policy Groups
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec policy group

Property Description

name (string; Default: )

comment (string; Default: )

Proposal settings
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec proposal
Proposal information that will be sent by IKE daemon to establish SAs for this policy ( Phase 2). Configured
proposals are set in policy configuration.

Property Description

auth-algorithms (md5|sha1|null|sha256|sha512; Default: sha1) Allowed

algorithms
for
authorization.
sha1 is
stronger, but
slower
algorithm.

comment (string; Default: ) Short

description
of an item.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether

item is
disabled.

enc-algorithms Allowed
(null|des|3des|aes-128-cbc|aes-128-cbc|aes-128gcm|aes-192-cbc|aes-192-ctr|aes-192-gcm|aes-256-cbc|aes-256-ctr|aes-256-gcm|blowfish|camellia-128|camellia-192|camellia-256|twofish; algorithms
Default: aes-128-cbc) and key
lengths to
use for SAs.

lifetime (time; Default: 30m) How long to

use SA
before
throwing it
out.

name (string; Default: ) Name of the

proposal
template, that
will be
identified in
other parts of
ipsec
configuration.

pfs-group (ec2n155 | ec2n185 | modp1024 | modp1536 | modp2048 | modp3072 | modp4096 | modp6144 | modp768 | none; Default: modp1024) Diffie-Helman
group used
for Perfect
Forward
Secrecy.
Manual:IP/IPsec 258

Manual SA
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec manual-sa
Menu is used to configure SAs manually. Created SA template then can be used in policy configuration.

Property Description

ah-algorithm (in/out Authentication Header encryption algorithm.

in,out = md5|null|sha1; Default: null)

ah-key (string/string; Default: ) Incoming-authentication-key/outgoing-authentication-key

ah-spi (0x100..FFFFFFFF/0x100..FFFFFFFF; Default: 0x100) Incoming-SA-SPI/outgoing-SA-SPI

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used

esp-auth-algorithm (in/out Encapsulating Security Payload authentication encryption algorithm

in,out = md5|null|sha1; Default: null)

esp-auth-key (string/string; Default: ) Incoming-authentication-key/outgoing -authentication-key

esp-enc-algorithm (in/out Incoming-encryption-algorithm

in,out = 3des | aes-128 | aes-192 | aes-256 | des | ...; Default: null)

esp-enc-key (string/string; Default: ) Incoming-encryption-key/outgoing-encryption-key

esp-spi (0x100..FFFFFFFF/0x100..FFFFFFFF; Default: 0x100) Incoming-SA-SPI/outgoing-SA-SPI

lifetime (time; Default: 0s) Lifetime of this SA

name (string; Default: ) Name of the item for reference from policies

Installed SA
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec installed-sa
This facility provides information about installed security associations including the keys.

Property Description

AH (yes | no)

ESP (yes | no)

add-lifetime (time/time) Added lifetime for the SA in format soft/hard

• soft - time period after which ike will try to establish new SA
• hard - time period after which SA is deleted

addtime (time) Date and time when this SA was added.

auth-algorithm (sha1 | md5) Shows currently used authentication algorithm

auth-key (string) Shows used authentication key

current-bytes (64-bit integer) Shows number of bytes seen by this SA.

dst-address (IP)

enc-algorithm (des | 3des | aes ...) Shows currently used encryption algorithm

pfs (yes | no)

replay (integer)

spi (string)

src-address (IP)

state (string) Shows the current state of the SA ("mature", "dying" etc)
Manual:IP/IPsec 259

Flushing SAs
Sometimes after incorrect/incomplete negotiations took place, it is required to flush manually the installed SA table
so that SA could be renegotiated. This option is provided by the /ip ipsec installed-sa flush
command.
This command accepts only one property:

Property Description

sa-type (ah | all | esp; Default: all) Specifies SA types to flush:

• ah - delete AH protocol SAs only
• esp - delete ESP protocol SAs only
• all - delete both ESP and AH protocols SAs

Remote Peers
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec remote-peers
This submenu provides you with various statistics about remote peers that currently have established phase 1
connections with this router. Note that if peer doesn't show up here, it doesn't mean that no IPsec traffic is being
exchanged with it.
Read only properties:

Property Description

local-address (ip/ipv6 Local ISAKMP SA address on the router used by the peer
address)

remote-address (ip/ipv6 Remote peer's ip/ipv6 address

address)

side (initiator | responder) Shows which side initiated the Phase1 negotiation.

state (string) State of phase 1 negotiation with the peer. For example when phase1 and phase 2 are negotiated it will show
state "established".

established (time) How long peers are in established state.

Closing all IPsec connections

Menu has a command to quickly close all established ipsec connections. This command will clear all installed SAs
(Phase2) and remove all entries from remote-peers menu (Phase1).
Usage:

/ip ipsec remote-peers kill-connections

Statistics
Sub-menu: /ip ipsec statistics
This menu shows various ipsec statistics
Manual:IP/IPsec 260

Property Description

in-errors (integer) All inbound errors that are not matched by other counters.

in-buffer-errors (integer) No free buffer.

in-header-errors (integer) Header error

in-no-states (integer) No state is found i.e. Either inbound SPI, address, or IPsec protocol at SA is wrong

in-state-protocol-errors Transformation protocol specific error, for example SA key is wrong or hardware accelerator is
(integer) unable to handle amount of packets.

in-state-mode-errors (integer) Transformation mode specific error

in-state-sequence-errors Sequence number is out of window

(integer)

in-state-expired (integer) State is expired

in-state-mismatches (integer) State has mismatched option, for example UDP encapsulation type is mismatched.

in-state-invalid (integer) State is invalid

in-template-mismatches (integer) No matching template for states, e.g. Inbound SAs are correct but SP rule is wrong

in-no-policies (integer) No policy is found for states, e.g. Inbound SAs are correct but no SP is found

in-policy-blocked (integer) Policy discards

in-policy-errors (integer) Policy errors

out-errors (integer) All outbound errors that are not matched by other counters

out-bundle-errors (integer) Bundle generation error

out-bundle-check-errors (integer) Bundle check error

out-no-states (integer) No state is found

out-state-protocol-errors Transformation protocol specific error

(integer)

out-state-mode-errors (integer) Transformation mode specific error

out-state-sequence-errors Sequence errors, for example Sequence number overflow

(integer)

out-state-expired (integer) State is expired

out-policy-blocked (integer) Policy discards

out-policy-dead (integer) Policy is dead

out-policy-errors (integer) Policy error

Application Examples

Simple Mutual PSK XAuth Config

Server side config:

/ip ipsec peer

add address=2.2.2.1 auth-method=pre-shared-key-xauth secret="123" passive=yes

/ip ipsec user

add name=test password=345

Client side config:

Manual:IP/IPsec 261

/ip ipsec peer

add address=2.2.2.2 auth-method=pre-shared-key-xauth secret="123" \
xauth-login=test xauth-password=345

Note: On server side it is mandatory to set passive to yes when XAuth is used.

Road Warrior setup with Mode Conf

Consider setup where worker need to access other co-workers (workstations) and local office
server remotely. Office has two subnets:
• 192.168.55.0/24 for workstations
• 192.168.66.0/24 network that must not be reachable by RoadWarrior clients
• 10.5.8.0/24 for servers
And access to those networks should be secure.

Typically in RoadWarrior setups as this it is impossible to know from which address user will connect, so we need to
set up generate-policy parameter on the server side. However this leads to other problems, client can generate
any policy and access any network in the office. Even set 0.0.0.0/0 and deny internet access to office workers.
Mode Conf, policy group and policy templates will allow us to overcome these problems.

IpSec Server Config

At first we need a pool from which RoadWarrior will will get an address. Typically in office you set up DHCP
server for local workstations, the same DHCP pool can be used.

/ip pool
add name=ipsec-RW ranges=192.168.55.2-192.168.55.254

Next we need to set up what settings to send to the client using Mode Conf.

/ip ipsec mode-cfg

add address-pool=ipsec-RW name=RW-cfg split-include=\
10.5.8.0/24,192.168.55.0/24
Manual:IP/IPsec 262

As you can see we specified from which pool to give out address and two allowed subnets.
Now to allow only specific source/destination address in generated policies we will use policy group and create
policy templates:

/ip ipsec policy group

add name=RoadWarrior

/ip ipsec policy

add dst-address=192.168.55.0/24 group=RoadWarrior src-address=10.5.8.0/24 \
template=yes
add dst-address=192.168.55.0/24 group=RoadWarrior src-address=192.168.55.0/24 \
template=yes

Now we just add xauth users and peer with enabled Mode Conf and policy group.

/ip ipsec user

add name=user1 password=123
add name=user2 password=234

/ip ipsec peer

add auth-method=pre-shared-key-xauth generate-policy=port-strict mode-cfg=RW-cfg \
policy-group=RoadWarrior secret=123 passive=yes

RouterOS Client Config

/ip ipsec peer
add address=2.2.2.2 auth-method=pre-shared-key-xauth generate-policy=port-strict secret=123 \
xauth-login=user1 xauth-password=123

Shrew Client Config

n:version:2
n:network-ike-port:500
n:network-mtu-size:1380
n:network-natt-port:4500
n:network-natt-rate:15
n:network-frag-size:540
n:network-dpd-enable:0
n:client-banner-enable:0
n:network-notify-enable:0
n:client-wins-used:0
n:client-wins-auto:1
n:client-dns-used:1
n:client-dns-auto:0
n:client-splitdns-used:1
n:client-splitdns-auto:0
n:phase1-dhgroup:2
n:phase1-life-secs:86400
n:phase1-life-kbytes:0
n:vendor-chkpt-enable:0
n:phase2-life-secs:300
Manual:IP/IPsec 263

n:phase2-life-kbytes:0
n:policy-nailed:1
n:policy-list-auto:1
n:client-addr-auto:1
s:network-host:2.2.2.2
s:client-auto-mode:pull
s:client-iface:virtual
s:network-natt-mode:disable
s:network-frag-mode:disable
s:auth-method:mutual-psk-xauth
s:ident-client-type:address
s:ident-server-type:address
b:auth-mutual-psk:MTIz
s:phase1-exchange:main
s:phase1-cipher:3des
s:phase1-hash:md5
s:phase2-transform:esp-3des
s:phase2-hmac:sha1
s:ipcomp-transform:disabled
n:phase2-pfsgroup:2
s:policy-level:require

Road Warrior setup with RSA Authentication

Creating Certificates
All certificates will be created on RouterOS server using certificate manager
Make certificate templates

/certificate
add name=ca-template common-name=myCa
add name=server-template common-name=server
add name=client1-template common-name=client1
add name=client2-template common-name=client2

Now sign certificates and add CRL url. We will use IP address of the server as CRL URL.

/certificate
sign-ca template=ca-template ca-crl-host=10.5.101.16 name=myCa
sign-issued ca=myCa template=server-template name=server
sign-issued ca=myCa template=client1-template name=client1
sign-issued ca=myCa template=client2-template name=client2

Now set server and CA certificates as trusted so that we can use them

/certificate
set myCa trusted=yes
set server trusted=yes

And export client certificates with keys and ca, these will be uploaded to each client:
Manual:IP/IPsec 264

/certificate export myCa

/certificate export client1 export-passphrase=xxxxxxxx
/certificate export client2 export-passphrase=xxxxxxxx

If everything went well you should have something like this:

[admin@pe0] /certificate> print

Flags: K - private-key, D - dsa, L - crl, C - smart-card-key,
A - authority, I - issued, R - revoked, E - expired, T - trusted
# NAME COMMON-NAME FINGERPRINT
0 K L A T myCa myCa 7fa636e6576495fe78f1a4...
1 K I T server server cf0650a291bf4685f2fbd3...
2 K I client1 client1 26233de30e89b203b946ab...
3 K I client2 client2 cf172b62201befaf8d8966...

Note: Templates are automatically removed after signing certificate

Ipsec Server Config

/ip ipsec policy group
add name=test

/ip ipsec peer

add auth-method=rsa-signature certificate=server exchange-mode=main \
generate-policy=port-override passive=yes policy-group=test remote-certificate=none
/ip ipsec policy
add dst-address=172.16.1.0/24 group=test src-address=172.16.2.0/24 template=yes

Testing CRL
Now lets say client2 should not be able to connect anymore. We need to revoke its certificate so that it is excluded
from CRL list.

/certificate
issued-revoke client2

Notice R flag, which means that certificate is revoked

[admin@pe0] /certificate> print

Flags: K - private-key, D - dsa, L - crl, C - smart-card-key,
A - authority, I - issued, R - revoked, E - expired, T - trusted
# NAME COMMON-NAME FINGERPRINT
0 K L A T myCa myCa 7fa636e6576495fe78f1a4...
1 K I T server server cf0650a291bf4685f2fbd3...
2 K I client1 client1 26233de30e89b203b946ab...
3 K R client2 client2 cf172b62201befaf8d8966...

Now if you kill current connection client2 will no be able to establish phase1.
Manual:IP/IPsec 265

Site to Site IpSec Tunnel

Consider setup as illustrated below

Two remote office routers are connected to internet and office workstations behind routers are NATed. Each office
has its own local subnet, 10.1.202.0/24 for Office1 and 10.1.101.0/24 for Office2. Both remote offices needs secure
tunnel to local networks behind routers.

IP Connectivity
On both routers ether1 is used as wan port and ether2 is used to connect workstations. Also NAT rules are set tu
masquerade local networks.
Office1 router:

/ip address
add address=192.168.90.1/24 interface=ether1
add address=10.1.202.1/24 interface=ether2

/ip route
add gateway=192.168.90.254

/ip firewall nat

add chain=srcnat out-interface=ether1 action=masquerade

Office2 router:

/ip address
add address=192.168.80.1/24 interface=ether1
add address=10.1.101.1/24 interface=ether2

/ip route
add gateway=192.168.80.254

/ip firewall nat

Manual:IP/IPsec 266

add chain=srcnat out-interface=ether1 action=masquerade

IpSec Peer's config

Next step is to add peer's configuration. We need to specify peers address and port and pre-shared-key. Other
parameters are left to default values.
Office1 router:

/ip ipsec peer

add address=192.168.80.1/32 port=500 auth-method=pre-shared-key secret="test"

Office2 router:

/ip ipsec peer

add address=192.168.90.1/32 port=500 auth-method=pre-shared-key secret="test"

Policy and proposal

It is important that proposed authentication and encryption algorithms match on both routers. In this example we can
use predefined "default" proposal

[admin@MikroTik] /ip ipsec proposal> print

Flags: X - disabled
0 name="default" auth-algorithms=sha1 enc-algorithms=3des lifetime=30m
pfs-group=modp1024

As we already have proposal as a next step we need correct IpSec policy. We want to encrypt traffic coming form
10.1.202.0/24 to 10.1.101.0/24 and vice versa.
Office1 router:

/ip ipsec policy

add src-address=10.1.202.0/24 src-port=any dst-address=10.1.101.0/24 dst-port=any \
sa-src-address=192.168.90.1 sa-dst-address=192.168.80.1 \
tunnel=yes action=encrypt proposal=default

Office2 router:

/ip ipsec policy

add src-address=10.1.101.0/24 src-port=any dst-address=10.1.202.0/24 dst-port=any \
sa-src-address=192.168.80.1 sa-dst-address=192.168.90.1 \
tunnel=yes action=encrypt proposal=default

Note that we configured tunnel mode instead of transport, as this is site to site encryption.
Manual:IP/IPsec 267

NAT Bypass
At this point if you will try to establish IpSec tunnel it will not work, packets will be rejected. This is because both
routers have NAT rules that is changing source address after packet is encrypted. Remote router reiceves encrypted
packet but is unable to decrypt it because source address do not match address specified in policy configuration. For
more information see packet flow ipsec example.
To fix this we need to set up NAT bypass rule.
Office1 router:

/ip firewall nat

add chain=srcnat action=accept place-before=0 \
src-address=10.1.202.0/24 dst-address=10.1.101.0/24

Office2 router:

/ip firewall nat

add chain=srcnat action=accept place-before=0 \
src-address=10.1.101.0/24 dst-address=10.1.202.0/24

It is very important that bypass rule is placed at the top of all other NAT rules.
Note: If you previously tried to establish tunnel before NAT bypass rule was added, you have to clear
connection table from existing connection or restart the routers

Ipsec/L2TP behind NAT

Consider setup as illustrated below

Client needs secure connection to the office with public address 1.1.1.1, but server does not know what will be the
source address from which client connects. It is so called road-warrior setup. Our client will also be located behind
the router with enabled NAT.
For the setup RouterOS router will be used as the client device behind NAT (it can be any device: Windows PC,
Smartphone, Linux PC, etc.)
Manual:IP/IPsec 268

IP Connectivity
On the server:

/ip address
add address=1.1.1.1/24 interface=ether1

/ip route
add gateway=1.1.1.2

On the clients router:

/ip address
add address=2.2.2.2/24 interface=ether1
add address=10.5.8.0/24 interface=ether2

/ip route
add gateway=2.2.2.1

/ip firewall net

add chain=srcnat action=masquerade out-interface=ether1

On the client:

/ip address
add address=10.5.8.120/24 interface=ether1

L2TP Config
On the server:

/interface l2tp-server
set enabled=yes profil=default

/ip pool
add name=l2tp-pool ranges=192.168.1.2-192.168.1.20

/ppp profile
set default local-address=192.168.1.1 remote-address=l2tp-pool

/ppp secret
add name=l2tp-test password=test123456

On the client:

/interface l2tp-client
add connect-to=1.1.1.1 disabled=no name=l2tp-out1 password=password user=l2tp-test
Manual:IP/IPsec 269

IpSec Config
On server side:

/ip ipsec proposal

set [ find default=yes ] enc-algorithms=3des,aes-128,aes-192,aes-256
/ip ipsec peer
add generate-policy=yes hash-algorithm=sha1 nat-traversal=yes secret=test123456 \
send-initial-contact=no

RouterOS as client:

/ip ipsec proposal

set [ find default=yes ] enc-algorithms=aes-128
/ip ipsec peer
add address=1.1.1.1/32 hash-algorithm=sha1 nat-traversal=yes secret=test123456

/ip ipsec policy

add dst-address=1.1.1.1/32 protocol=udp sa-dst-address=1.1.1.1 \
sa-src-address=10.5.8.120 src-address=10.5.8.120/32

Notice that nat-traversal is enabled. This option is required because Ipsec connection will be established
through the NAT router otherwise Ipsec will not be able to establish phase2.
Note: Only one L2TP/ipsec connection can be established through the NAT. Which means that only one
client can connect to the sever located behind the same router.

Connecting with Shrew Client and allowing only Encrypted traffic

• See example here
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Interface/EoIP 270

Manual:Interface/EoIP
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface eoip
Standards: GRE RFC 1701
Ethernet over IP (EoIP) Tunneling is a MikroTik RouterOS protocol that creates an Ethernet tunnel between two
routers on top of an IP connection. The EoIP tunnel may run over IPIP tunnel, PPTP tunne or any other connection
capable of transporting IP.
When the bridging function of the router is enabled, all Ethernet traffic (all Ethernet protocols) will be bridged just
as if there where a physical Ethernet interface and cable between the two routers (with bridging enabled). This
protocol makes multiple network schemes possible.
Network setups with EoIP interfaces:
• Possibility to bridge LANs over the Internet
• Possibility to bridge LANs over encrypted tunnels
• Possibility to bridge LANs over 802.11b 'ad-hoc' wireless networks
The EoIP protocol encapsulates Ethernet frames in GRE (IP protocol number 47) packets (just like PPTP) and sends
them to the remote side of the EoIP tunnel.

Properties
Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | Address Resolution Protocol mode

proxy-arp | reply-only; Default:
enabled)

keepalive (integer; Default: keep-alive timer, sets time interval (seconds) in what keep-alive messages should be received. If 3 messages are
not set) missed, interface running flag is removed. For this to work, keepalive has to be set to same value on both ends
of the tunnel, since one end is expecting messages from the other one and is sending keepalive messages in that
direction.

l2mtu (integer; Default: ) Layer2 Maximum transmission unit. Not configurable for EoIP. Read more>>

local-address (IP; Default: Source address of the tunnel packets, local on the router.
)

mac-address (MAC; Default: Media Access Control number of an interface. The address numeration authority allows to use MAC addresses
) in the range from 00:00:5E:80:00:00 - 00:00:5E:FF:FF:FF freely

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Layer3 Maximum transmission unit

name (string; Default: ) Interface name

remote-address (IP; IP address of remote end of EoIP tunnel

Default: )

tunnel-id (integer: 65536; Unique tunnel identifier, which must match other side of the tunnel
Default: )
Manual:Interface/EoIP 271

Notes
tunnel-id is method of identifying tunnel. It must be unique for each EoIP tunnel.
mtu should be set to 1500 to eliminate packet refragmentation inside the tunnel (that allows transparent bridging of
Ethernet-like networks, so that it would be possible to transport full-sized Ethernet frame over the tunnel).
When bridging EoIP tunnels, it is highly recommended to set unique MAC addresses for each tunnel for the bridge
algorithms to work correctly. For EoIP interfaces you can use MAC addresses that are in the range from
00:00:5E:80:00:00 - 00:00:5E:FF:FF:FF , which IANA has reserved for such cases. Alternatively, you can set the
second bit of the first byte to mark the address as locally administered address, assigned by network administrator,
and use any MAC address, you just need to ensure they are unique between the hosts connected to one bridge.
Note: EoIP tunnel adds at least 42 byte overhead (8byte GRE + 14 byte Ethernet + 20 byte IP)

Setup examples
Let us assume we want to bridge two networks: 'Office LAN' and 'Remote LAN'. By using EoIP
setup can be made so that Office and Remote LANs are in the same Layer2 broadcast domain.
Consider following setup:

As you know wireless station cannot be bridged, to overcome this limitation (not involving WDS) we will create
EoIP tunnel over the wireless link and bridge it with interfaces connected to local networks.
We will not cower wireless configuration in this example, lets assume that wireless link is already established
At first we create EoIP tunnel on our gateway ...

[admin@Our_GW] interface eoip> add name="eoip-remote" tunnel-id=0 \

\... remote-address=10.0.0.2
[admin@Our_GW] interface eoip> enable eoip-remote
[admin@Our_GW] interface eoip> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name=eoip-remote mtu=1500 arp=enabled remote-address=10.0.0.2 tunnel-id=0
[admin@Our_GW] interface eoip>

... and on Remote router

Manual:Interface/EoIP 272

[admin@Remote] interface eoip> add name="eoip" tunnel-id=0 \

\... remote-address=10.0.0.1
[admin@Remote] interface eoip> enable eoip-main
[admin@Remote] interface eoip> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name=eoip mtu=1500 arp=enabled remote-address=10.0.0.1 tunnel-id=0

[admin@Remote] interface eoip>

Next step is to bridge local interfaces with EoIP tunnel On Our GW ...

[admin@Our_GW] interface bridge> add

[admin@Our_GW] interface bridge> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="bridge1" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:00
protocol-mode=none priority=0x8000 auto-mac=yes
admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s forward-delay=15s
transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m
[admin@Our_GW] interface bridge> port add bridge=bridge1 interface=eoip-remote
[admin@Our_GW] interface bridge> port add bridge=bridge1 interface=office-eth
[admin@Our_GW] interface bridge> port print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST
0 eoip-remote bridge1 128 10
1 office-eth bridge1 128 10
[admin@Our_GW] interface bridge>

... and Remote router:

[admin@Remote] interface bridge> add

[admin@Remote] interface bridge> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="bridge1" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:00
protocol-mode=none priority=0x8000 auto-mac=yes
admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s forward-delay=15s
transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m
[admin@Remote] interface bridge> port add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether
[admin@Remote] interface bridge> port add bridge=bridge1 interface=eoip-main
[admin@Remote] interface bridge> port print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST
0 ether bridge1 128 10
1 eoip-main bridge1 128 10
[admin@Remote] interface bridge>

Now both sites are in the same Layer2 broadcast domain. You can set up IP addresses from the same network on
both sites.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Interface/Gre 273

Manual:Interface/Gre
Applies to RouterOS: v5+

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface gre
Standards: GRE RFC 1701
GRE (generic routing encapsulation) is a tunneling protocol that was originally developed by Cisco. It can
encapsulate wide variety of protocols creating virtual point-to-point link.
GRE the same as IPIP and EoIP were originally developed as stateless tunnels. Meaning that if remote end of the
tunnels goes down all traffic that was routed over the tunnels gets blackholed. To solve this problem RouterOS have
added keepalive feature for GRE tunnels.
GRE tunnel adds 24 byte overhead (4-byte gre header + 20-byte IP header).
Note: Gre tunnel can forward only IP and IPv6 packets (ethernet type 800 and 86dd)

Properties
Property Description

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; Address Resolution Protocol mode

Default: )

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the tunnel.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether tunnel is enabled.

keepalive (integer [1..4294967295]; Default: ) Tunnel keepalive timeout in seconds. By default keepalive is disabled.

l2mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: 65535) Layer2 Maximum transmission unit.

local-address (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Ip addres that will be used as local tunnel end. If set to 0.0.0.0 then ip address of outgoing
interface will be taken.

mtu (integer [0..65536]; Default: 1476) Layer3 Maximum transmission unit.

name (string; Default: ) Name of the tunnel.

remote-address (IP; Default: ) IP address of remote tunnel end.

Manual:Interface/Gre 274

Setup examples
The goal of example is to get Layer 3 connectivity between two remote sites over the internet.

We two sites Site1 with local network range 10.1.101.0/24 and Site2 with local network range 10.1.202.0/24.
First step is to create GRE tunnels. Router on site 1:

/interface gre add name=myGre remote-address=192.168.90.1 local-address=192.168.80.1

Router on site 2:

/interface gre add name=myGre remote-address=192.168.80.1 local-address=192.168.90.1

As you can see tunnel configuration is quite simple.

Note: In this example keepalive is not configured, so tunnel interface will have running flag even if remote
tunnel end is not reachable

Now we just need to set up tunnel addresses and proper routing. Router on site 1:

/ip address
add address=172.16.1.1/30 interface=myGre

/ip route
add dst-address=10.1.202.0/24 gateway=172.16.1.2

Router on site 2:

/ip address
add address=172.16.1.2/30 interface=myGre

/ip route
add dst-address=10.1.101.0/24 gateway=172.16.1.1
Manual:Interface/Gre 275

At this point sites have Layer 3 connectivity over GRE tunnel.

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Manual:Interface/IPIP
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /interface ipip
Standards: IPIP RFC 2003
The IPIP tunneling implementation on the MikroTik RouterOS is RFC 2003 compliant. IPIP tunnel is a simple
protocol that encapsulates IP packets in IP to make a tunnel between two routers. The IPIP tunnel interface appears
as an interface under the interface list. Many routers, including Cisco and Linux based, support this protocol. This
protocol makes multiple network schemes possible.
IP tunneling protocol adds the following possibilities to a network setups:
• to tunnel Intranets over the Internet
• to use it instead of source routing

Properties
Property Description

local-address (IP; Default: ) IP address on a router that will be used by IPIP tunnel

mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Layer3 Maximum transmission unit

name (string; Default: ) Interface name

remote-address (IP; Default: ) IP address of remote end of IPIP tunnel

Note: There is no authentication or 'state' for this interface. The bandwidth usage of the interface may be
monitored with the monitor feature from the interface menu.

IPv6
Sub-menu: /interface ipipv6
IP/IPv6 over IPv6 tunnel functionality is added in v5RC6 and is configurable from another menu: /interface
ipipv6 IPv6 version uses the same properties as IPv4 version.
Manual:Interface/IPIP 276

Setup examples
Suppose we want to add an IPIP tunnel between routers R1 and R2:

At first, we need to configure IPIP interfaces and then add IP addresses to them.
The configuration for router R1 is as follows:

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> add

local-address: 10.0.0.1
remote-address: 22.63.11.6
[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU LOCAL-ADDRESS REMOTE-ADDRESS
0 X ipip1 1480 10.0.0.1 22.63.11.6

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> en 0

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> /ip address add address=1.1.1.1/24 interface=ipip1

The configuration of the R2 is shown below:

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> add local-address=22.63.11.6 remote-address=10.

0.0.1
[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU LOCAL-ADDRESS REMOTE-ADDRESS
0 X ipip1 1480 22.63.11.6 10.0.0.1

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> enable 0

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> /ip address add address=1.1.1.2/24 interface=ipip1

Now both routers can ping each other:

[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip> /ping 1.1.1.2

1.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=24 ms
1.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=19 ms
1.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=20 ms
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 19/21.0/24 ms
[admin@MikroTik] interface ipip>
Manual:Interface/IPIP 277

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Manual:Interface/PPP
Applies to RouterOS: v5, v6+

Summary
Standards: RFC 1661
Package: ppp

PPP Client
Sub-menu: /interface ppp-client

Properties

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to add default route to forward all traffic over the tunnel.

allow (pap | chap | mschap1 | mschap2; Default: Allowed protocols to use for authentication
pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2)

apn (string; Default: )

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

data-channel (integer; Default: 0) Which of the port channels used for data transfer. Read more >>

dial-command (string; Default: "ATDT") AT dial command to use. The default one sets tone dialing mode.

dial-on-demand (yes | no; Default: no) Enable/disable dial on demand

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled or not. By default it is disabled.

info-channel (integer; Default: 0) Which of the port channels used for info. Read more >>

keepalive-timeout (integer | disabled;

Default: 30)

max-mru (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that PPP interface will be able to receive without
packet fragmentation.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that PPP interface will be able to send without
packet fragmentation.

modem-init (string; Default: "") Modem init string

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: disabled) Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU,
it will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over
the tunnel. Read more >>

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the interface.

null-modem (yes | no; Default: no) Enable/disable null-modem mode (when enabled, no modem initialization strings are sent)

password (string; Default: "") Password used for authentication.

Manual:Interface/PPP 278

phone (string; Default: "") Phone number for dial out.

pin (string; Default: "") Sim Cards Pin code.

port (string; Default: "") Serial or USB Port name where modem is connected. Read more >>

profile (name; Default: default) Used PPP profile.

remote-address (IP; Default: )

use-peer-dns (yes | no; Default: yes) Use DNS server settings from the remote server

user (string; Default: ) User name used for authentication.

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Manual:Interface/PPPoE
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
The PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet) protocol provides extensive user management, network
management and accounting benefits to ISPs and network administrators. Currently PPPoE is used mainly by ISPs to
control client connections for xDSL and cable modems as well as plain Ethernet networks. PPPoE is an extension of
the standard Point to Point Protocol (PPP). The difference between them is expressed in transport method: PPPoE
employs Ethernet instead of serial modem connection.
Generally speaking, PPPoE is used to hand out IP addresses to clients based on the username (and workstation, if
desired) authentication as opposed to workstation only authentication, when static IP addresses or DHCP are used. It
is adviced not to use static IP addresses or DHCP on the same interfaces as PPPoE for obvious security reasons.
The PPPoE client and server work over any Ethernet level interface on the router - wireless 802.11 (Aironet, Cisco,
WaveLan, Prism, Atheros), 10/100/1000 Mbit/s Ethernet, RadioLan and EoIP (Ethernet over IP tunnel).

Feature list
• PPPoE server and client support;
• Multilink PPP (MLPPP);
• MLPPP over single link (ability to transmit full-sized frames);
• BCP (Bridge Control Protocol) support - allows to send raw Ethernet frames over PPP links;
• MPPE 40bit and MPPE 128bit RSA encryption;
• pap, chap, mschap v1/v2 authentication;
• RADIUS support for client authentication and accounting.
Note that when RADIUS server is authenticating a user with CHAP, MS-CHAPv1 or MS-CHAPv2, the RADIUS
protocol does not use shared secret, it is used only in authentication reply. So if you have a wrong shared secret,
RADIUS server will accept the request. You can use /radius monitor command to see bad-replies parameter. This
value should increase whenever a client tries to connect.
Supported connections:
• MikroTik RouterOS PPPoE client to any PPPoE server (access concentrator)
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 279

• MikroTik RouterOS server (access concentrator) to multiple PPPoE clients (clients are avaliable for almost all
operating systems and most routers)

Specifications
• Packages required: ppp
• License required: Level1 (limited to 1 interface) , Level3 (limited to 200 interfaces) , Level4 (limited to 200
interfaces) , Level5 (limited to 500 interfaces) , Level6 (unlimited)
• Submenu level: /interface pppoe-server, /interface pppoe-client
• Standards and Technologies: PPPoE (RFC 2516)
• Hardware usage: PPPoE server may require additional RAM (uses approx. 9KiB (plus extra 10KiB for packet
queue, if data rate limitation is used) for each connection) and CPU power. Maximum of 65535 connections is
supported.

Quick Setup Guide

To configure MikroTik RouterOS to be a PPPoE client, just add a pppoe-client:

/interface pppoe-client
add name=pppoe-user-mike user=user password=passwd interface=wlan1 \
service-name=internet disabled=no

To configure MikroTik RouterOS to be an Access Concentrator (PPPoE Server):

• add an address pool for the clients from 10.1.1.62 to 10.1.1.72;
• add ppp profile;
• add ppp secret (username/password);
• add pppoe server itself.

/ip pool
add name="pppoe-pool" ranges=10.1.1.62-10.1.1.72

/ppp profile
add name="pppoe-profile" local-address=10.1.1.1 remote-address=pppoe-pool

/ppp secret
add name=user password=passwd service=pppoe profile=pppoe-profile

/interface pppoe-server server

add service-name=internet interface=wlan1 default-profile=pppoe-profile
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 280

PPPoE Operation

Stages
PPPoE has two stages:
• Discovery stage - a client discovers all available access concentrators and selects one of them to establish PPPoE
session.This stage has four steps: initialization, offer, request and session confirmation . PPPoE Discovery uses
special Ethernet frames with their own Ethernet frame type 0x8863.

To initiate discovery, PPPoE client sends PADI frame to the broadcast Ethernet address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF) and
may specify particular service name.
When server receives PADI frame, it responds with PADO frame to Client's unicast Ethernet address. There can be
more than one server in broadcast range of the client. In such case client collects PADO frames and picks one (in
most cases it picks the server which responded first) to start session.
Client sends PADR frame to unicast Ethernet address of the server it chose. If server agrees to set up a session with
this particular client, it allocates resources to set up PPP session and assigns Session ID number. This number is sent
back to client in PADS frame. When client receives PADS frame, it knows servers mac address and Session ID, it
allocates resources and session can begin.
• Session - When discovery stage is completed, both peers know PPPoE Session ID and other peer's Etehrnet
(MAC) address which together defines PPPoE session. PPP frames are encapsulated in PPPoE session frames,
which have Ethernet frame type 0x8864.
When server sends confirmation and client receives it, PPP Session stage is started that consists of following
steps:
• LCP negotiation
• Authentication
• IPCP negotiation - client is assigned with an IP address.
PPPoE server sends Echo-Request packets to the client to determine the state of the session, otherwise server will not
be able to determine that session is terminated in cases when client terminates session without sending
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 281

Terminate-Request packet.
More detailed description of PPPoE protocol can be found in RFC 2516

Used Packet Types

Packet Description

PADI PPPoE Active Discovery Initialization

The PPPoE client sends out a PADI packet to the broadcast address. This packet can also populate the "service-name" field if a service
name has been entered on the dial-up networking properties of the PPPoE broadband connectoid. If a service name has not been entered,
this field is not populated

PADO PPPoE Active Discovery Offer

The PPPoE server, or Access Concentrator, should respond to the PADI with a PADO if the Access Concentrator is able to service the
"service-name" field that had been listed in the PADI packet. If no "service-name" field had been listed, the Access Concentrator will
respond with a PADO packet that has the "service-name" field populated with the service names that the Access Concentrator can service.
The PADO packet is sent to the unicast address of the PPPoE client

PADR PPPoE Active Discovery Request

When a PADO packet is received, the PPPoE client responds with a PADR packet. This packet is sent to the unicast address of the Access
Concentrator. The client may receive multiple PADO packets, but the client responds to the first valid PADO that the client received. If the
initial PADI packet had a blank "service-name" field filed, the client populates the "service-name" field of the PADR packet with the first
service name that had been returned in the PADO packet.

PADS PPPoE Active Discovery Session confirmation

When the PADR is received, the Access Concentrator generates a unique session identification (ID) for the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
session and returns this ID to the PPPoE client in the PADS packet. This packet is sent to the unicast address of the client.

PADT PPPoE Active Discovery Terminate

might be sent anytime after a session is established to indicate that a PPPoE session terminated. It can be sent by either server or client.

MTU
Typically largest Ethernet frame that can be transmitted without fragmentation is 1500 bytes. PPPoE adds another 6
bytes of overhead and PPP field adds two more bytes, leaving 1492 bytes for IP datagram. Therefore max PPPoE
MRU and MTU values must not be larger than 1492.
TCP stacks try to avoid fragmentation, os they use an MSS (Maximum Segment Size). By default MSS is chosen as
MTU of the outgoing interface minus the usual size of the TCP and IP headers (40 bytes), which results in 1460
bytes for an Eternet interface. Unfortunately there may be intermediate links with lower MTU which will cause
fragmentation. In such case TCP stack performs path MTU discovery. Routers which cannot forward the datagram
without fragmentation are supposed to drop packet and send ICMP-Fragmentation-Required to originating host.
When host receives such ICMP, it tries lower MTU. This should work in ideal world, however in real world many
routers do not generate fragmentation-required datagrams, also many firewalls drop all ICMP datagrams.
Workaround for this problem is to adjust MSS if it is too big. By default RouterOS adds mangle rules to intercept
TCP SYN packets and silently adjust any advertised MSS option so they will be appropriate for the PPPoE link.
Additional information on maximum supported MTUs for routerboards are listed here.
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 282

PPPoE Client
Sub-menu: /interface pppoe-client

Properties

Property Description

ac-name (string; Default: "") Access Concentrator name, this may ne left blank and the client will connect to any access
concentrator on the broadcast domain

add-default-route (yes|no; Default: no) Enable/Disable whether to add default route automatically

allow (mschap2|mschap1|chap|pap; Default: allowed authentication methods, by default all methods are allowed
mschap2,mschap1,chap,pap)

dial-on-demand (yes|no; Default: no) connects to AC only when outbound traffic is generated

interface (string; Default: ) interface name on which client will run

max-mru (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Receive Unit

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Transmission Unit

mrru (integer: 512..65535|disabled; Default: maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU, it
disabled) will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over the
tunnel. Read more >>

name (string; Default: pppoe-out[i]) name of the PPPoE interface, generated by ROuterOS if not specified

password (string; Default: ) password used to authenticate

profile (string; Default: default) default profile for the connection defined in /ppp profiles

service-name (string; Default: "") specifies the service name set on the access concentrator, can be left blank to connect to any
PPPoE server

use-peer-dns (yes|no; Default: no) enable/disable getting DNS settings from the peer

user (string; Default: "") username used for authentication

Status
Command /interface pppoe-client monitor will display current PPPoE status.
Available read only properties:

Property Description

ac-mac (MAC address) MAC address of the access concentrator (AC) the client is connected to

ac-name (string) name of the Access Concentrator

encoding (string) encryption and encoding (if asymmetric, separated with '/') being used in this connection

mru (integer) effective MRU of the link

mtu (integer) effective MTU of the link

service-name (string) used service name

status (string) current link status. Available values are:

• dialing,
• verifying password...,
• connected,
• disconnected.

uptime (time) connection time displayed in days, hours, minutes and seconds
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 283

Scanner
Starting from v3.21 RouterOS has new tool - PPPoE Scanner. It allows you to scan all active PPPoE servers in
broadcast domain. Command to run scanner is as follows/interface pppoe-client scan
<interface>
Available read only properties:

Property Description

service (string) Service name configured on server

mac-address (MAC) Mac address of detected server

ac-name (string) name of the Access Concentrator

Notes
Note for Windows. Some connection instructions may use the form where the "phone number", such as
"MikroTik_AC\mt1", is specified to indicate that "MikroTik_AC" is the access concentrator name and "mt1" is the
service name.
Specifying MRRU means enabling MP (Multilink PPP) over single link. This protocol is used to split big packets
into smaller ones. Under Windows it can be enabled in Networking tag, Settings button, "Negotiate multi-link for
single link connections". Their MRRU is hardcoded to 1614. This setting is usefull to overcome PathMTU discovery
failures. The MP should be enabled on both peers.

Example
To add and enable PPPoE client on the ether1 interface connecting to the AC that provides testSN service using user
name user with the password passwd:
[admin@RemoteOffice] interface pppoe-client> add interface=ether1 service-name=testSN user=user
password=passwd disabled=no
[admin@RemoteOffice] interface pppoe-client> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="pppoe-out1" max-mtu=1480 max-mru=1480 mrru=disabled interface=ether1
user="user" password="passwd" profile=default service-name="testSN"
ac-name="" add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no use-peer-dns=no
allow=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2

[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-client> monitor pppoe-out1

status: "connected"
uptime: 6s
idle-time: 6s
encoding: "MPPE128 stateless"
service-name: "testSN"
ac-name: "MikroTik"
ac-mac: 00:0C:42:04:00:73
mtu: 1480
mru: 1480
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 284

Additional Resources
PPPoE Clients:
• RASPPPoE [1]for Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, .NET

PPPoE Server Setup (Access Concentrator)

Sub-menu: /interface pppoe-server server
The PPPoE server (access concentrator) supports multiple servers for each interface - with differing service names.
Currently the throughput of the PPPoE server has been tested to 160 Mb/s on a Celeron 600 CPU. Using higher
speed CPUs, throughput should increase proportionately.
The access concentrator name and PPPoE service name are used by clients to identity the access concentrator to
register with. The access concentrator name is the same as the identity of the router displayed before the command
prompt. The identity may be set within the /system identity submenu.
Note that if no service name is specified in WindowsXP, it will use only service with no name. So if you want to
serve WindowsXP clients, leave your service name empty.

Properties

Property Description

authentication ( mschap2 | mschap1 | chap | Authentication algorithm

pap; Default: "mschap2, mschap1, chap, pap")

default-profile (string; Default: "default") Default user profile to use

interface (string; Default: "") Interface, which the clients are connected to

keepalive-timeout (time; Default: "10") Defines the time period (in seconds) after which the router is starting to send keepalive
packets every second. If no traffic and no keepalive responses came for that period of time
(i.e. 2 * keepalive-timeout), not responding client is proclaimed disconnected.

max-mru (integer; Default: "1480") Maximum Receive Unit. The optimal value is the MTU of the interface the tunnel is working
over decreased by 20 (so, for 1500-byte Ethernet link, set the MTU to 1480 to avoid
fragmentation of packets)

max-mtu (integer; Default: "1480") Maximum Transmission Unit. The optimal value is the MTU of the interface the tunnel is
working over decreased by 20 (so, for 1500-byte Ethernet link, set the MTU to 1480 to avoid
fragmentation of packets)

max-sessions (integer; Default: "0") Maximum number of clients that the AC can serve. '0'- no limitations.

mrru (integer: 512..65535 | disabled; Default: Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU,
"disabled") it will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over
the tunnel. Read more >>

one-session-per-host (yes | no; Default: Allow only one session per host (determined by MAC address). If a host will try to establish a
"no") new session, the old one will be closed

service-name (string; Default: "") The PPPoE service name. Server will accept clients which sends PADI message with
service-names that matches this setting or if service-name field in PADI message is not set.
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 285

Notes
The default keepalive-timeout value of 10 is OK in most cases. If you set it to 0, the router will not disconnect clients
until they explicitly log out or the router is restarted. To resolve this problem, the one-session-per-host property can
be used.
Security issue: do not assign an IP address to the interface you will be receiving the PPPoE requests on.
Specifying MRRU means enabling MP (Multilink PPP) over single link. This protocol is used to split big packets
into smaller ones. Under Windows it can be enabled in Networking tag, Settings button, "Negotiate multi-link for
single link connections". Their MRRU is hardcoded to 1614. This setting is usefull to overcome PathMTU discovery
failures. The MP should be enabled on both peers.

Example
To add PPPoE server on ether1 interface providing ex service and allowing only one connection per host:

[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server server> add interface=ether1 service-name=ex

one-session-per-host=yes
[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server server> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 X service-name="ex" interface=ether1 mtu=1480 mru=1480 mrru=disabled
authentication=mschap2,mschap,chap,pap keepalive-timeout=10
one-session-per-host=yes max-sessions=0 default-profile=default
[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server server>

PPPoE Server
Sub-menu: /interface pppoe-server
There are two types of interface (tunnel) items in PPTP server configuration - static users and dynamic connections.
An interface is created for each tunnel established to the given server. Static interfaces are added administratively if
there is a need to reference the particular interface name (in firewall rules or elsewhere) created for the particular
user. Dynamic interfaces are added to this list automatically whenever a user is connected and its username does not
match any existing static entry (or in case the entry is active already, as there can not be two separate tunnel
interfaces referenced by the same name). Dynamic interfaces appear when a user connects and disappear once the
user disconnects, so it is impossible to reference the tunnel created for that use in router configuration (for example,
in firewall), so if you need a persistent rules for that user, create a static entry for him/her. Otherwise it is safe to use
dynamic configuration. Note that in both cases PPP users must be configured properly - static entries do not replace
PPP configuration.

Property Description
• encoding (read-only: text) - encryption and encoding (if asymmetric, separated with '/') being used in this
connection
• mru (read-only: integer) - client's MRU
• mtu (read-only: integer) - client's MTU
• name (name) - interface name
• remote-address (read-only: MAC address) - MAC address of the connected client
• service (name) - name of the service the user is connected to
• uptime (read-only: time) - shows how long the client is connected
• user (name) - the name of the connected user (must be present in the user darabase anyway)
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 286

Example
To view the currently connected users:

[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server> print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running
# NAME USER SERVICE REMOTE... ENCODING UPTIME
0 DR <pppoe-ex> user ex 00:0C:... MPPE12... 40m45s
[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server>

To disconnect the user ex:

[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server> remove [find user=ex]

[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server> print
[admin@MikroTik] interface pppoe-server>

Application Examples

PPPoE in a multipoint wireless 802.11g network

In a wireless network, the PPPoE server may be attached to an Access Point (as well as to a regular station of
wireless infrastructure). Either our RouterOS client or Windows PPPoE clients may connect to the Access Point for
PPPoE authentication. Further, for RouterOS clients, the radio interface may be set to MTU 1600 so that the PPPoE
interface may be set to MTU 1500. This optimizes the transmission of 1500 byte packets and avoids any problems
associated with MTUs lower than 1500. It has not been determined how to change the MTU of the Windows
wireless interface at this moment.
Let us consider the following setup where the MikroTik Wireless AP offers wireless clients transparent access to the
local network with authentication:

First of all, the wireless interface should be configured:

Manual:Interface/PPPoE 287

[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface wireless> set 0 mode=ap-bridge \

frequency=2442 band=2.4ghz-b/g ssid=mt disabled=no
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface wireless> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 X name="wlan1" mtu=1500 mac-address=00:0C:42:18:5C:3D arp=enabled
interface-type=Atheros AR5413 mode=ap-bridge ssid="mt" frequency=2442
band=2.4ghz-b/g scan-list=default antenna-mode=ant-a wds-mode=disabled
wds-default-bridge=none wds-ignore-ssid=no default-authentication=yes
default-forwarding=yes default-ap-tx-limit=0 default-client-tx-limit=0
hide-ssid=no security-profile=default compression=no
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface wireless>

Now, configure the Ethernet interface, add the IP address and set the default route:

[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip address> add address=10.1.0.3/24 interface=Local

[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip address> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.1.0.3/24 10.1.0.0 10.1.0.255 Local
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip address> /ip route
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip route> add gateway=10.1.0.1
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip route> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTER...
0 ADC 10.1.0.0/24 10.1.0.3 0 Local
1 A S 0.0.0.0/0 r 10.1.0.1 1 Local
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip route> /interface ethernet
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface ethernet> set Local arp=proxy-arp
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface ethernet> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R Local 1500 00:0C:42:03:25:53 proxy-arp
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface ethernet>

We should add PPPoE server to the wireless interface:

[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface pppoe-server server> add interface=wlan1 \

service-name=mt one-session-per-host=yes disabled=no
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface pppoe-server server> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 service-name="mt" interface=wlan1 max-mtu=1480 max-mru=1480 mrru=disabled
authentication=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2 keepalive-timeout=10
one-session-per-host=yes max-sessions=0 default-profile=default
[admin@PPPoE-Server] interface pppoe-server server>

Finally, we can set up PPPoE clients:

Manual:Interface/PPPoE 288

[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip pool> add name=pppoe ranges=10.1.0.100-10.1.0.200

[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip pool> print
# NAME RANGES
0 pppoe 10.1.0.100-10.1.0.200
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ip pool> /ppp profile
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp profile> set default use-encryption=yes \
local-address=10.1.0.3 remote-address=pppoe
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp profile> print
Flags: * - default
0 * name="default" local-address=10.1.0.3 remote-address=pppoe
use-compression=no use-vj-compression=no use-encryption=yes only-one=no
change-tcp-mss=yes

1 * name="default-encryption" use-compression=default
use-vj-compression=default use-encryption=yes only-one=default
change-tcp-mss=default
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp profile> .. secret
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp secret> add name=w password=wkst service=pppoe
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp secret> add name=l password=ltp service=pppoe
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp secret> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME SERVICE CALLER-ID PASSWORD PROFILE REMOTE-ADDRESS
0 w pppoe wkst default 0.0.0.0
1 l pppoe ltp default 0.0.0.0
[admin@PPPoE-Server] ppp secret>

Thus we have completed the configuration and added two users: w and l who are able to connect to Internet, using
PPPoE client software.
Note that Windows XP built-in client supports encryption, but RASPPPOE does not. So, if it is planned not to
support Windows clients older than Windows XP, it is recommended not to require encryption. In other case, the
server will accept clients that do not encrypt data.

Troubleshooting
• I can connect to my PPPoE server. The ping goes even through it, but I still cannot open web pages
Make sure that you have specified a valid DNS server in the router (in /ip dns or in /ppp profile the dns-server
parameter).
• The PPPoE server shows more than one active user entry for one client, when the clients disconnect, they
are still shown and active
Set the keepalive-timeout parameter (in the PPPoE server configuration) to 10 if You want clients to be
considered logged off if they do not respond for 10 seconds.
Note that if the keepalive-timeout parameter is set to 0 and the only-one parameter (in PPP profile
settings) is set to yes then the clients might be able to connect only once. To resolve this problem
one-session-per-host parameter in PPPoE server configuration should be set to yes
• My Windows XP client cannot connect to the PPPoE server
You have to specify the "Service Name" in the properties of the XP PPPoE client. If the service name is not set, or it
does not match the service name of the MikroTik PPPoE server, you get the "line is busy" errors, or the system
Manual:Interface/PPPoE 289

shows "verifying password - unknown error"

• I want to have logs for PPPoE connection establishment
Configure the logging feature under the /system logging facility and enable the PPP type logs. Read more >>
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / www. raspppoe. com/

Manual:Interface/PPTP
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Summary
Standards: RFC 2637
PPTP is a secure tunnel for transporting IP traffic using PPP. PPTP encapsulates PPP in virtual lines that run over IP.
PPTP incorporates PPP and MPPE (Microsoft Point to Point Encryption) to make encrypted links. The purpose of
this protocol is to make well-managed secure connections between routers as well as between routers and PPTP
clients (clients are available for and/or included in almost all OSs including Windows).
Multilink PPP (MP) is supported in order to provide MRRU (the ability to transmit full-sized 1500 and larger
packets) and bridging over PPP links (using Bridge Control Protocol (BCP) that allows to send raw Ethernet frames
over PPP links). This way it is possible to setup bridging without EoIP. The bridge should either have an
administratively set MAC address or an Ethernet-like interface in it, as PPP links do not have MAC addresses.
PPTP includes PPP authentication and accounting for each PPTP connection. Full authentication and accounting of
each connection may be done through a RADIUS client or locally.
MPPE 40bit RC4 and MPPE 128bit RC4 encryption are supported.
PPTP traffic uses TCP port 1723 and IP protocol GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation, IP protocol ID 47), as
assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). PPTP can be used with most firewalls and routers by
enabling traffic destined for TCP port 1723 and protocol 47 traffic to be routed through the firewall or router.
PPTP connections may be limited or impossible to setup though a masqueraded/NAT IP connection. Please see the
Microsoft and RFC links listed below for more information.

PPTP Client
Sub-menu: /interface pptp-client

Properties
Manual:Interface/PPTP 290

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to add PPTP remote address as a default route.

allow (mschap2 | mschap1 | chap | pap; Allowed authentication methods.

Default: mschap2, mschap1, chap, pap)

connect-to (IP; Default: ) Remote address of PPTP server

dial-on-demand (yes | no; Default: no)

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled or not. By default it is disabled

max-mru (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that PPTP interface will be able to receive without
packet fragmentation.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that PPTP interface will be able to send without
packet fragmentation.

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: disabled) Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU, it
will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over the
tunnel. Read more >>

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the interface.

password (string; Default: "") Password used for authentication.

profile (name; Default: default-encryption) Used PPP profile.

user (string; Default: ) User name used for authentication.

Quick example
This example demonstrates how to set up PPTP client with username "pptp-hm", password "123" and server
10.1.101.100
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface pptp-client>add name=pptp-hm user=pptp-hm password=123 \
\... connect-to=10.1.101.100 disabled=no
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface pptp-client> print detail
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name="pptp-hm" max-mtu=1460 max-mru=1460 mrru=disabled
connect-to=10.1.101.100 user="pptp-hm" password="123"
profile=default-encryption add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no
allow=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2

PPTP Server
Sub-menu: /interface pptp-server
This sub-menu shows interfaces for each connected PPTP clients.
An interface is created for each tunnel established to the given server. There are two types of interfaces in PPTP
server's configuration
• Static interfaces are added administratively if there is a need to reference the particular interface name (in firewall
rules or elsewhere) created for the particular user.
• Dynamic interfaces are added to this list automatically whenever a user is connected and its username does not
match any existing static entry (or in case the entry is active already, as there can not be two separate tunnel
interfaces referenced by the same name).
Dynamic interfaces appear when a user connects and disappear once the user disconnects, so it is impossible to
reference the tunnel created for that use in router configuration (for example, in firewall), so if you need a persistent
Manual:Interface/PPTP 291

rules for that user, create a static entry for him/her. Otherwise it is safe to use dynamic configuration.
Note: in both cases PPP users must be configured properly - static entries do not replace PPP configuration.

Server configuration
Sub-menu: /interface pptp-server server
Properties

Property Description

authentication (pap | chap | mschap1 Authentication methods that server will accept.
| mschap2; Default: mschap1,mschap2)

default-profile (name; Default:

default-encryption)

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether PPTP server is enabled or not.

keepalive-timeout (time; Default: 30) If server during keepalive period does not receive any packet, it will send keepalive packets every
second five times. If the server does not receives response from the client, then disconnect after 5
seconds. Logs will show 5x "LCP missed echo reply" messages and then disconnect.

max-mru (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that PPTP interface will be able to receive without packet
fragmentation.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that PPTP interface will be able to send without
packet fragmentation.

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: disabled) Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU, it will
be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over the tunnel.
Read more >>

To enable PPTP server:

[admin@MikroTik] interface pptp-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@MikroTik] interface pptp-server server> print
enabled: yes
max-mtu: 1460
max-mru: 1460
mrru: disabled
authentication: mschap2,mschap1
keepalive-timeout: 30
default-profile: default
[admin@MikroTik] interface pptp-server server>

Monitoring
Monitor command can be used to monitor status of the tunnel on both client and server.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface pptp-client> monitor 0

status: "connected"
uptime: 7h24m18s
idle-time: 6h21m4s
encoding: "MPPE128 stateless"
mtu: 1460
mru: 1460
Manual:Interface/PPTP 292

Read-only properties

Property Description

status () Current PPTP status. Value other than "connected" indicates that there are some problems estabising tunnel.

uptime (time) Elapsed time since tunnel was established.

idle-time (time) Elapsed time since last activity on the tunnel.

encoding () Used encryption method

mtu (integer) Negotiated and used MTU

mru (integer) Negotiated and used MRU

Application Examples

Connecting Remote Client

The following example shows how to connect a computer to a remote office network over PPTP encrypted tunnel
giving that computer an IP address from the same network as the remote office has (without need of bridging over
EoIP tunnels)
Consider following setup

Office router is connected to internet through ether1. Workstations are connected to ether2. Laptop is connected to
the internet and can reach Office router's public IP (in our example it is 192.168.80.1).
First step is to create a user

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> add name=Laptop service=pptp password=123

local-address=10.1.101.1 remote-address=10.1.101.100
[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> print detail
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="Laptop" service=pptp caller-id="" password="123" profile=default
local-address=10.1.101.1 remote-address=10.1.101.100 routes==""

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret>

Manual:Interface/PPTP 293

Notice that pptp local address is the same as routers address on local interface and remote address is form the same
range as local network (10.1.101.0/24).
Next step is to enable pptp server and pptp client on the laptop.

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface pptp-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface pptp-server server> print
enabled: yes
max-mtu: 1460
max-mru: 1460
mrru: disabled
authentication: mschap2
keepalive-timeout: 30
default-profile: default
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface pptp-server server>

PPTP client from the laptop should connect to routers public IP which in our example is 192.168.80.1.
Please, consult the respective manual on how to set up a PPTP client with the software You are using.
At this point (when pptp client is successfully connected) if you will try to ping any workstation form the laptop,
ping will time out, because Laptop is unable to get ARPs from workstations. Solution is to set up proxy-arp on
local interface

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface ethernet> set Office arp=proxy-arp

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface ethernet> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R ether1 1500 00:30:4F:0B:7B:C1 enabled
1 R ether2 1500 00:30:4F:06:62:12 proxy-arp
[admin@RemoteOffice] interface ethernet>

After proxy-arp is enabled client can successfully reach all workstations in local network behind the router.
Manual:Interface/PPTP 294

Site-to-Site PPTP
The following is an example of connecting two Intranets using PPTP tunnel over the Internet.
Consider following setup

Office and Home routers are connected to internet through ether1, workstations and laptops are connected to ether2.
Both local networks are routed through pptp client, thus they are not in the same broadcast domain. If both networks
should be in the same broadcast domain then you need to use BCP and bridge pptp tunnel with local interface.
First step is to create a user
[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> add name=Home service=pptp password=123
local-address=172.16.1.1 remote-address=172.16.1.2 routes="10.1.202.0/24 172.16.1.2 1"
[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> print detail
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="Home" service=pptp caller-id="" password="123" profile=default
local-address=172.16.1.1 remote-address=172.16.1.2 routes=="10.1.202.0/24 172.16.1.2 1"

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret>

Notice that we set up pptp to add route whenever client connects. If this option is not set, then you will need static
routing configuration on the server to route traffic between sites through pptp tunnel.
Next step is to enable pptp server on the office router and configure pptp client on the Home router.

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface pptp-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface pptp-server server> print
enabled: yes
max-mtu: 1460
max-mru: 1460
mrru: disabled
authentication: mschap2
keepalive-timeout: 30
default-profile: default
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface pptp-server server>
Manual:Interface/PPTP 295

[admin@Home] /interface pptp-client> add user=Home password=123 connect-to=192.168.80.1 disabled=no

[admin@Home] /interface pptp-client> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name="pptp-out1" max-mtu=1460 max-mru=1460 mrru=disabled connect-to=192.168.80.1 user="Home"
password="123" profile=default-encryption add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no
allow=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2
[admin@Home] /interface pptp-client>

Now we need to add route to reach local network behind Home router

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ip route> add dst-address=10.1.101.0/24 gateway=pptp-out1

Now after tunnel is established and routes are set, you should be able to ping remote network.

Read More
• BCP (Bridge Control Protocol)
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/backgrnd/html/understanding_pptp.htm
• http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q162/8/47.asp
• http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2637.txt?number=2637
• http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3078.txt?number=3078
• http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3079.txt?number=3079
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Interface/L2TP
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Summary
Standards: RFC 2661
L2TP is a secure tunnel protocol for transporting IP traffic using PPP. L2TP encapsulates PPP in virtual lines that
run over IP, Frame Relay and other protocols (that are not currently supported by MikroTik RouterOS). L2TP
incorporates PPP and MPPE (Microsoft Point to Point Encryption) to make encrypted links. The purpose of this
protocol is to allow the Layer 2 and PPP endpoints to reside on different devices interconnected by a
packet-switched network. With L2TP, a user has a Layer 2 connection to an access concentrator - LAC (e.g., modem
bank, ADSL DSLAM, etc.), and the concentrator then tunnels individual PPP frames to the Network Access Server -
NAS. This allows the actual processing of PPP packets to be separated from the termination of the Layer 2 circuit.
From the user's perspective, there is no functional difference between having the L2 circuit terminate in a NAS
directly or using L2TP.
It may also be useful to use L2TP just as any other tunneling protocol with or without encryption. The L2TP
standard says that the most secure way to encrypt data is using L2TP over IPsec (Note that it is default mode for
Microsoft L2TP client) as all L2TP control and data packets for a particular tunnel appear as homogeneous UDP/IP
data packets to the IPsec system.
Manual:Interface/L2TP 296

Multilink PPP (MP) is supported in order to provide MRRU (the ability to transmit full-sized 1500 and larger
packets) and bridging over PPP links (using Bridge Control Protocol (BCP) that allows to send raw Ethernet frames
over PPP links). This way it is possible to setup bridging without EoIP. The bridge should either have an
administratively set MAC address or an Ethernet-like interface in it, as PPP links do not have MAC addresses.
L2TP includes PPP authentication and accounting for each L2TP connection. Full authentication and accounting of
each connection may be done through a RADIUS client or locally.
MPPE 40bit RC4 and MPPE 128bit RC4 encryption are supported.
L2TP traffic uses UDP protocol for both control and data packets. UDP port 1701 is used only for link
establishment, further traffic is using any available UDP port (which may or may not be 1701). This means that
L2TP can be used with most firewalls and routers (even with NAT) by enabling UDP traffic to be routed through the
firewall or router.

L2TP Client
Sub-menu: /interface l2tp-client

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to add L2TP remote address as a default route.

allow (mschap2 | mschap1 | chap | pap; Allowed authentication methods.

Default: mschap2, mschap1, chap, pap)

connect-to (IP; Default: ) Remote address of L2TP server

dial-on-demand (yes | no; Default: no)

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled or not. By default it is disabled

max-mru (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that L2TP interface will be able to receive without
packet fragmentation.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that L2TP interface will be able to send without
packet fragmentation.

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: disabled) Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU, it
will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over the
tunnel. Read more >>

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the interface.

password (string; Default: "") Password used for authentication.

profile (name; Default: default-encryption) Used PPP profile.

user (string; Default: ) User name used for authentication.

This example demonstrates how to set up L2TP client with username "l2tp-hm", password "123" and server
10.1.101.100
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface l2tp-client>add name=l2tp-hm user=l2tp-hm password=123 \
\... connect-to=10.1.101.100 disabled=no
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface l2tp-client> print detail
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name="l2tp-hm" max-mtu=1460 max-mru=1460 mrru=disabled
connect-to=10.1.101.100 user="l2tp-hm" password="123"
profile=default-encryption add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no
allow=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2
Manual:Interface/L2TP 297

L2TP Server
Sub-menu: /interface l2tp-server
This sub-menu shows interfaces for each connected L2TP clients.
An interface is created for each tunnel established to the given server. There are two types of interfaces in L2TP
server's configuration
• Static interfaces are added administratively if there is a need to reference the particular interface name (in firewall
rules or elsewhere) created for the particular user.
• Dynamic interfaces are added to this list automatically whenever a user is connected and its username does not
match any existing static entry (or in case the entry is active already, as there can not be two separate tunnel
interfaces referenced by the same name).
Dynamic interfaces appear when a user connects and disappear once the user disconnects, so it is impossible to
reference the tunnel created for that use in router configuration (for example, in firewall), so if you need a persistent
rules for that user, create a static entry for him/her. Otherwise it is safe to use dynamic configuration.
Note: in both cases PPP users must be configured properly - static entries do not replace PPP configuration.

Server configuration
Sub-menu: /interface l2tp-server server
Properties

Property Description

authentication (pap | chap | Authentication methods that server will accept.

mschap1 | mschap2; Default:
mschap1,mschap2)

default-profile (name; Default:

default-encryption)

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether L2TP server is enabled or not.

max-mru (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that L2TP interface will be able to receive without packet
fragmentation.

keeplaive-timeout (integer; If server during keepalive period does not receive any packet, it will send keepalive packets every
Default: 30) second five times. If the server does not receives response from the client, then disconnect after 5
seconds. Logs will show 5x "LCP missed echo reply" messages and then disconnect. Available starting
from v5.22 and v6rc3.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1460) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that L2TP interface will be able to send without packet
fragmentation.

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel MTU, it will be
disabled) split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be sent over the tunnel. Read
more >>

To enable L2TP server:

[admin@MikroTik] interface l2tp-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@MikroTik] interface l2tp-server server> print
enabled: yes
max-mtu: 1460
max-mru: 1460
mrru: disabled
authentication: pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2
Manual:Interface/L2TP 298

default-profile: default-encryption
[admin@MikroTik] interface l2tp-server server>

Monitoring
Monitor command can be used to monitor status of the tunnel on both client and server.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface l2tp-client> monitor 0

status: "connected"
uptime: 7h24m18s
idle-time: 6h21m4s
encoding: "MPPE128 stateless"
mtu: 1460
mru: 1460

Read-only properties

Property Description

status () Current L2TP status. Value other than "connected" indicates that there are some problems estabising tunnel.
• dialing - attempting to make a connection
• verifying password - connection has been established to the server, password verification in progress
• connected - tunnel is successfully established
• terminated - interface is not enabled or the other side will not establish a connection

uptime (time) Elapsed time since tunnel was established.

idle-time (time) Elapsed time since last activity on the tunnel.

encoding () Used encryption method

mtu (integer) Negotiated and used MTU

mru (integer) Negotiated and used MRU

Manual:Interface/L2TP 299

Application Examples

Connecting Remote Client

The following example shows how to connect a computer to a remote office network over L2TP encrypted tunnel
giving that computer an IP address from the same network as the remote office has (without need of bridging over
EoIP tunnels)
Consider following setup

Office router is connected to internet through ether1. Workstations are connected to ether2. Laptop is connected to
the internet and can reach Office router's public IP (in our example it is 192.168.80.1).
First step is to create a user

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> add name=Laptop service=l2tp password=123

local-address=10.1.101.1 remote-address=10.1.101.100
[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> print detail
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="Laptop" service=l2tp caller-id="" password="123" profile=default
local-address=10.1.101.1 remote-address=10.1.101.100 routes==""

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret>

Notice that L2TP local address is the same as routers address on local interface and remote address is form the same
range as local network (10.1.101.0/24).
Next step is to enable L2TP server and L2TP client on the laptop.

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface l2tp-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface l2tp-server server> print
enabled: yes
max-mtu: 1460
max-mru: 1460
mrru: disabled
authentication: mschap2
Manual:Interface/L2TP 300

default-profile: default-encryption
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface l2tp-server server>

L2TP client from the laptop should connect to routers public IP which in our example is 192.168.80.1.
Please, consult the respective manual on how to set up a L2TP client with the software You are using.
Note: By default Windows sets up L2TP with IPsec. To disable IpSec registry modifications are required.
Read more >>

At this point (when L2TP client is successfully connected) if you will try to ping any workstation
form the laptop, ping will time out, because Laptop is unable to get ARPs from workstations.
Solution is to set up proxy-arp on local interface

[admin@RemoteOffice] interface ethernet> set ether2 arp=proxy-arp

[admin@RemoteOffice] interface ethernet> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R ether1 1500 00:30:4F:0B:7B:C1 enabled
1 R ether2 1500 00:30:4F:06:62:12 proxy-arp
[admin@RemoteOffice] interface ethernet>

After proxy-arp is enabled client can successfully reach all workstations in local network behind the router.

Site-to-Site L2TP
The following is an example of connecting two Intranets using L2TP tunnel over the Internet.
Consider following setup

Office and Home routers are connected to internet through ether1, workstations and laptops are connected to ether2.
Both local networks are routed through L2TP client, thus they are not in the same broadcast domain. If both
networks should be in the same broadcast domain then you need to use BCP and bridge L2TP tunnel with local
interface.
First step is to create a user
Manual:Interface/L2TP 301

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> add name=Home service=l2tp password=123

local-address=172.16.1.1 remote-address=172.16.1.2 routes="10.1.202.0/24 172.16.1.2 1"
[admin@RemoteOffice] ppp secret> print detail
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="Home" service=l2tp caller-id="" password="123" profile=default
local-address=172.16.1.1 remote-address=172.16.1.2 routes=="10.1.202.0/24 172.16.1.2 1"

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret>

Notice that we set up L2TP to add route whenever client connects. If this option is not set, then you will need static
routing configuration on the server to route traffic between sites through L2TP tunnel.
Next step is to enable L2TP server on the office router and configure L2TP client on the Home router.

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface l2tp-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface l2tp-server server> print
enabled: yes
max-mtu: 1460
max-mru: 1460
mrru: disabled
authentication: mschap2
default-profile: default-encryption
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface l2tp-server server>

[admin@Home] /interface l2tp-client> add user=Home password=123 connect-to=192.168.80.1 disabled=no

[admin@Home] /interface l2tp-client> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="l2tp-out1" max-mtu=1460 max-mru=1460 mrru=disabled connect-to=192.168.80.1 user="Home"
password="123" profile=default-encryption add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no
allow=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2
[admin@Home] /interface l2tp-client>

On home router you need to add route manually, or you can also use profile to add it automatically when client
connects. In this case we will use manual route:

[admin@Home] /ip route> add dst-address=10.1.101.0/24 gateway=l2tp-out1

After tunnel is established and routes are set, you should be able to ping remote network.

Read More
• BCP (Bridge Control Protocol)
• Disable IpSec used with L2TP on Windows [1]
• MikroTik RouterOS and Windows XP IPSec/L2TP
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References
[1] http:/ / support. microsoft. com/ default. aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B258261. php
Manual:Interface/SSTP 302

Manual:Interface/SSTP
Applies to RouterOS: v5, v6+

Summary
Standards: SSTP specification [1]
Package: ppp
Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) is the way to transport PPP tunnel over SSL 3.0 channel. The use of SSL
over TCP port 443 allows SSTP to pass through virtually all firewalls and proxy servers.
SSTP connection mechanism

• TCP connection is established from client to server (by default on port 443);
• SSL validates server certificate. If certificate is valid connection is established otherwise connection is torn down.
• The client sends SSTP control packets within the HTTPS session which establishes the SSTP state machine on
both sides.
• PPP negotiation over SSTP. Client authenticates to the server and binds IP addresses to SSTP interface
• SSTP tunnel is now established and packet encapsulation can begin.
If both client and server are Mikrotik routers, then it is possible to establish SSTP tunnel without certificates and
with any available authentication type. Otherwise to establish secure tunnels mschap authentication and client/server
certificates from the same chain should be used. Read more>>
Note: Starting from v5.0beta2 SSTP does not require certificates to operate. This feature will work only
between two MikroTik routers, as it is not according to standards.

Currently, SSTP clients exist only in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and RouterOS.
Manual:Interface/SSTP 303

Note: While connecting to SSTP server, Windows does CRL (certificate revocation list) checking on server
certificate which can introduce significant delay to complete connection or even prevent user from accessing
sstp server at all if Windows is unable to access CRL distribution point! Custom generated CA which does
not include CRLs can be used to minimize connection delays and certificate costs (signed certificates with
known CA usually are not for free), but this custom CA must be imported into each Windows client
individually. It is possible to disable CRL check in Windows registry, but it is supported only by Windows Server 2008 http:/ /
support.microsoft.com/kb/947054

Certificates
Note: Starting from RouterOS v6rc10 SSTP respects CRL

To set up secure SSTP tunnel, certificates are required. On the server authentication is done only
by username and password, but on the client - server is authenticated using server certificate. It is
also used by client to cryptographicly bind SSL and PPP authentication, meaning - the clients
sends a special value over SSTP connection to server, this value is derived from the key data that
is generated during PPP authentication and server certificate, this allows server to check if both channels are secure.
If sstp clients are Windows PCs then only way to set up secure SSTP tunnel when using self-signed certificate is by
importing "server" certificate on SSTP server and on windows PC add CA certificate in trusted root [2].
Note: If your server certificate is issued by CA which is known by Windows, then Windows client will work
witout any additional certificates.

Warning: RSA Key length must be at least 472 bits if certificate is used by SSTP. Shorter keys are
considered as security threats.

Similar configuration on RouterOS client would be, importing CA certificate and enabling
verify-server-certificate option. In this scenario Man-in-the-Middle attacks are not possible.
Between two Mikrotik routers it is also possible to set up insecure tunnel by not using certificates
at all. In this case data going through SSTP tunnel is using anonymous DH and Man-in-the-Middle attacks are easily
accomplished. This scenario is not compatible with Windows clients.
It is also possible to make secure SSTP tunnel by adding additional authorization with client certificate.
Configuration requirements are:
• certificates on both server and client
• verification options enabled on server and client
This scenario is also not possible with Windows clients, because there is no way to set up client certificate on
Windows.
Manual:Interface/SSTP 304

Certificate error messages

When ssl handshake fails, you will see one of the following certificate errors:
• certificate is not yet valid - notBefore date is after the current time.
• certificate has expired - notAfter date is before the current time.
• invalid certificate purpose - the supplied certificate cannot be used for the specified purpose.
• self signed certificate in chain - the certificate chain could be built up using the untrusted certificates but the root
could not be found locally.
• unable to get issuer certificate locally - CA certificate is not imported locally.
• server's IP address does not match certificate - server address verification is enabled, but address provided in
certificate does not match servers address.

Hostname verification
Starting from v5.6 when server ceritificate verification is enabled on sstp client, additionally IP addresses found in
certificate's subjectAltName and then issuer CN will be compared to the real address. DNS names are ignored. v5.7
adds new parameter verify-server-address-from-certificate to disable/enable hostname
verification.

SSTP Client
Sub-menu: /interface sstp-client

Properties

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to add SSTP remote address as a default route.

authentication (mschap2 | mschap1 | chap | pap; Default: Allowed authentication methods.

mschap2, mschap1, chap, pap)

certificate (string | none; Default: none)

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

connect-to (IP:Port; Default: 0.0.0.0:443) Remote address and port of SSTP server.

dial-on-demand (yes | no; Default: no)

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled or not. By default it is disabled.

keepalive-timeout (integer | disabled; Default: 60)

max-mru (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that SSTP interface will be able to
receive without packet fragmentation.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that SSTP interface will be
able to send without packet fragmentation.

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: disabled) Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger
than tunnel MTU, it will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP
or Ethernet packets to be sent over the tunnel. Read more >>

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the interface.

password (string; Default: "") Password used for authentication.

profile (name; Default: default-encryption) Used PPP profile.

proxy (IP:Port; Default: 0.0.0.0:443) Address and port of HTTP proxy server.

user (string; Default: ) User name used for authentication.

Manual:Interface/SSTP 305

verify-server-certificate (yes | no; Default: no) If set to yes, then client checks whether certificate belongs to the same
certificate chain as server's certificate. To make it work CA certificate must
be imported.

verify-server-address-from-certificate (yes | no; If set to yes, server's IP address will be compared to one set in certificate.
Default: yes) Read More >>

Quick example
This example demonstrates how to set up SSTP client with username "sstp-test", password "123" and server
10.1.101.1

[admin@MikroTik] /interface sstp-client>add user=sstp-test password=123 \

\... connect-to=10.1.101.1 disabled=no
[admin@MikroTik] /interface sstp-client> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="sstp-out1" max-mtu=1500 max-mru=1500 mrru=disabled connect-to=10.1.101.1:443
user="sstp-test" password="123" proxy=0.0.0.0:443 profile=default
certificate=none keepalive-timeout=60 add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no
authentication=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2

SSTP Server
Sub-menu: /interface sstp-server
This sub-menu shows interfaces for each connected SSTP clients.
An interface is created for each tunnel established to the given server. There are two types of interfaces in SSTP
server's configuration
• Static interfaces are added administratively if there is a need to reference the particular interface name (in firewall
rules or elsewhere) created for the particular user.
• Dynamic interfaces are added to this list automatically whenever a user is connected and its username does not
match any existing static entry (or in case the entry is active already, as there can not be two separate tunnel
interfaces referenced by the same name).
Dynamic interfaces appear when a user connects and disappear once the user disconnects, so it is impossible to
reference the tunnel created for that use in router configuration (for example, in firewall), so if you need a persistent
rules for that user, create a static entry for him/her. Otherwise it is safe to use dynamic configuration.
Note: in both cases PPP users must be configured properly - static entries do not replace PPP configuration.

Server configuration
Sub-menu: /interface sstp-server server
Properties:
Manual:Interface/SSTP 306

Property Description

authentication (pap | chap | mschap1 | Authentication methods that server will accept.
mschap2; Default: pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2)

certificate (name | none; Default: none) Name of the certificate that SSTP server will use.

default-profile (name; Default: default)

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether SSTP server is enabled or not.

force-aes (yes | no; Default: no) Force AES encryption. If enabled windows clients (supports only RC4) will be unable to
connect.

keepalive-timeout (integer | disabled; Default: If server during keepalive period does not receive any packet, it will send keepalive packets
60) every second five times. If the server does not receives response from the client, then
disconnect after 5 seconds. Logs will show 5x "LCP missed echo reply" messages and then
disconnect.

max-mru (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Receive Unit. Max packet size that SSTP interface will be able to receive
without packet fragmentation.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that SSTP interface will be able to send
without packet fragmentation.

mrru (disabled | integer; Default: disabled) Maximum packet size that can be received on the link. If a packet is bigger than tunnel
MTU, it will be split into multiple packets, allowing full size IP or Ethernet packets to be
sent over the tunnel. Read more >>

verify-client-certificate (yes | no; If set to yes, then server checks whether client's certificate belongs to the same certificate
Default: no) chain.

[admin@MikroTik] /interface sstp-server server> set certificate=server

[admin@MikroTik] /interface sstp-server server> set enabled=yes
[admin@MikroTik] /interface sstp-server server> print
enabled: yes
port: 443
max-mtu: 1500
max-mru: 1500
mrru: disabled
keepalive-timeout: 60
default-profile: default
certificate: server
verify-client-certificate: no
authentication: pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2
[admin@MikroTik] /interface sstp-server server>

Warning: It is very important that date on the router is in the range of certificate's date of expiration . To
overcome any certificate verification problems, enable NTP date synchronization on both server and client.

Monitoring
Monitor command can be used to monitor status of the tunnel on both client and server.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface sstp-server> monitor 0

status: "connected"
uptime: 17m47s
idle-time: 17m47s
Manual:Interface/SSTP 307

user: "sstp-test"
caller-id: "10.1.101.18:43886"
mtu: 1500

Read-only properties

Property Description

status () Current SSTP status. Value other than "connected" indicates that there are some problems estabising tunnel.

uptime (time) Elapsed time since tunnel was established.

idle-time (time) Elapsed time since last activity on the tunnel.

user (string) Username used to establish the tunnel.

mtu (integer) Negotiated and used MTU

caller-id (IP:ID)

Application Examples

Connecting Remote Client

The following example shows how to connect a computer to a remote office network over secure SSTP encrypted
tunnel giving that computer an IP address from the same network as the remote office has (without need of bridging
over EoIP tunnels)
Consider following setup:

Office router is connected to internet through ether1. Workstations are connected to ether2. Laptop is connected to
the internet and can reach Office router's public IP (in our example it is 192.168.80.1).
Before you begin to configure SSTP you need to create a server certificate and import it to the router (instructions
here).
Now it is time to create a user

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> add name=Laptop service=sstp password=123

local-address=10.1.101.1 remote-address=10.1.101.100
Manual:Interface/SSTP 308

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> print detail

Flags: X - disabled
0 name="Laptop" service=sstp caller-id="" password="123" profile=default
local-address=10.1.101.1 remote-address=10.1.101.100 routes==""

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret>

Notice that SSTP local address is the same as routers address on local interface and remote address is form the same
range as local network (10.1.101.0/24).
Next step is to enable sstp server and sstp client on the laptop.

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> set certificate=server

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> set enabled=yes
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> set authentication=mschap2
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> print
enabled: yes
port: 443
max-mtu: 1500
max-mru: 1500
mrru: disabled
keepalive-timeout: 60
default-profile: default
certificate: server
verify-client-certificate: no
authentication: mschap2

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server>

Notice that authentication is set to mschap. These are the only authentication options that are valid to establish
secure tunnel.
SSTP client from the laptop should connect to routers public IP which in our example is 192.168.80.1.
Please, consult the respective manual on how to set up a SSTP client with the software You are using. If you set up
SSTP client on Windows and self-signed certificates are used, then CA certificate should be added to trusted root [2].
Note: Currently SSTP is supported on Windows 2008, Windows Vista and Vista SP1. Other OS will not be
able to connect to SSTP server

To verify if sstp client is connected

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server> print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running
# NAME USER MTU CLIENT-ADDRESS UPTIME ENCODING
0 DR <sstp-... Laptop 1500 10.1.101.18:43886 1h47s

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server>monitor 0

status: "connected"
uptime: 1h45s
idle-time: 1h45s
Manual:Interface/SSTP 309

user: "Laptop"
caller-id: "192.168.99.1:43886"
mtu: 1500

At this point (when SSTP client is successfully connected) if you will try to ping any workstation form the laptop,
ping will time out, because Laptop is unable to get ARPs from workstations. Solution is to set up proxy-arp on
local interface

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface ethernet> set ether2 arp=proxy-arp

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface ethernet> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R ether1 1500 00:30:4F:0B:7B:C1 enabled
1 R ether2 1500 00:30:4F:06:62:12 proxy-arp
[admin@RemoteOffice] interface ethernet>

After proxy-arp is enabled client can successfully reach all workstations in local network behind the router.

Site-to-Site SSTP
The following is an example of connecting two Intranets using SSTP tunnel over the Internet.
Consider following setup

Office and Home routers are connected to internet through ether1, workstations and laptops are connected to ether2.
In this example both local networks are routed through sstp client, thus they are not in the same broadcast domain.
To overcome this problem as any other ppp tunnel SSTP also supports BCP which allows to bridge SSTP tunnel
with local interface.
First step is to create a user
[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret> add name=Home service=sstp password=123
local-address=172.16.1.1 remote-address=172.16.1.2 routes="10.1.202.0/24 172.16.1.2 1"
[admin@RemoteOffice] ppp secret> print detail
Flags: X - disabled
Manual:Interface/SSTP 310

0 name="Home" service=sstp caller-id="" password="123" profile=default

local-address=172.16.1.1 remote-address=172.16.1.2 routes=="10.1.202.0/24 172.16.1.2 1"

[admin@RemoteOffice] /ppp secret>

Notice that we set up SSTP to add route whenever client connects. If this option is not set, then you will need static
routing configuration on the server to route traffic between sites through SSTP tunnel.
Now we need to upload and import CA and server/client certificates. Assume that files are already uploaded use
following commands:

admin@RemoteOffice] /certificate> import file-name=ca.crt

passphrase:
admin@RemoteOffice] /certificate> import file-name=server.crt
passphrase: ****
admin@RemoteOffice] /certificate> import file-name=server.key
passphrase: ****

Set up proper names:

admin@RemoteOffice] /certificate>set 0 name=CA
admin@RemoteOffice] /certificate>set 1 name=server
admin@RemoteOffice] /certificate> print
Flags: K - decrypted-private-key, Q - private-key, R - rsa, D - dsa
0 D name="CA" subject=C=LV,ST=RI,L=Riga,O=MT,CN=MT CA,[email protected]
issuer=C=LV,ST=RI,L=Riga,O=MT,CN=MT CA,[email protected]
serial-number="DF626FA846090BCC" [email protected] invalid-before=jun/25/2008 07:23:50
invalid-after=jun/23/2018 07:23:50 ca=yes

1 KR name="server" subject=C=LV,ST=RI,L=Riga,O=MT,CN=server,[email protected]
issuer=C=LV,ST=RI,L=Riga,O=MT,CN=MT CA,[email protected] serial-number="01"
[email protected] invalid-before=jun/25/2008 07:24:33 invalid-after=jun/23/2018 07:24:33
ca=yes

Do the same on client side, but instead of server's certificate import client's certificate.
Next step is to enable SSTP server on the office router and configure SSTP client on the Home router.

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> set certificate=server

[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> set enabled=yes
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> set verify-client-certificate=yes
[admin@RemoteOffice] /interface sstp-server server> print
enabled: yes
port: 443
max-mtu: 1500
max-mru: 1500
mrru: disabled
keepalive-timeout: 60
default-profile: default
certificate: server
verify-client-certificate: yes
authentication: pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2
Manual:Interface/SSTP 311

[admin@Home] /interface sstp-client> add user=Home password=123 connect-to=192.168.80.1 disabled=no

certificate=client verify-server-certificate=yes
[admin@Home] /interface sstp-client> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="sstp-out1" max-mtu=1500 max-mru=1500 mrru=disabled connect-to=192.168.80.1:443
user="Home" password="123" proxy=0.0.0.0:443 profile=default certificate=client
keepalive-timeout=60 add-default-route=no dial-on-demand=no
authentication=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2 verify-server-certificate=yes

[admin@Home] /interface sstp-client>

Now we need to add static route on Home router to reach local network behind Office router

[admin@Home] /ip route> add dst-address=10.1.101.0/24 gateway=sstp-out1

After tunnel is established you should be able to ping remote network.

Troubleshooting
After Windows 7 upgrade SSTP is unable to connect (windows error 631) ?
MS Patch KB2585542 changes cypher to RC4 which was not supported on RouterOS. Starting from RouterOS
v5.13 RC4 is the preferred cipher and AES will be used only if peer does not advertise RC4.
I get following error when trying to connect Windows 7 client. Error 0x80070320 The oplock that was associated
with this handle is now associated with a different handle.
Disable verify-client-certificate option on the server.

Read More
• Creating Certificates
• BCP (Bridge Control Protocol)
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731352(WS.10).aspx
• Free trusted Class1 certificates [3] online
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / msdn. microsoft. com/ en-us/ library/ cc247338(PROT. 10). aspx
[2] http:/ / technet. microsoft. com/ en-us/ library/ dd458982. aspx
[3] http:/ / www. startssl. com/
Manual:Interface/OVPN 312

Manual:Interface/OVPN
Applies to RouterOS: v5+

Summary
Standards:
Package: ppp
Note: RouterOS supports only TCP mode. LZO compression is not supported and username/password
authentication is required

OVPN Client
Sub-menu: /interface ovpn-client

Properties

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to add OVPN remote address as a default route.

auth (md5 | none | sha1; Default: sha1) Allowed authentication methods.

certificate (string | none; Default: none) Name of the client certificate imported into certificate list.

cipher (aes128 | aes192 | aes256 | blowfish128 | none; Allowed cipher.

Default: blowfish128)

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

connect-to (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Remote address of the OVPN server.

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled or not. By default it is disabled.

mac-address (MAC; Default: ) Mac address of OVPN interface. Will be auto generated if not specified.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that OVPN interface will be able to
send without packet fragmentation.

mode (ip | ethernet; Default: ip) Layer3 or layer2 tunnel mode (alternatively tun, tap)

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the interface.

password (string; Default: "") Password used for authentication.

port (integer; Default: 1194) Port to connect to.

profile (name; Default: default) Used PPP profile.

user (string; Default: ) User name used for authentication.

Manual:Interface/OVPN 313

Quick example
This example demonstrates how to set up OVPN client with username "test", password "123" and server 10.1.101.1
[admin@bumba] /interface ovpn-client> add connect-to=10.1.101.1 user=test password=123 disabled=no
[admin@bumba] /interface ovpn-client> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name="ovpn-out1" mac-address=FE:7B:9C:F9:59:D0 max-mtu=1500 connect-to=10.1.101.1
port=1194 mode=ip user="test" password="123" profile=default certificate=none auth=sha1
cipher=blowfish128 add-default-route=no

OVPN Server
Sub-menu: /interface ovpn-server
This sub-menu shows interfaces for each connected OVPN clients.
An interface is created for each tunnel established to the given server. There are two types of interfaces in OVPN
server's configuration
• Static interfaces are added administratively if there is a need to reference the particular interface name (in firewall
rules or elsewhere) created for the particular user.
• Dynamic interfaces are added to this list automatically whenever a user is connected and its username does not
match any existing static entry (or in case the entry is active already, as there can not be two separate tunnel
interfaces referenced by the same name).
Dynamic interfaces appear when a user connects and disappear once the user disconnects, so it is impossible to
reference the tunnel created for that use in router configuration (for example, in firewall), so if you need a persistent
rules for that user, create a static entry for him/her. Otherwise it is safe to use dynamic configuration.
Note: in both cases PPP users must be configured properly - static entries do not replace PPP configuration.

Server configuration
Sub-menu: /interface ovpn-server server
Properties:

Property Description

auth (; Default: sha1,md5) Authentication methods that server will accept.

certificate (name | none; Default: none) Name of the certificate that OVPN server will use.

cipher (aes128 | none; Default:

aes128,blowfish128)

default-profile (name; Default:

default)

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether OVPN server is enabled or not.

keepalive-timeout (integer | disabled; Defines the time period (in seconds) after which the router is starting to send keepalive packets
Default: 60) every second. If no traffic and no keepalive responses has came for that period of time (i.e. 2 *
keepalive-timeout), not responding client is proclaimed disconnected

mac-address (MAC; Default: ) Auto Generated MAC address of the server.

max-mtu (integer; Default: 1500) Maximum Transmission Unit. Max packet size that OVPN interface will be able to send without
packet fragmentation.

mode (ip | ethernet; Default: ip)

netmask (integer; Default: 24)

Manual:Interface/OVPN 314

require-client-certificate (yes | If set to yes, then server checks whether client's certificate belongs to the same certificate chain.
no; Default: no)

[admin@bumba] /interface ovpn-server server> set enabled=yes

[admin@bumba] /interface ovpn-server server> set certificate=server
[admin@bumba] /interface ovpn-server server> print
enabled: yes
port: 1194
mode: ip
netmask: 24
mac-address: FE:A5:57:72:9D:EC
max-mtu: 1500
keepalive-timeout: 60
default-profile: default
certificate: server
require-client-certificate: no
auth: sha1,md5
cipher: blowfish128,aes128

Warning: It is very important that date on the router is in the range of certificate's date of expiration . To
overcome any certificate verification problems, enable NTP date synchronization on both server and client.

Monitoring
Monitor command can be used to monitor status of the tunnel on both client and server.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /interface ovpn-server> monitor 0

status: "connected"
uptime: 17m47s
idle-time: 17m47s
user: "test"
caller-id: "10.1.101.18:43886"
mtu: 1500

Read-only properties

Property Description

status () Current status. Value other than "connected" indicates that there are some problems estabising tunnel.

uptime (time) Elapsed time since tunnel was established.

idle-time (time) Elapsed time since last activity on the tunnel.

user (string) Username used to establish the tunnel.

mtu (integer) Negotiated and used MTU

caller-id (IP:ID)
Manual:Interface/OVPN 315

Application Examples
• Basic OVPN setup
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Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging)

Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
RouterOS supports BCP (Bridge Control Protocol) for PPP, PPTP, L2TP and PPPoE interfaces. BCP allows to
bridge Ethernet packets through the PPP link. Established BCP is independent part of the PPP tunnel, it is not related
to any IP address of PPP interface, bridging and routing can happen at the same time independently. BCP can be
used instead of EoIP + used VPN Tunnel or WDS link over the wireless network.

Requirements
BCP (Bridge Control Protocol) should be enabled on both sides (PPP server and PPP client) to make it work.
MikroTik RouterOS can be used with other PPP device, that supports BCP accordingly to the standards, but BCP
enabled is necessary.

Configuration Example
We need to interconnect two remote offices and make them in one Ethernet network. We have requirement to use
encryption to protect data exchange between two offices. Let's see, how it is possible with PPTP tunnel and BCP
protocol usage
Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 316

Configuration Diagramm
Simple configuration is like this. We have two offices, which are remotely located. Office I is going to be used as
PPTP server, Office 2 is going to be used PPTP client. Below you will see how to set configuration using Winbox
and CLI.

BCP Configuration (CLI)

Office 1 configuration
First we need to create bridge interface and make sure that bridge will always have MAC address of existing
interface. Reason for that is simple - when BCP is used PPP bridge port do not have any MAC address.

/interface bridge add name=bridge_local protocol-mode=rstp

/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge_local interface=ether1_local
/interface bridge set bridge_local admin-mac=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
//// where xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx is MAC address of the ether1_local interface

Now we can assign local and public addresses to proper interfaces.

/ip address add address=192.168.88.1/24 interface=bridge_local

/ip address add address=1.1.1.1/24 interface=ether2_public

In case you use PPP only for bridging, configuration of the ppp profile and secret is very easy - just assign user name
and password in secret) and specify bridge option in the profile. Even if PPP is bridged local and remote addresses
on server side must be specified.

/ppp profile add name=ppp_bridging bridge=bridge_local use-encryption=yes

/ppp secret add profile=ppp_bridging name=ppp1 password=ppp1

When bridging packets PPP tunnel need to pass packets with Layer-2 (MAC) header included , so default interface
MTU (in case of pptp it is 1460) is not sufficient for this task. To ensure proper operation itis suggested to override
the value by specifying MRRU option in server settings to a higher value.
Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 317

MRRU allows to enable multi-link support over single link, it divides the packet to multiple channels therefore
increasing possible MTU and MRU (up to 65535 bytes)

/interface pptp-server server set enabled=yes mrru=1600

Office 2 configuration
First we need to create bridge interface and make sure that bridge will always have MAC address of existing
interface. Reason for that is simple - when BCP is used PPP bridge port do not have any MAC address.

/interface bridge add name=bridge_local protocol-mode=rstp

/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge_local interface=ether1_local
/interface bridge set bridge_local admin-mac=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
//// where xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx is MAC address of the ether1_local interface

Assign local and public addresses to proper interfaces.

/ip address add address=192.168.88.254/24 interface=bridge_local

/ip address add address=2.2.2.2/24 interface=ether2_public

Configure ppp profile so it will corespond to the profile used on the server side.

/ppp profile add name=ppp_bridging bridge=bridge_local use-encryption=yes

Create an pptp-client interface. Do not forget to specify MRRU option to ensure that bridged frames get trough the
ppp tunnel.

/interface pptp-client
add profile=ppp_bridging mrru=1600 connect-to=1.1.1.1 user=ppp1 password=ppp1 disabled=no
Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 318

BCP Configuration (Winbox)

Office 1 Configuration
Bridge Configuration:
• Add Bridge,

• Add Bridge Port,

Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 319

• Add Bridge MAC-address,

• Assign IP addresses,
Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 320

• Create PPP profile for bridging,

• Add PPP client,

Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 321

• Enable PPTP-server,
Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) 322

Office 2 Configuration
The client router configuration is the same, except that you need to configure and enable PPTP client,
• Add PPTP client,
Manual:MLPPP over single and multiple links 323

Manual:MLPPP over single and multiple links

Summary
Standards: RFC 1990
Package: ppp
Multi-Link Point to Point Protocol (MP, Multi-Link PPP, MultiPPP or MLPPP) is a method of splitting,
recombining, and sequencing data across multiple logical data links.
In a situation where we have multiple DSL links a pair of devices, performance by “widening the pipe” between two
devices can be increased by using Multi-Link PPP, without going to a newer, more expensive technology.
Large packets are actually split into bits and sent evenly over ALL logical data links. This is done instantaneously
with NO loss of bandwidth. It is important to understand that other end of the link needs to use the same protocol to
recombine your data.
Multilink is based on an LCP option negotiation that allows to indicate to its peer that it is capable of combining
multiple physical links.

MLPPP over single link

Typically size of the packet sent over PPP link is reduced due to overhead. MP can be used to transmit and receive
full frame over single ppp link. To make it work the Multilink Protocol uses additional LCP configuration options
Multilink Maximum Received Reconstructed Unit (MRRU)
To enable Multi-link PPP over single link you must specify MRRU (Maximum Receive Reconstructed Unit) option.
If both sides support this feature there are no need for MSS adjustment (in firewall mangle). Study shows that
MRRU is less CPU expensive that 2 mangle rules per client. MRRU allows to divide packet to multiple channels
therefore increasing possible MTU and MRU (up to 65535 bytes)
Under Windows it can be enabled in Networking tag, Settings button, "Negotiate multi-link for single link
connections". Their MRRU is hard coded to 1614.
Note: MTU will be reduced by 4 bytes to work properly when MPPE encryption is enabled

Configuration Example
Let's configure pppoe server compatible with Windows clients and MRRU enabled.

[admin@RB800] /interface pppoe-server server> add service-name=myPPP interface=ether1 mrru=1614

[admin@RB800] /interface pppoe-server server> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 service-name="myPPP" interface=ether1 max-mtu=1480 max-mru=1480 mrru=1614
authentication=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2 keepalive-timeout=10 one-session-per-host=no
max-sessions=0 default-profile=default

In short - standard PPP link - just specify MRRU in both sides :)

Manual:MLPPP over single and multiple links 324

MLPPP over multiple links

MLPPP over multiple links allow to create a single ppp link over multiple physical connections. All PPP links must
come from the same server (server must have MLPPP over multiple links support) and all PPP links must have same
user name and password.
And to enable MLPPP you just need to create PPP client and specify multiple interfaces instead of single interface.
Mikrotik RouterOS have MLPPP clent support starting from version 3.10. Presently there are no MLPPP server
support available.

Configuration Example

ISP gives to its client two physical links (DSL lines) 1Mbps each. To get aggregated 2Mbps pipe we have to set up
MLPPP. Consider ISP router is pre-configured to support MLPPP.
Configuration on Mikorotik router (R1) is:

/interface pppoe-client
add service-name=ISP interface=ether1,ether2 user=xxx password=yyy disabled=no \
add-default-route=yes use-peer-dns=yes

[admin@RB800] /interface pppoe-client> print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 name="pppoe-out1" max-mtu=1480 max-mru=1480 mrru=disabled interface=ether1,ether2
user="xxx" password="yyy" profile=default service-name="ISP" ac-name="" add-default-route=yes
dial-on-demand=no use-peer-dns=yes allow=pap,chap,mschap1,mschap2

Now when pppoe client is connected we can set up rest of configuration, local network address, enable dns requests,
set up masquerade and firewall

/ip address add address=192.168.88.1/24 interface=local

/ip dns set allow-remote-request=yes

/ip firewall nat

add chain=src-nat action=masquerade out-interface=pppoe-out1
Manual:MLPPP over single and multiple links 325

/ip firewall filter

add chain=input connection-state=invalid action=drop \
comment="Drop Invalid connections"
add chain=input connection-state=established action=accept \
comment="Allow Established connections"
add chain=input protocol=icmp action=accept \
comment="Allow ICMP"
add chain=input src-address=192.168.88.0/24 action=accept \
in-interface=!pppoe-out1
add chain=input action=drop comment="Drop everything else"

For more advanced router and customer protection check firewall examples.

See Also
• PPPOE
• Firewall and NAT
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Interface/VPLS
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Virtual Private Lan Service (VPLS) interface can be considered tunnel interface just like EoIP interface. To achieve
transparent ethernet segment forwarding between customer sites.
MikroTik RouterOS implements following VPLS features:
• LDP signaling (RFC 4762), see LDP based VPLS
• pseudowire fragmentation and reassembly (RFC 4623)
• MP-BGP based autodiscovery and signaling (RFC 4761), see BGP based VPLS
Since version 3.17:
• Cisco style static VPLS pseudowires (RFC 4447 FEC type 0x80), see static Cisco VPLS
• Cisco VPLS BGP-based auto-discovery (draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08), see BGP based Cisco style VPLS
• support for multiple import/export route target extended communities for BGP based VPLS (both, RFC 4761 and
draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08)
Manual:Interface/VPLS 326

General
Sub-menu: /interface vpls
List of all VPLS interfaces. This menu shows also dynamically created BGP based VPLS interfaces.

Properties

Property Description

advertised-l2mtu (integer; Default: 1500) L2MTU value advertised to remote peer.

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only; Address Resolution Protocol

Default: enabled)

cisco-style (yes | no; Default: no) Specifies whether to use cisco style VPLS.

cisco-style-id (integer; Default: 0) VPLS tunnel ID, used if cisco-style is set to yes.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disable-running-check (yes | no; Specifies whether to detect if interface is running or not. If set to no interface will always have
Default: no) running flag.

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether item is ignored or used. By default VPLS interface is disabled.

l2mtu (integer; Default: 1500)

mac-address (MAC; Default: )

mtu (integer; Default: 1500)

name (string; Default: ) Name of the interface

pw-type (raw-ethernet | tagged-ethernet; Pseudowire type.

Default: raw-ethernet)

remote-peer (IP; Default: ) IP address of remote peer.

use-control-word (yes | no | default; Enables/disables Control Word usage. Default values for regular and cisco style VPLS tunnels
Default: default) differ. Cisco style by default has control word usage disabled. Read more >>.

vpls-id (AsNum | AsIp; Default: ) Unique number that identifies VPLS tunnel. Encoding is 2byte+4byte or 4byte+2byte number.

Read-only properties

Property Description

cisco-bgp-signaled (yes | no)

vpls (string) name of the bgp-vpls instance used to create dynamic vpls interface

Monitoring
Command /interface vpls monitor [id] will display current VPLS interface status
For example:

[[email protected]] /interface vpls> monitor vpls2

remote-label: 800000
local-label: 43
remote-status:
transport: 10.255.11.201/32
transport-nexthop: 10.0.11.201
imposed-labels: 800000
Manual:Interface/VPLS 327

Available read only properties:

Property Description

imposed-label (integer) VPLS imposed label

local-label (integer) Local VPLS label

remote-group ()

remote-label (integer) Remote VPLS label

remote-status (integer)

transport-nexthop (IP prefix) Shows used transport address (typically Loopback address).

transport (string) Name of the transport interface. Set if VPLS is running over Traffic Engineering tunnel.

BGP VPLS
Sub-menu: /interface vpls bgp-vpls
List of BGP signaled VPLS instances. Configured instance makes router advertise VPLS BGP NLRI that advertises
that particular router belongs to some VPLS.

Properties

Property Description

bridge (none | string; Default: If set to none VPLS interface is not added to bridge ports.
none)

bridge-cost (integer; Default:

50)

bridge-horizon (none | If set to none bridge horizon will not be used.

integer; Default: none)

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used.

export-route-target Setting is used to tag BGP NLRI with one or more route targets.
(AsNum | AsIp; Default: )

import-route-target Setting is used to determine if BGP NLRI is related to particular VPLS, by comparing route targets received
(AsNum | AsIp; Default: ) from BGP NLRI.

name (string; Default: )

pw-mtu (integer[32..65535]; Advertised pseudowire MTU value.

Default: 1500)

pw-type (raw-ethernet | Parameter is available starting from v5.16. It allows to choose advertised encapsulation in NLRI used only for
tagged-ethernet | vpls; Default: comparison. It does not affect functionality of the tunnel. See pw-type usage example >>
vpls)

route-distinguisher Specifies value that gets attached to VPLS NLRI so that receiving routers can distinguish advertisements that
(AsNum | AsIp; Default: ) may otherwise look the same. This implies that unique route-distinguisher for every VPLS must be used. It is
not necessary to use the same route distinguisher for some VPLS on all routers forming that VPLS as
distinguisher is not used for determining if some BGP NLRI is related to particular VPLS (Route Target
attribute is used for this), but it is mandatory to have different distinguishers for different VPLSes.

site-id (integer; Default: 1) Unique site identifier. Each site must have unique site-id.

use-control-word (yes | no; Enables/disables Control Word usage. Read more >>
Default: yes)
Manual:Interface/VPLS 328

Cisco Style BGP VPLS

Sub-menu: /interface cisco-bgp-vpls

Properties

Property Description

bridge (none | string; Default: If set to none VPLS interface is not added to bridge ports.
none)

bridge-cost (integer;
Default: 50)

bridge-horizon (none | If set to none bridge horizon will not be used.

integer; Default: none)

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: Defines whether item is ignored or used.

no)

export-route-target Setting is used to tag BGP NLRI with one or more route targets.
(AsNum | AsIp; Default: )

import-route-target Setting is used to determine if BGP NLRI is related to particular VPLS, by comparing route targets received
(AsNum | AsIp; Default: ) from BGP NLRI.

l2router-id (IP; Default:

0.0.0.0)

name (string; Default: )

pw-mtu (integer[32..65535]; Advertised pseudo-wire MTU.

Default: 1500)

route-distinguisher Specifies value that gets attached to VPLS NLRI so that receiving routers can distinguish advertisements that
(AsNum | AsIp; Default: ) may otherwise look the same. This implies that unique route-distinguisher for every VPLS must be used. It is not
necessary to use the same route distinguisher for some VPLS on all routers forming that VPLS as distinguisher is
not used for determining if some BGP NLRI is related to particular VPLS (Route Target attribute is used for
this), but it is mandatory to have different distinguishers for different VPLSes.

use-control-word (yes | Enables/disables Control Word usage. Read more >>

no; Default: yes)

vpls-id (integer; Default: ) Unique number that identifies VPLS tunnel.

Manual:IPv6 329

Manual:IPv6
List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

Manual:IP/Settings
Applies to RouterOS: v6+

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip settings
IP Settings allows to configure several IP related kernel parameters.

Properties
Property Description

accept-redirects (yes | no; Whether to accept ICMP redirect messages. Typically should be enabled on host and disabled on
Default: no) routers.

accept-source-route (yes | no; Whether to accept packets with SRR option. Typically should be enabled on router.
Default: no)

allow-fast-path (yes | no; Default: Allows fast path

yes)

arp-timeout (time interval; Default: ARP timeout on all interfaces that use ARP. Can use postfix ms, s, m, h, d for milliseconds, seconds,
30s) minutes, hours or days. if no postfix is set then seconds (s) is used.

icmp-rate-limit (integer
[0..4294967295]; Default: 10)

icmp-rate-mask ([0..FFFFFFFF];
Default: 0x1818)

ip-forwarding (yes | no; Default: Emable/disable packet forwarding between interfaces. Resets all configuration parameters to defaults
yes) according to RFC1812 for routers.

rp_filter (loose | no | strict; Default: Disables enables source validation.

no) • no - No source validation.
• strict - Strict mode as defined in RFC3704 Strict Reverse Path. Each incoming packet is tested
against the FIB and if the interface is not the best reverse path the packet check will fail. By default
failed packets are discarded.
• loose - Loose mode as defined in RFC3704 Loose Reverse Path. Each incoming packet's source
address is also tested against the FIB and if the source address is not reachable via any interface the
packet check will fail.
Current recommended practice in RFC3704 is to enable strict mode to prevent IP spoofing from DDos
attacks. If using asymmetric routing or other complicated routing, then loose mode is recommended.
Manual:IP/Settings 330

secure-redirects (yes | no; Accept ICMP redirect messages only for gateways, listed in default gateway list.
Default: yes)

send-redirects (yes | no; Default: Whether to send ICMP redirects. Recommended to be enabled on routers.
yes)

tcp_syncookies (yes | no; Default: Send out syncookies when the syn backlog queue of a socket overflows. This is to prevent against the
no) common 'SYN flood attack'.
syncookies seriously violate TCP protocol, do not allow o use TCP extensions, can result in serious
degradation of some services (f.e. SMTP relaying), visible not by you, but your clients and relays,
contacting you.

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:IP/Address
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip address
Standards: IPv4 RFC 791
IP addresses serve for a general host identification purposes in IP networks. Typical (IPv4) address consists of four
octets. For proper addressing the router also needs the network mask value, id est which bits of the complete IP
address refer to the address of the host, and which - to the address of the network. The network address value is
calculated by binary AND operation from network mask and IP address values. It's also possible to specify IP
address followed by slash "/" and the amount of bits that form the network address.
In most cases, it is enough to specify the address, the netmask, and the interface arguments. The network prefix and
the broadcast address are calculated automatically.
It is possible to add multiple IP addresses to an interface or to leave the interface without any addresses assigned to
it. In case of bridging or PPPoE connection, the physical interface may bot have any address assigned, yet be
perfectly usable. Putting an IP address to a physical interface included in a bridge would mean actually putting it on
the bridge interface itself. You can use /ip address print detail to see to which interface the address belongs to.
MikroTik RouterOS has following types of addresses:
• Static - manually assigned to the interface by a user
• Dynamic - automatically assigned to the interface by DHCP or an estabilished PPP connections

Properties
Manual:IP/Address 331

Property Description

address (IP/Mask; Default: ) IP address

broadcast (IP; Default: roadcasting IP address, calculated by default from an IP address and a network mask. Starting from v5RC6 this
255.255.255.255) parameter is removed

interface (name; Default: ) Interface name the IP address is assigned to

netmask (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Delimits network address part of the IP address from the host part

network (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) IP address for the network. For point-to-point links it should be the address of the remote end. Starting from
v5RC6 this parameter is configurable only for addresses with /32 netmask (point to point links)

Read only properties

Property Description

actual-interface Name of the actual interface the logical one is bound to. For example, if the physical interface you assigned the
(name) address to, is included in a bridge, the actual interface will show that bridge

Two IP addresses from the same network assigned to routers different interfaces are not valid unless VRF is used.
For example, the combination of IP address 10.0.0.1/24 on the ether1 interface and IP address 10.0.0.132/24 on the
ether2 interface is invalid, because both addresses belong to the same network 10.0.0.0/24. Use addresses from
different networks on different interfaces, or enable proxy-arp on ether1 or ether2.

Example
[admin@MikroTik] ip address> add address=10.10.10.1/24 interface=ether2
[admin@MikroTik] ip address> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 2.2.2.1/24 2.2.2.0 2.2.2.255 ether2
1 10.5.7.244/24 10.5.7.0 10.5.7.255 ether1
2 10.10.10.1/24 10.10.10.0 10.10.10.255 ether2

[admin@MikroTik] ip address>

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:IP/ARP 332

Manual:IP/ARP
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip arp
Standards: ARP RFC 826
Even though IP packets are addressed using IP addresses, hardware addresses must be used to actually transport data
from one host to another. Address Resolution Protocol is used to map OSI level 3 IP addresses to OSI level 2 MAC
addreses. Router has a table of currently used ARP entries. Normally the table is built dynamically, but to increase
network security, it can be partialy or completely built statically by means of adding static entries.

Properties
Property Description

address (IP; Default: ) IP address to be mapped

interface (string; Default: ) Interface name the IP address is assigned to

mac-address (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) MAC address to be mapped to

Read only properties:

Property Description

dhcp (yes | no) Whether ARP entry is added by DHCP server

dynamic (yes | no) Whether entry is dynamically created

invalid (yes | no) Whether entry is not valid

Note: Maximal number of ARP entries is 8192.

ARP Modes
It is possible to set several ARP modes in interface configuration .....
Manual:IP/ARP 333

Disabled
If ARP feature is turned off on the interface, i.e., arp=disabled is used, ARP requests from clients are not answered
by the router. Therefore, static arp entry should be added to the clients as well. For example, the router's IP and MAC
addresses should be added to the Windows workstations using the arp command:

C:\> arp -s 10.5.8.254 00-aa-00-62-c6-09

Enabled
This mode is enabled by default on all interfaces. ARPs will be discovered automatically and new dynamic entries
will be added to ARP table.

Proxy ARP
A router with properly configured proxy ARP feature acts like a transparent ARP proxy between directly connected
networks.
This behaviour can be usefull, for example, if you want to assign dial-in (ppp, pppoe, pptp) clients IP addresses from
the same address space as used on the connected LAN.

Lets look at example setup from image above. Host A (172.16.1.2) on Subnet A wants to send packets to Host D
(172.16.2.3) on Subnet B. Host A has a /16 subnet mask which means that Host A believes that it is directly
connected to all 172.16.0.0/16 network (the same LAN). Since the Host A believes that is directly connected it sends
an ARP request to the destination to clarify MAC address of Host D. (in case when Host A finds that destination IP
address is not from the same subnet it send packet to default gateway.)
Host A broadcasts an ARP request on Subnet A:
Info from packet analyzer software:
No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info

12 5.133205 00:1b:38:24:fc:13 ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff ARP Who has 173.16.2.3? Tell 173.16.1.2

Manual:IP/ARP 334

Packet details:

Ethernet II, Src: (00:1b:38:24:fc:13), Dst: (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)

Destination: Broadcast (ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff)
Source: (00:1b:38:24:fc:13)
Type: ARP (0x0806)
Address Resolution Protocol (request)
Hardware type: Ethernet (0x0001)
Protocol type: IP (0x0800)
Hardware size: 6
Protocol size: 4
Opcode: request (0x0001)
[Is gratuitous: False]
Sender MAC address: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
Sender IP address: 173.16.1.2
Target MAC address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Target IP address: 173.16.2.3

With this ARP request, Host A (172.16.1.2) isasking Host D (172.16.2.3) to send its MAC address. The ARP request
packet is then encapsulated in an Ethernet frame with the MAC address of Host A as the source address and a
broadcast (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF) as the destination address. Layer 2 broadcast means that frame will be sent to all
hosts in the same layer 2 broadcast domain which includes the ether0 interface of the router, but does not reach Host
D, because router by default does not forward layer 2 broadcast.
Since the router knows that the target address (172.16.2.3) is on another subnet but it can reach Host D, it replies
with its own MAC address to Host A.
No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info

13 5.133378 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf 00:1b:38:24:fc:13 ARP 172.16.2.3 is at 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf

Packet details:

Ethernet II, Src: 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf, Dst: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13

Destination: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
Source: 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf
Type: ARP (0x0806)
Address Resolution Protocol (reply)
Hardware type: Ethernet (0x0001)
Protocol type: IP (0x0800)
Hardware size: 6
Protocol size: 4
Opcode: reply (0x0002)
[Is gratuitous: False]
Sender MAC address: 00:0c:42:52:2e:cf
Sender IP address: 172.16.1.254
Target MAC address: 00:1b:38:24:fc:13
Target IP address: 172.16.1.2
Manual:IP/ARP 335

This is the Proxy ARP reply that the router sends to Host A. Router sends back unicast proxy ARP reply with its own
MAC address as the source address and the MAC address of Host A as the destination address, by saying "send these
packets to me, and I'll get it to where it needs to go."
When Host A receives ARP response it updates its ARP table, as shown:

C:\Users\And>arp -a

Interface: 173.16.2.1 --- 0x8

Internet Address Physical Address Type
173.16.1.254 00-0c-42-52-2e-cf dynamic
173.16.2.3 00-0c-42-52-2e-cf dynamic
173.16.2.2 00-0c-42-52-2e-cf dynamic

After MAC table update, Host A forwards all the packets intended for Host D (172.16.2.3) directly to router
interface ether0 (00:0c:42:52:2e:cf) and the router forwards packets to Host D. The ARP cache on the hosts in
Subnet A is populated with the MAC address of the router for all the hosts on Subnet B. Hence, all packets destined
to Subnet B are sent to the router. The router forwards those packets to the hosts in Subnet B.
Multiple IP addresses by host are mapped to a single MAC address (the MAC address of this router) when proxy
ARP is used.
Proxy ARP can be enabled on each interface individually with command arp=proxy-arp:
Setup proxy ARP:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> set 1 arp=proxy-arp

[admin@MikroTik] /interface ethernet> print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running

# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R ether1 1500 00:30:4F:0B:7B:C1 enabled
1 R ether2 1500 00:30:4F:06:62:12 proxy-arp
[admin@MikroTik] interface ethernet>

Reply Only
If arp property is set to reply-only on the interface, then router only replies to ARP requests. Neighbour MAC
addresses will be resolved using /ip arp statically, but there will be no need to add the router's MAC address to other
hosts' ARP tables like in case if arp is disabled.
Manual:Load balancing multiple same subnet links 336

Manual:Load balancing multiple same subnet

links
Applies to RouterOS: v4,v5

This example demonstrates how to set up load balancing if provider is giving IP addresses from the
same subnet for all links.

Provider is giving us two links with IP addresses from the same network range (10.1.101.10/24 and 10.1.101.18/24).
Gateway for both of these links is the same 10.1.101.1
Here is the whole configuration for those who want to copy&paste
/ip address
add address=10.1.101.18/24 interface=ether1
add address=10.1.101.10/24 interface=ether2
add address=192.168.1.1/24 interface=Local
add address=192.168.2.1/24 interface=Local

/ip route
add gateway=10.1.101.1
add gateway=10.1.101.1%ether1 routing-mark=first
add gateway=10.1.101.1%ether2 routing-mark=other

/ip firewall nat

add action=masquerade chain=srcnat out-interface=ether1
add action=masquerade chain=srcnat out-interface=ether2
Manual:Load balancing multiple same subnet links 337

/ip firewall mangle

add action=mark-routing chain=prerouting src-address=192.168.1.0/24 new-routing-mark=first
add action=mark-routing chain=prerouting src-address=192.168.2.0/24 new-routing-mark=other

In previous RouterOS version multiple IP addresses from the same subnet on different interfaces were not allowed.
Fortunately v4 allows such configurations.
In this example our provider assigned two upstream links, one connected to ether1 and other to ether2. Our local
network has two subnets 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24

/ip address
add address=10.1.101.18/24 interface=ether1
add address=10.1.101.10/24 interface=ether2
add address=192.168.1.1/24 interface=Local
add address=192.168.2.1/24 interface=Local

After IP address is set up, connected route will be installed as ECMP route

[admin@MikroTik] /ip route> print detail

0 ADC dst-address=10.1.101.0/24 pref-src=10.1.101.18 gateway=ether1,ether2
gateway-status=ether1 reachable,ether2 reachable distance=0 scope=10

Note: Routing filters can be used to adjust preferred source if needed

In our example very simple policy routing is used. Clients from 192.168.1.0/24 subnet is marked
to use "first" routing table and 192.168.2.0/24 to use "other" subnet.

Note: The same can be achieved by setting up route rules instead of mangle.

/ip firewall mangle

add action=mark-routing chain=prerouting src-address=192.168.1.0/24 new-routing-mark=first
add action=mark-routing chain=prerouting src-address=192.168.2.0/24 new-routing-mark=other

And masquerade our local networks

/ip firewall nat

add action=masquerade chain=srcnat out-interface=ether1
add action=masquerade chain=srcnat out-interface=ether2

Warning: You will also have to deal with traffic coming to and from the router itself. For explanations look
at PCC configuration example.

We are adding two gateways, one to resolve in "first" routing table and another to "other"
routing table.
Manual:Load balancing multiple same subnet links 338

/ip route
add gateway=10.1.101.1%ether1 routing-mark=first
add gateway=10.1.101.1%ether2 routing-mark=other

Interesting part of these routes is how we set gateway. gateway=10.1.101.1%ether1 means that gateway
10.1.101.1 will be explicitly reachable over ether1

[admin@MikroTik] /ip route> print detail

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 A S dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.1.101.1%ether2
gateway-status=10.1.101.1 reachable ether2 distance=1 scope=30
target-scope=10 routing-mark=other

1 A S dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.1.101.1%ether1
gateway-status=10.1.101.1 reachable ether1 distance=1 scope=30
target-scope=10 routing-mark=first

Finally, we have one additional entry specifying that traffic from the router itself (the traffic without any routing
marks) will be resolved in main routing table.

/ip route
add gateway=10.1.101.1

Manual:IPv6/Settings
Applies to RouterOS: v6+

Summary
Sub-menu: /ipv6 settings
IPv6 Settings allows to configure several IPv6 related kernel parameters.

Properties
Manual:IPv6/Settings 339

Property Description

forward (yes | no; Default: yes) Emable/disable packet forwarding between interfaces.

accept-redirects (no | yes-if-forwarding-disabled; Default: Whether to accept ICMP redirect messages. Typically should be
yes-if-forwarding-disabled) enabled on host and disabled on routers.

accept-router-advertisements (no | yes | Accept router advertisement (RA) messages. If enabled router will
yes-if-forwarding-disabled; Default: yes-if-forwarding-disabled) be able to get address using stateless address configuration

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:IPv6/Address
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ipv6 address
Standards: RFC 4291
IPv6 uses 16 bytes addresses compared to 4 byte addresses in IPv4. IPv6 address syntax and types are described in
RFC 4291.
There are multiple IPv6 address types, that can be recognized by their prefix. RouterOS distinguishes the following:
• multicast (with prefix ff00::/8)
• link-local (with prefix fe80::/10)
• loopback (the address ::1/128)
• unspecified (the address ::/128)
• other (all other addresses, including the obsoleted site-local addresses, and RFC 4193 unique local addresses; they
all are treated as global unicast).
One difference between IPv6 and IPv4 addressing is that IPv6 automatically generates a link-local IPv6 address for
each active interface that has IPv6 support.

Address Expression
IPv6 addresses are represented a little bit different than IPv4 addresses. For IPv6, the 128-bit address is divided in
eight 16-bit blocks, and each 16-bit block is converted to a 4-digit hexadecimal number and separated by colons. The
resulting representation is called colon-hexadecimal.
In example above IPv6 address in binary format is converted to colon-hexadecimal representation

0010000000000001 0000010001110000 0001111100001001 0000000100110001

0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000001001

2001:0470:1f09:0131:0000:0000:0000:0009

IPv6 address can be further simplified by removing leading zeros in each block:

2001:470:1f09:131:0:0:0:9
Manual:IPv6/Address 340

As you can see IPv6 addresses can have long sequences of zeros. These contiguous sequence can be compressed to ::

2001:470:1f09:131::9

Note: Zero compression can only be used once. Otherwise, you could not determine the number of 0 bits
represented by each instance of a double-colon

Prefix
IPv6 prefix is written in address/prefix-length format. Compared to IPv4 decimal
representation of network mask cannot be used. Prefix examples:

2001:470:1f09:131::/64
2001:db8:1234::/48
2607:f580::/32
2000::/3

Address Types
Several IPv6 address types exist:
• Unicast
• Anycast
• Multicast
As you can see there are no Broadcast addresses in ipv6 network, compared to IPv4 broadcast functionality was
completely replaced with multicast.

Unicast Addresses
Packets addressed to a unicast address are delivered only to a single interface. To this group belong:
• globally unique addresses and can be used to connect to addresses with global scope anywhere.
• link-local addresses
• site-local addresses (FEC0::/48) - deprecated
• special purpose addresses
• compatibility addresses
Global unicast address can be automatically assigned to the node by Stateless Address auto-configuration. Read
More >>.

Link-local address
A link-local address is required on every IPv6-enabled interface, applications may rely on the existence of a
link-local address even when there is no IPv6 routing, that is why link-local address is generated automatically for
every active interface using it's interface identifier (calculated EUI-64 from MAC address if present). Address prefix
is always FE80::/64 and IPv6 router never forwards link-local traffic beyond the link.
These addresses are comparable to the auto-configuration addresses 169.254.0.0/16 of IPv4.
A link-local address is also required for Neighbor Discovery processes.
Manual:IPv6/Address 341

Note: If interface is set as bridge port, interface specific link-local address is removed leaving only bridge
link-local address

Special purpose address

Address Description

Unspecified address Never assigned to an interface or used as a destination address, used only to indicate the absence of an address.
(::/128) Equivalent to IPv4 0.0.0.0 address.

loopback address Used to identify a loopback interface, enabling a node to send packets to itself. It is equivalent to the IPv4
(::1/128) loopback address of 127.0.0.1.

Compatibility address

Address Description

IPv4 used by dual-stack nodes that are communicating with IPv6 over an IPv4 infrastructure. When the IPv4-compatible address is
compatible used as an IPv6 destination, IPv6 traffic is automatically encapsulated with an IPv4 header and sent to the destination by
address using the IPv4 infrastructure. Address is written in following format ::w.x.y.z, where w.x.y.z is the dotted decimal
representation of a public IPv4 address.

IPv4 mapped used to represent an IPv4-only node to an IPv6 node. It is used only for internal representation. The IPv4-mapped address is
address never used as a source or destination address for an IPv6 packet. The IPv6 protocol does not support the use of IPv4-mapped
addresses. Address is written in following format: ::ffff:w.x.y.z, where w.x.y.z is the dotted decimal representation of
a public IPv4 address.

2002::/16 this prefix is used for 6to4 addressing. Here, an address from the IPv4 network 192.88.99.0/24 is also used.

Multicast address
Most important multicast aspects are:
• traffic is sent to a single address but is processed by multiple hosts;
• group membership is dynamic, allowing hosts to join and leave the group at any time;
• in IPv6, Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) messages are used to determine group membership on a network
segment, also known as a link or subnet;
• host can send traffic to the group's address without belonging to the corresponding group.
A single IPv6 multicast address identifies each multicast group. Each group's reserved IPv6 address is shared by all
host members of the group who listen and receive any IPv6 messages sent to the group's address.
Multicast address consists of the following parts: [1]
• The first 8 bits in multicast address is always 1111 1111 (which is FF in hexadecimal format).
• Flag uses the 9th to 12th bit and shows if this multicast address is predefined (well-known) or not. If it is
well-known, all bits are 0s.
• Scope ID indicates to which scope multicast address belongs, for example, Scope ID=2 is link-local scope.
• Group ID is used to specify a multicast group. There are predefined group IDs, such as Group ID=1 - all nodes.
Therefore, if multicast address is ff02::1, that means Scope ID=2 and Group ID=1, indicating all nodes in
link-local scope. This is analogous to broadcast in IPv4.
Here is the table of reserved IPV6 addresses for multicasting:
Manual:IPv6/Address 342

Address Description

FF02::1 The all-nodes address used to reach all nodes on the same link.

FF02::2 The all-routers address used to reach all routers on the same link.

FF02::5 The all-Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routers address used to reach all OSPF routers on the same link.

FF02::6 The all-OSPF designated routers address used to reach all OSPF designated routers on the same link.

FF02::1:FFXX:XXXX The solicited-node address used in the address resolution process to resolve the IPv6 address of a link-local node to its
link-layer address. The last 24 bits (XX:XXXX) of the solicited-node address are the last 24 bits of an IPv6 unicast
address.

The following table is a partial list of IPv6 multicast addresses that are reserved for IPv6 multicasting and registered
with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). For complete list of assigned addresses read IANA
document [2].
Multicast addresses can be used to discover nodes in a network. For example, discover all nodes

mrz@bumba:/media/aaa/ver$ ping6 ff02::1%eth0

PING ff02::1%eth0(ff02::1) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from fe80::21a:4dff:fe5d:8e56: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.037 ms
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe0d:2c38: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=4.03 ms (DUP!)
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe28:7945: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=5.59 ms (DUP!)
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe49:fce5: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=5.60 ms (DUP!)
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe21:f1ec: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=5.88 ms (DUP!)
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe72:a1b0: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=6.70 ms (DUP!)

discover all routers

mrz@bumba:/media/aaa/ver$ ping6 ff02::2%eth0

PING ff02::2%eth0(ff02::2) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe28:7945: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.672 ms
64 bytes from fe80::20c:42ff:fe0d:2c38: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.44 ms (DUP!)

Anycast address
Anycast address is a new type of address incorporated in IPv6.
Anycasting is a new networking paradigm supporting service–oriented Addresses where an identical address can be
assigned to multiple nodes providing a specific service. An anycast packet (i.e., one with an anycast destination
address) is delivered to one of these nodes with the same anycast address.
Anycast address is not assigned a specific address range. It is assigned from unicast address range.
Manual:IPv6/Address 343

Interface Identifier
The last 64 bits of an IPv6 address are the interface identifier that is unique to the 64-bit prefix of the IPv6 address.
There are several ways how to determine interface identifier:
• EUI-64;
• randomly generated to provide a level of anonymity;
• manually configured.

EUI-64
Traditional interface identifiers for network adapters are 48-bit MAC address. This address consists of a 24-bit
manufacturer ID and a 24-bit board ID.
IEEE EUI-64 is a new standard for network interface addressing. The company ID is still 24-bits in length, but the
extension ID is 40 bits, creating a much larger address space for a network adapters.
To create an EUI-64 address from the interface MAC address:
• 0xFFFE is inserted into the MAC address between the manufacturer ID and the board ID.
• seventh bit of the first byte is reversed.
Lets make an example with following MAC address 00:0C:42:28:79:45.

Image above illustrates conversation process. When the result is converted to colon-hexadecimal notation, we get
the interface identifier 20C:42FF:FE28:7945. As the result, corresponds link-local address is

FE80::20C:42FF:FE28:7945/64

In RouterOS, if the eui-64 parameter of an address is configured, the last 64 bits of that address will be automatically
generated and updated using interface identifier. The last bits must be configured to be zero for this case. Example:

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 address add address=fc00:3::/64 interface=ether3 eui-64=yes

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 address print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS INTERFACE ADVERTISE
...
5 G fc00:3::20c:42ff:fe1d:3d4/64 ether3 yes
[admin@MikroTik] > interface ethernet set ether3 mac-address=10:00:00:00:00:01
[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 address print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS INTERFACE ADVERTISE
...
5 G fc00:3::1200:ff:fe00:1/64 ether3 yes
Manual:IPv6/Address 344

Properties
Property Description

address Ipv6 address. Allowed netmask range is 0..128. Address can also be constructed from the pool if from-pool property
(Address/Netmask; Default: is specified.
) For example if address is set to ::1/64 then address will be constructed as follows <prefix_from_pool>::1/64

advertise (yes | no; Whether to enable stateless address configuration. The prefix of that address is automatically advertised to hosts
Default: no) using ICMPv6 protocol. The option is set by default for addresses with prefix length 64. Read more >>

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

disabled (yes | no; Whether address is disabled or not. By default it is disabled

Default: no)

eui-64 (yes | no; Default: Whether to calculate EUI-64 address and use it as last 64 bits of the IPv6 address. Read more >>
no)

from-pool (string; Name of the pool from which prefix will be taken to construct IPv6 address taking last part of the address from
Default: ) address property. See example >>

interface (string; Name of an interface on which Ipv6 address is set.

Default: )

Read-only properties

Property Description

actual-interface Actual interface on which address is set up. For example, if address was configured on ethernet interface and ethernet
(string) interface was added to bridge, then actual interface is bridge not ethernet.

dynamic (yes | no) Whether address is dynamically created

global (yes | no) Whether address is global

invalid (yes | no)

link-local (yes | no) Whether address is link local

Examples

Manual address configuration

This example shows how to set up simple addressing with global IPv6 addresses between two routers.

R1 configuration:
Manual:IPv6/Address 345

/ipv6 address
add address=2001:DB8::1/64 interface=ether1 advertise=no

R2 configuration:

/ipv6 address
add address=2001:DB8::2/64 interface=ether1 advertise=no

Check address list

[admin@R1] /ipv6 address> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS FROM-POOL INTERFACE ADVERTISE
0 G 2001:db8::1/64 ether1 no
3 DL fe80::219:d1ff:fe39:3535/64 ether1 no

Notice that our added address has G flag indicated that this address can be globally routed. We also have link local
address on the interface which is created automatically for every IPv6 capable interface.
Test connectivity

[admin@R1] /ipv6 address> /ping 2001:DB8::2

HOST SIZE TTL TIME STATUS
2001:db8::2 56 64 12ms echo reply
2001:db8::2 56 64 0ms echo reply
sent=2 received=2 packet-loss=0% min-rtt=0ms avg-rtt=6ms max-rtt=12ms

[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / www. ipv6style. jp/ files/ ipv6/ en/ tech/ 20030228/ images/ 1. gif
[2] http:/ / www. iana. org/ assignments/ ipv6-multicast-addresses/
Manual:IPv6/ND 346

Manual:IPv6/ND
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ipv6 nd
Standards: RFC 2462, RFC 2461
Package : IPv6
RouterOS has Ipv6 Neighbor Detection and stateless address autoconfiguration support using Router Advertisement
Daemon (RADVD).

Node description
Node is a device that implements IPv6. In IPv6 networks nodes are divided into two types:
• Routers - a node that forwards IPv6 packets not explicitly addressed to itself.
• Hosts - any node that is not a router.
Routers and hosts are strictly separated, meaning that router cannot be host and host cannot be router at the same
time.

Stateless address autoconfiguration

There are several types of autoconfiguration:
• stateless - address configuration is done by received Router Advertisement messages. These messages include
stateless address prefixes and require that host is not using stateful address configuration protocol.
• stateful - address configuration is done by using stateful address configuration protocol (DHCPv6). Stateful
protocol is used if RA messages do not include address prefixes.
• both - RA messages include stateless address prefixes and require that hosts use a stateful address configuration
protocol.
A highly useful feature of IPv6 is the ability to automatically configure itself without the use of a stateful
configuration protocol like DHCP ( See example).
Note: Address autoconfiguration can only be performed on multicast-capable interfaces.

It is called stateless address autoconfiguration, since there is no need to manage state in the router
side. It is a very simple, robust and effective autoconfiguration mechanism.
RouterOS uses RADVD to periodically advertise information about the link to all nodes on the
same link. The information is carried by ICMPv6 "router advertisement" packet, and includes
following fields:
• IPv6 subnet prefix
• Default router link local address
• Other parameters that may be optional: link MTU, default hoplimit, and router lifetime.
Then host catches the advertisement, and configures the global IPv6 address and the default router. Global IPv6
address is generated from advertised subnet prefix and EUI-64 interface identifier.
Manual:IPv6/ND 347

Optionally, the host can ask for an advertisement from the router by sending an ICMPv6 "router solicitation" packet.
On linux rtsol utility transmits the router solicitation packet. If you are running a mobile node, you may want to
transmit router solicitations periodically.
Note: Due to restrictions of IPv6, address auto-configuration can not be performed on routers. Routers require
manual address configuration.

Address states
When auto-configuration address is assigned it can be in one of the following states:
• tentative - in this state host verifies that the address is unique. Verification occurs through duplicate address
detection.
• preferred - at this state address is verified as unique and node can send and receive unicast traffic to and from
a preferred address. The period of time of preferred state is included in the RA message.
• deprecated - address is still valid, but is not used for new connections.
• invalid - node can no longer send or receive unicast traffic. An address enters the invalid state after the valid
lifetime expires.
Image belove ilustrates relation between states and lifetimes.

Neighbor discovery
Sub-menu: /ipv6 nd
In this submenu IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND) protocol is configured.
Neighbor Discovery (ND) is a set of messages and processes that determine relationships between neighboring
nodes. ND, compared to IPv4, replaces Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), Internet Control Message Protocol
(ICMP) Router Discovery, and ICMP Redirect and provides additional functionality.
ND is used by hosts to:
• Discover neighboring routers.
• Discover addresses, address prefixes, and other configuration parameters.
ND is used by routers to:
• Advertise their presence, host configuration parameters, and on-link prefixes.
• Inform hosts of a better next-hop address to forward packets for a specific destination.
ND is used by nodes to:
• Both resolve the link-layer address of a neighboring node to which an IPv6 packet is being forwarded and
determine when the link-layer address of a neighboring node has changed.
• Determine whether IPv6 packets can be sent to and received from a neighbor.
Manual:IPv6/ND 348

Properties

Property Description

advertise-dns (yes | no; Default: no) Option to redistribute DNS server information using RADVD. You will need a running
client side software with Router Advertisement DNS support to take advantage of the
advertised DNS information. Read more >>

advertise-mac-address (yes | no; Default: yes) When set, the link-layer address of the outgoing interface is included in the RA.

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether item is disabled or not. By default entry is enabled.

hop-limit (unspecified | integer[0..4294967295]; The default value that should be placed in the Hop Count field of the IP header for
Default: unspecified) outgoing (unicast) IP packets.

interface (all | string; Default: ) Interface on which to run neighbor discovery.

• all - run ND on all running interfaces.

managed-address-configuration (yes | no; Flag indicates whether hosts should use stateful autoconfiguration (DHCPv6) to obtain
Default: no) addresses.

mtu (unspecified | integer[0..4294967295]; Default: The MTU option is used in router advertisement messages to insure that all nodes on a link
unspecified) use the same MTU value in those cases where the link MTU is not well known.
• unspecified - do not send MTU option.

other-configuration (yes | no; Default: no) Flag indicates whether hosts should use stateful autoconfiguration to obtain additional
information (excluding addresses).

ra-delay (time; Default: 3s) The minimum time allowed between sending multicast router advertisements from the
interface.

ra-interval (time[3s..20m50s]-time[4s..30m]; min-max interval allowed between sending unsolicited multicast router advertisements
Default: 3m20s-10m) from the interface.

ra-lifetime (none | time; Default: 30m)

reachable-time (unspecified | time[0..1h]; The time that a node assumes a neighbor is reachable after having received a reachability
Default: unspecified) confirmation. Used by the Neighbor Unreachability Detection algorithm (see Section 7.3 of
RFC 2461)

retransmit-interval (unspecified | time; The time between retransmitted Neighbor Solicitation messages. Used by address
Default: unspecified) resolution and the Neighbor Unreachability Detection algorithm (see Sections 7.2 and 7.3
of RFC 2461)

Prefix
Sub-menu: /ipv6 nd prefix
Prefix information sent in RA messages used by stateless address auto-configuration.
Note: The autoconfiguration process applies only to hosts and not routers.
Manual:IPv6/ND 349

Properties

Property Description

6to4-interface (none | If this option is specified, this prefix will be combined with the IPv4 address of interface name to produce a valid
string; Default: ) 6to4 prefix. The first 16 bits of this prefix will be replaced by 2002 and the next 32 bits of this prefix will be
replaced by the IPv4 address assigned to interface name at configuration time. The remaining 80 bits of the
prefix (including the SLA ID) will be advertised as specified in the configuration file.

autonomous (yes | no; When set, indicates that this prefix can be used for autonomous address configuration. Otherwise prefix
Default: yes) information is silently ignored.

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

disabled (yes | no; Default: Whether item is disabled or not. By default entry is enabled.
no)

on-link (yes | no; Default: When set, indicates that this prefix can be used for on-link determination. When not set the advertisement makes
yes) no statement about on-link or off-link properties of the prefix. For instance, the prefix might be used for address
configuration with some of the addresses belonging to the prefix being on-link and others being off-link.

preferred-lifetime Timeframe (relative to the time the packet is sent) after which generated address becomes "deprecated".
(infinity | time; Default: 1w) Deprecated is used only for already existing connections and is usable until valid-lifetime expires.
Read more >>

prefix (ipv6 prefix; Default: Prefix from which stateless address autoconfiguration generates the valid address.
::/64)

valid-lifetime (infinity | The length of time (relative to the time the packet is sent) an address remains in the valid state. The
time; Default: 4w2d) valid-lifetime must be greater than or equal to the preferred-lifetime. Read more >>

interface (string; Default: ) Interface name on which stateless auto-configuration will be running.

Examples

Stateless autoconfiguration example

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 address print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS INTERFACE ADVERTISE
0 G 2001:db8::1/64 ether1 yes

As in example above advertise flag is enabled which indicates that dynamic /ipv6 nd prefix entry is added.

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 nd prefix print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
0 D prefix=2001:db8::/64 interface=ether1 on-link=yes autonomous=yes
valid-lifetime=4w2d preferred-lifetime=1w

On a host that is directly attached to the router we see that an address was added. The address consists of prefix part
(first 64 bits) that takes prefix from the prefix advertisement, and host part (last 64 bits) that is automatically
generated from local MAC address:

atis@atis-desktop:~$ ip -6 addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qlen 1000
inet6 2001:db8::21a:4dff:fe56:1f4d/64 scope global dynamic
Manual:IPv6/ND 350

valid_lft 2588363sec preferred_lft 601163sec

inet6 fe80::21a:4dff:fe56:1f4d/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

The host has received the 2001:db8::/64 prefix from the router and configured an address with it.
There is also an option to redistribute DNS server information using RADVD:

[admin@MikroTik] > ip dns set server=2001:db8::2

[admin@MikroTik] > ip dns print
servers: 2001:db8::2
...
[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 nd set [f] advertise-dns=yes

You will need a running client side software with Router Advertisement DNS support to take advantage of the
advertised DNS information.
On Ubuntu/Debian linux distributions you can install rdnssd package which is capable of receiving advertised DNS
address.

mrz@bumba:/$ sudo apt-get install rdnssd

mrz@bumba:/$ cat /etc/resolv.conf

# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver 2001:db8::2

mrz@bumba:/$ ping6 www.mikrotik.com

PING www.mikrotik.com(2a02:610:7501:1000::2) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 2a02:610:7501:1000::2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=61 time=2.11 ms
64 bytes from 2a02:610:7501:1000::2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=61 time=1.33 ms
^C
--- www.mikrotik.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.334/1.725/2.117/0.393 ms
mrz@bumba:/$

See Also
• http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_IPv6Addressing.htm
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:My First IPv6 Network 351

Manual:My First IPv6 Network

Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
This example demonstrates how to set up your first IPv6 network using tunnel broker's provided service.

Application Example
Consider following network setup:

Our main gateway (R1) has only IPv4 internet connectivity and ISP is not providing IPv6 services. Our network
consists of two isolated network segments Lan1 and Lan2.
To enable IPv6 we will need to create a tunnel to IPv6 tunnel broker which will transit our IPv6 traffic over IPv4
network.

Tunnel broker
In this example we will use Hurricane Electric tunnel broker services [1].
After registration click on "Create regular tunnel", enter your IP address and choose closest server to your location.
That's it tunnel is now allocated.
Now go to tunnel details, where you will see all the parameters for successful tunnel creation and allocated IPv6
address block. As we have two separate lan segments we will need /48 address block, allocate it by clicking on
"allocate".
Manual:My First IPv6 Network 352

Configuration
Here is whole configurations for those who want to copy&paste.
R1:

# ipv4 connectivity to ISP

/ip address
add address=194.105.56.170/24 interface=ether1
/ip route
add gateway=194.105.56.1

# ipv6 service

/interface 6to4
add comment="HE IPv6" local-address=194.105.56.170 mtu=1280 name=sit1 remote-address=\
216.66.80.90

/ipv6 address
add address=2001:470:27:37e::2/64 advertise=no eui-64=no interface=sit1

/ipv6 route
add dst-address=::/0 gateway=2001:470:27:37e::1

#Lan1
/ipv6 address
add address=2001:470:dcd9:1::1/64 advertise=yes interface=ether3

# routing between segments

/routing ospf-v3 instance
set default router-id=10.10.10.1 distribute-default=if-installed-as-type-1 \
redistribute-connected=as-type-1

/routing ospf-v3 interface

Manual:My First IPv6 Network 353

add area=backbone interface=ether2

R2:

#Lan2
/ipv6 address
add address=2001:470:dcd9:2::1/64 advertise=yes interface=ether3

# routing between segments

/routing ospf-v3 instance
set default router-id=10.10.10.2 redistribute-connected=as-type-1

/routing ospf-v3 interface

add area=backbone interface=ether1

IPv4 connectivity
IPv4 connectivity is needed only between ISP and our main gateway (R1), as our home network is going to be purely
IPv6.
Set up ip address and route on R1:

/ip address
add address=194.105.56.170/24 interface=ether1
/ip route
add gateway=194.105.56.1

IPv6 tunnel service

Lets create 6to4 tunnel using parameters from HE provided tunnel details:

/interface 6to4
add comment="HE IPv6" local-address=194.105.56.170 mtu=1280 name=sit1 remote-address=\
216.66.80.90

Add provided IPv6 address and default route to tunnel broker.

/ipv6 address
add address=2001:470:27:37e::2/64 advertise=no eui-64=no interface=sit1

/ipv6 route
add dst-address=::/0 gateway=2001:470:27:37e::1

At this point router should be capable of reaching any IPv6 destination.

Manual:My First IPv6 Network 354

Lan segment address blocks

Next, we need to assign a subnet address from the /48 address block to two of our ethernet segments. Since the prefix
length for IPv6 subnet is always /64, we have 65536 subnets available from /48 address block! Let's just assign
2001:470:dcd9:1::/64 to Lan1, and 2001:470:dcd9:2::/64 to Lan2.
R1:

#Lan1
/ipv6 address
add address=2001:470:dcd9:1::1/64 advertise=yes interface=ether3

R2:

#Lan2
/ipv6 address
add address=2001:470:dcd9:2::1/64 advertise=yes interface=ether3

Notice, that advertise flag is enabled. It means that Stateless auto configuration is enabled and absolutely no address
configuration is required on client side.

Routing between segments

We will use OSPF as the routing protocol between both routers. Notice that in IPv6 network additional addresses
between routers are not required. Link-local addresses are used for connectivity between routers.
R1:

/routing ospf-v3 instance

set default router-id=10.10.10.1 distribute-default=if-installed-as-type-1 \
redistribute-connected=as-type-1

/routing ospf-v3 interface

add area=backbone interface=ether2

R2:

/routing ospf-v3 instance

set default router-id=10.10.10.2 redistribute-connected=as-type-1

/routing ospf-v3 interface

add area=backbone interface=ether1

When configuring OSPF on a network without configured IPv4, important configuration part is to set up router-id.
Wen this parameter is not set, OSPF will try to get it from configured IPv4 addresses, if IPv4 address are missing
process will fail and OSPF will not work.
At this point both LAN segments can reach Ipv6 Global network routed over 6to4 tunnel.
Manual:My First IPv6 Network 355

See Also
• Simple IPv6 routing example
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / www. tunnelbroker. net/

Manual:Creating IPv6 loopback address

In some cases it is necessary to have a kind of loopback interface. It can be used to hold addresses that belong to the
"router itself" and not to any particular outgoing interface. Such addresses are useful, for example, as source
addresses for TCP connections between two routers that have more that one physical interfaces between them.
In MT RouterOS the recommended way to add a loopback interface for IPv4 is to create a new empty bridge
interface:

/interface bridge add name=lobridge

# loopback address
/ip address add address=10.0.0.1/24 interface=lobridge

However, for IPv6 this won't work.

Empty bridge interface has zero MAC byte default. MT RouterOS does not generate IPv6 link-local addresses on
interfaces with zero MAC address (because of high address collision probability).
Since IPv6 link-local address is needed for IPv6 to function properly on an interface, this means that by default the
empty bridge interface cannot be used as IPv6 loopback interface.

Recommended solution
Add an empty bridge, and specify bridge MAC address manually:

/interface bridge add name=lobridge auto-mac=no admin-mac=01:00:00:00:01:00

# loopback address
/ipv6 address add address=2003::1/64 advertise=no interface=lobridge

Alternative solution is to use a fake EoIP tunnel interface instead of bridge. A random MAC address will be
generated in this case.

Results
Test that you are able to ping the loopback address:

/ping 2003::1
2003::1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=5 ms
2003::1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=5 ms
Manual:IP/Route 356

Manual:IP/Route
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Overview
Router keeps routing information in several separate spaces:
• FIB (Forwarding Information Base), that is used to make packet forwarding decisions. It contains a copy of the
necessary routing information.
• Each routing protocol (except BGP) has it's own internal tables. This is where per-protocol routing decisions are
made. BGP does not have internal routing tables and stores complete routing information from all peers in the
RIB.
• RIB contains routes grouped in separate routing tables based on their value of routing-mark. All routes without
routing-mark are kept in the main routing table. These tables are used for best route selection. The main table is
also used for nexthop lookup.

Routing Information Base

RIB (Routing Information Base) contains complete routing information, including static routes and policy routing
rules configured by the user, routing information learned from routing protocols, information about connected
networks. RIB is used to filter routing information, calculate best route for each destination prefix, build and update
Forwarding Information Base and to distribute routes between different routing protocols.
By default forwarding decision is based only on the value of destination address. Each route has dst-address
property, that specifies all destination addresses this route can be used for. If there are several routes that apply to a
particular IP address, the most specific one (with largest netmask) is used. This operation (finding the most specific
route that matches given address) is called routing table lookup.
If routing table contains several routes with the same dst-address, only one of them can be used to forward packets.
This route is installed into FIB and marked as active.
Manual:IP/Route 357

When forwarding decision uses additional information, such as a source address of the packet, it is called policy
routing. Policy routing is implemented as a list of policy routing rules, that select different routing table based on
destination address, source address, source interface, and routing mark (can be changed by firewall mangle rules) of
the packet.
All routes by default are kept in the main routing table. Routes can be assigned to specific routing table by setting
their routing-mark property to the name of another routing table. Routing tables are referenced by their name, and
are created automatically when they are referenced in the configuration.
Each routing table can have only one active route for each value of dst-address IP prefix.
There are different groups of routes, based on their origin and properties.

Default route
Route with dst-address 0.0.0.0/0 applies to every destination address. Such route is called the default route. If
routing table contains an active default route, then routing table lookup in this table will never fail.

Connected routes
Connected routes are created
automatically for each IP network that
has at least one enabled interface
attached to it (as specifie in the /ip
address configuration). RIB tracks
status of connected routes, but does not
modify them. For each connected route
there is one ip address item such that:

• address part of dst-address of

connected route is equal to network
of ip address item.
• netmask part of dst-address of
connected route is equal to netmask part of address of ip address item.
• pref-src of connected route is equal to address part of address of ip address item.
• interface of connected route is equal to actual-interface of ip address item (same as interface, except for bridge
interface ports).

Multipath (ECMP) routes

Because results of the forwarding decision are cached, packets with the same source address, destination address, source interface, routing
mark and ToS are sent to the same gateway. This means that one connection will use only one link in each direction, so ECMP routes can be used
to implement per-connection load balancing. See interface bonding if you need to achieve per-packet load balancing.

To implement some setups, such as load balancing, it might be necessary to use more than one path to given
destination. However, it is not possible to have more than one active route to destination in a single routing table.
ECMP (Equal cost multi-path) routes have multiple gateway nexthop values. All reachable nexthops are copied to
FIB and used in forwarding packets.
OSPF protocol can create ECMP routes. Such routes can also be created manually.
Manual:IP/Route 358

Routes with interface as a gateway

Value of gateway can be specified as an interface name instead of the nexthop IP address. Such route has following
special properties:
• Unlike connected routes, routes with interface nexthops are not used for nexthop lookup.
• It is possible to assign several interfaces as a value of gateway, and create ECMP route. It is not possible to have
connected route with multiple gateway values.

Route selection
Each routing table can have one active route for each destination prefix. This route is installed into FIB. Active route
is selected from all candidate routes with the same dst-address and routing-mark, that meet the criteria for
becoming an active route. There can be multiple such routes from different routing protocols and from static
configuration. Candidate route with the lowest distance becomes an active route. If there is more than one candidate
route with the same distance, selection of active route is arbitrary (except for BGP routes).
BGP has the most complicated selection process (described in separate article). Notice that this protocol-internal
selection is done only after BGP routes are installed in the main routing table; this means there can be one candidate
route from each BGP peer. Also note that BGP routes from different BGP instances are compared by their distance,
just like other routes.

Criteria for selecting candidate routes

To participate in route selection process, route has to meet following criteria:
• route is not disabled.
• distance is not 255. Routes that are rejected by route filter have distance value of 255.
• pref-src is either not set or is a valid local address of the router.
• routing-mark is either not set or is referred by firewall or policy routing rules.
• If type of route is unicast and it is not a connected route, it must have at least one reachable nexthop.

Nexthop lookup
Nexthop lookup is a part of the route
selection process.
Routes that are installed in the FIB
need to have interface associated with
each gateway address. Gateway
address (nexthop) has to be directly
reachable via this interface. Interface
that should be used to send out packets
to each gateway address is found by
doing nexthop lookup.
Some routes (e.g. iBGP) may have
gateway address that is several hops
away from this router. To install such
routes in the FIB, it is necessary to find
the address of the directly reachable
gateway (an immediate nexthop), that
Manual:IP/Route 359

should be used to reach the gateway address of this route. Immediate nextop addresses are also found by doing
nexthop lookup.
Nexthop lookup is done only in the main routing table, even for routes with different value of routing-mark. It is
necessary to restrict set of routes that can be used to look up immediate nexthops. Nexthop values of RIP or OSPF
routes, for example, are supposed to be directly reachable and should be looked up only using connected routes. This
is achieved using scope and target-scope properties.
• Routes with interface name as the value of gateway are not used for nexthop lookup. If route has both interface
nexthops and active IP address nexthops, then interface nexthops are ignored.
• Routes with scope greater than the maximum accepted value are not used for nexthop lookup. Each route
specifies maximum accepted scope value for it's nexthops in the target-scope property. Default value of this
property allows nexthop lookup only through connected routes, with the exception of iBGP routes that have larger
default value and can lookup nexthop also through IGP and static routes.

Recursive nexthop lookup example

• nexthop 10.2.0.1 is resolved through a connected route, it's status is reachable.

• nexthop 10.3.0.1 is resolved recursively through a 10.3.0.0/16 route, it's status is recursive, and it uses 10.2.0.1 as the immediate nexthop value
that is installed in the FIB.

Interface and immediate nexthop are selected based on the result of nexthop lookup:
• If most specific active route that nexthop lookup finds is connected route, then interface of this connected route is
used as the nexthop interface, and this gateway is marked as reachable. Since gateway is directly reachable
through this interface (that's exactly what connected route means), the gateway address is used as the immediate
nexthop address.
• If most specific active route that nexthop lookup finds has nexthop that is already resolved, immediate nexthop
address and interface is copied from that nexthop and this gateway is marked as recursive.
• If most specific active route that nexthop lookup finds is ECMP route, then it uses first gateway of that route that
is not unreachable.
• If nexthop lookup does not find any route, then this gateway is marked as unreachable.
Manual:IP/Route 360

Forwarding Information Base

FIB (Forwarding Information Base)
contains copy of information that is
necessary for packet forwarding:
• all active routes
• policy routing rules
By default (when no routing-mark
values are used) all active routes are in
the main table, and there is only one
hidden implicit rule ("catch all" rule)
that uses the main table for all
destination lookups.

Routing table lookup

FIB uses following information from
packet to determine it's destination:
• source address
• destination address
• source interface
• routing mark
• ToS (not used by RouterOS in policy routing rules, but it is a part of routing cache lookup key)
Possible routing decisions are:
• receive packet locally
• discard packet (either silently or by sending ICMP message to the sender of the packet)
• send packet to specific IP address on specific interface
Results of routing decision are remembered in the routing cache. This is done to improve forwarding performance.
When another packet with the same source address, destination address, source interface, routing mark and ToS
is routed, cached results are used. This also allows to implement per-connection load balancing using ECMP routes,
because values used to lookup entry in the routing cache are the same for all packets that belong to the same
connection and go in the same direction.
If there is no routing cache entry for this packet, it is created by running routing decision:
• check that packet has to be locally delivered (destination address is address of the router)
• process implicit policy routing rules
• process policy routing rules added by user
• process implicit catch-all rule that looks up destination in the main routing table
• return result is "network unreachable"
Manual:IP/Route 361

Result of routing decision can be:

• IP address of nexthop + interface

• point-to-point interface
• local delivery
• discard
• ICMP prohibited
• ICMP host unreachable
• ICMP network unreachable

Rules that do not match current packet are ignored. If rule has action drop or unreachable, then it is returned as a
result of the routing decision process. If action is lookup then destination address of the packet is looked up in
routing table that is specified in the rule. If lookup fails (there is no route that matches destination address of packet),
then FIB proceeds to the next rule. Otherwise:
• if type of the route is blackhole, prohibit or unreachable, then return this action as the routing decision result;
• if this is a connected route, or route with an interface as the gateway value, then return this interface and the
destination address of the packet as the routing decision result;
• if this route has IP address as the value of gateway, then return this address and associated interface as the routing
decision result;
• if this route has multiple values of nexthop, then pick one of them in round robin fashion.
Result of this routing decision is stored in new routing cache entry.

Properties

Route flags

Property(Flag) Description

disabled (X) Configuration item is disabled. It does not have any effect on other routes and is not used by forwarding or routing protocols
in any way.

active (A) Route is used for packet forwarding. See route selection.

dynamic (D) Configuration item created by software, not by management interface. It is not exported, and cannot be directly modified.

connect (C) connected route.

static (S) static route.

rip (r) RIP route.

bgp (b) BGP route.

ospf (o) OSPF route.

mme (m) MME route.

blackhole (B) Silently discard packet forwarded by this route.

unreachable Discard packet forwarded by this route. Notify sender with ICMP host unreachable (type 3 code 1) message.
(U)

prohibit (P) Discard packet forwarded by this route. Notify sender with ICMP communication administratively prohibited (type 3 code 13)
message.
Manual:IP/Route 362

General properties

Property Description

check-gateway (arp | Periodically (every 10 seconds) check gateway by sending either ICMP echo request (ping) or ARP request (arp). If
ping; Default: "") no response from gateway is received for 10 seconds, request times out. After two timeouts gateway is considered
unreachable. After receiving reply from gateway it is considered reachable and timeout counter is reset.

comment (string; Default: Description of particular route

"")

distance (integer[1..255]; Value used in route selection. Routes with smaller distance value are given preference. If value of this property is
Default: "1") not set, then the default depends on route protocol:
• connected routes: 0
• static routes: 1
• eBGP: 20
• OSPF: 110
• RIP: 120
• MME: 130
• iBGP: 200

dst-address (IP prefix; IP prefix of route, specifies destination addresses that this route can be used for. Netmask part of this property
Default: 0.0.0.0/0) specifies how many of the most significant bits in packet destination address must match this value. If there are
several active routes that match destination address of packet, then the most specific one (with largest netmask
value) is used.

gateway (IP IP%interface | Array of IP addresses or interface names. Specifies which host or interface packets should be sent to. Connected
IP@table[, IP | string, [..; routes and routes with blackhole, unreachable or prohibit type do not have this property. Usually value of this
Default: "") property is a single IP address of a gateway that can be directly reached through one of router's interfaces (but see
nexthop lookup). ECMP routes have more than one gateway value. Value can be repeated several times.

pref-src (IP; Default: "") Which of the local IP addresses to use for locally originated packets that are sent via this route. Value of this
property has no effect on forwarded packets. If value of this property is set to IP address that is not local address of
this router then the route will be inactive. If pref-src value is not set, then for locally originated packets that are sent
using this route router will choose one of local addresses attached to the output interface that match destination
prefix of the route (an example).

route-tag (integer; Value of route tag attribute for RIP or OSPF. For RIP only values 0..4294967295 are valid.
Default: "")

routing-mark (string; Name of routing table that contains this route. Not set by default which is the same as main. Packets that are marked
Default: "") by firewall with this value of routing-mark will be routed using routes from this table, unless overridden by policy
routing rules. Not more than 250 routing marks are possible per router.

scope (integer[0..255]; Used in nexthop resolution. Route can resolve nexthop only through routes that have scope less than or equal to the
Default: "30") target-scope of this route. Default value depends on route protocol:
• connected routes: 10 (if interface is running)
• OSPF, RIP, MME routes: 20
• static routes: 30
• BGP routes: 40
• connected routes: 200 (if interface is not running)

target-scope Used in nexthop resolution. This is the maximum value of scope for a route through which a nexthop of this route
(integer[0..255]; Default: can be resolved. See nexthop lookup. For iBGP value is set to 30 by default.
"10")

type (unicast | blackhole | Routes that do not specify nexthop for packets, but instead perform some other action on packets have type different
prohibit | unreachabl; from the usual unicast. blackhole route silently discards packets, while unreachable and prohibit routes send ICMP
Default: unicast) Destination Unreachable message (code 1 and 13 respectively) to the source address of the packet.

vrf-interface (string; VRF interface name

Default: "10")
Manual:IP/Route 363

Other Read-only properties

Property Description

gateway-status Array of gateways, gateway states and which interface is used for forwarding. Syntax "IP state interface", for example
(array) "10.5.101.1 reachable bypass-bridge". State can be unreachable, reachable or recursive. See nexthop lookup for details.

ospf-metric Used OSPF metric for particular route

(integer)

ospf-type (string)

BGP Route Properties

These properties contain information that is used by BGP routing protocol. However, values of these properties can
be set for any type of route, including static and connected. It can be done either manually (for static routes) or using
route filters.

Property Description

bgp-as-path (string; Default: "") Value of BGP AS_PATH attribute. Comma separated list of AS numbers with confederation AS
numbers enclosed in () and AS_SETs enclosed in {}. Used to check for AS loops and in BGP
route selection algorithm: routes with shorter AS_PATH are preferred (but read how AS_PATH
length is calculated).

bgp-atomic-aggregate (yes | no; Default: Value of BGP ATOMIC_AGGREGATE attribute.

)

bgp-communities (array of (integer:integer Value of BGP communities list. This attribute can be used to group or filter routes. Named values
| internet | no-advertise | no-export |local-as; have special meanings:
Default: ) • internet - advertise this route to the Internet community (i.e. all routers)
• no-advertise - do not advertise this route to any peers
• no-export - do not advertise this route to EBGP peers
• local-as - same as no-export, except that route is also advertised to EBGP peers inside local
confederation

bgp-local-pref (integer; Default: ) Value of BGP LOCAL_PREF attribute. Used in BGP route selection algorithm: routes with
greater LOCAL_PREF value are preferred. If value is not set then it is interpreted as 100.

bgp-med (integer; Default: ) Value of BGP MULTI_EXIT_DISC BGP attribute. Used in BGP route selection algorithm:
routes with lower MULTI_EXIT_DISC value are preferred.. If value is not set then it is
interpreted as 0.

bgp-origin (igp | egp | incomplete; Default: Value of BGP ORIGIN attribute. Used in BGP route selection algorithm: igp routes are preferred
) over egp and egp over incomplete.

bgp-prepend (integer [0..16]; Default: ) How many times to prepend router's own AS number to AS_PATH attribute when announcing
route via BGP. Affects only routes sent to eBGP peers (for iBGP value 0 is always used).

Read-only
Manual:IP/Route 364

Property Description

bgp-ext-communities Value of BGP extended communities attribute

(string)

bgp-weight (integer) Additional value used by BGP best path selection algorithm. Routes with higher weight are preferred. It can be
set by incoming routing filters and is useful only for BGP routes. If value is not set then it is interpreted as 0.

received-from (string) Name of the BGP peer from which route is received.

Manual:Simple Static Routing

Introduction
Lets make a simple routing setup illustrated in image below

Ether1 of Router1 is connected to ISP and will be the gateway of our networks. Router2 is connected to ether2 of
Router1 and will act as a gateway for clients connected to it from LAN2. Router1 also connects one client to ether3.
Our goal is to create setup so that clients from LAN1 can reach clients from LAN2 and all of them can connect to
internet.
Manual:Simple Static Routing 365

Configuration
Lets consider that ISP gave us an address 10.1.1.2/30 and gateway is 10.1.1.1 Router1:

/ip address
add address=10.1.1.2 interface=ether1
add address=172.16.1.1/30 interface=ether2
add address=192.168.1.1/24 interface=ether3

/ip route
add gateway=10.1.1.1
add dst-address=192.168.2.0/24 gateway=172.16.1.2

Router2:

/ip address
add address=172.16.1.2/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.2.1/24 interface=ether2

/ip route
add gateway=172.16.1.1

If you look at configuration then you will see that on Router1 we added route to destination 182.168.2.0/24. It is
required for clients from LAN1 to be able to reach clients on LAN2. On Router2 such route is not required since
LAN1 can be reached by default route.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 366

Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding

Applies to RouterOS: 3, v4

Packages required: routing-test, mpls-test for RouterOS v3; routing, mpls for RouterOS v4+

Description
RouterOS 3.x allows to create multiple Virtual Routing and Forwarding instances on a single router. This is useful
for BGP based MPLS VPNs. Unlike BGP VPLS, which is OSI Layer 2 technology, BGP VRF VPNs work in Layer
3 and as such exchange IP prefixes between routers. VRFs solve the problem of overlapping IP prefixes, and provide
the required privacy (via separated routing for different VPNs).
To create a VRF, configure it under /ip route vrf. You can now add routes to that VRF - simply specify
routing-mark attribute. Connected routes from interfaces belonging to a VRF will be installed in the right routing
table automatically.
Technically VRFs are based on policy routing. There is exactly one policy route table for each active VRF. The
existing policy routing support in MT RouterOS is not changed; but on the other hand, it is not possible to have
policy routing within a VRF. The main differences between VRF tables and simple policy routing are:
• Routes in VRF tables resolve next-hops in their own route table by default, while policy routes always use the
main route table. Read-only route attribute gateway-table displays information about which table is used for a
particular route (default is main).
• Route lookup is different. For policy routing: after route lookup has been done in policy-route table, and no route
was found, route lookup proceeds to the main route table. For VRFs: if lookup is done, and no route is found in
VRF route table, the lookup fails with "network unreachable" error. (You can still override this behavior with
custom route lookup rules, as they have precedence.)
You can use multi-protocol BGP with VPNv4 address family to distribute routes from VRF route tables - not only to
other routers, but also to different routing tables in the router itself. First configure the route distinguisher for a VRF.
It can be done under /ip route vrf. Usually there will be one-to-one correspondence between route distinguishers and
VRFs, but that's not a mandatory requirement. Route installation in VRF tables is controlled by BGP extended
communities attribute. Configure import and export lists under /ip route vrf, import-route-targets and
export-route-targets. Export route target list for a VRF should contained at least the route distinguisher for that
VRF. Then configure a list of VRFs for each BGP instance that will participate in VRF routing.
Once list of VRFs for BGP instance, route distinguisher and export route targets has been configured, some active
VPNv4 address family routes may be created, depending on BGP redistribution settings. They are installed in a
separate route table and, if present, visible under /routing bgp vpnv4-route. These so called VPNv4 routes have
prefix that consists of a route distinguisher and an IPv4 network prefix. This way you can have overlapping IPv4
prefixes distributed in BGP.
Please note that a VPNv4 route will be distributed only if it has a valid MPLS label. You need to install mpls-test
package and configure valid label range for this to work. (Default configuration has valid label range.)
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 367

Examples

The simplest MPLS VPN setup

In this example rudimentary MPLS backbone (consisting of two Provider Edge (PE) routers PE1 and PE2) is created
and configured to forward traffic between Customer Edge (CE) routers CE1 and CE2 routers that belong to cust-one
VPN.

CE1 Router
/ip address add address=10.1.1.1/24 interface=ether1
# use static routing
/ip route add dst-address=10.3.3.0/24 gateway=10.1.1.2

CE2 Router
/ip address add address=10.3.3.4/24 interface=ether1
/ip route add dst-address=10.1.1.0/24 gateway=10.3.3.3

PE1 Router
/interface bridge add name=lobridge
/ip address add address=10.1.1.2/24 interface=ether1
/ip address add address=10.2.2.2/24 interface=ether2
/ip address add address=10.5.5.2/32 interface=lobridge
/ip route vrf add disabled=no routing-mark=cust-one route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 \
export-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 interfaces=ether1
/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.5.5.2
/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether2
/routing bgp instance set default as=65000
/routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=cust-one redistribute-connected=yes
/routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.5.5.3 remote-as=65000 address-families=vpnv4 \
update-source=lobridge
# add route to the remote BGP peer's loopback address
/ip route add dst-address=10.5.5.3/32 gateway=10.2.2.3
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 368

PE2 Router (Cisco)

ip vrf cust-one
rd 1.1.1.1:111
route-target export 1.1.1.1:111
route-target import 1.1.1.1:111
exit

interface Loopback0
ip address 10.5.5.3 255.255.255.255

mpls ldp router-id Loopback0 force

mpls label protocol ldp

interface FastEthernet0/0
ip address 10.2.2.3 255.255.255.0
mpls ip

interface FastEthernet1/0
ip vrf forwarding cust-one
ip address 10.3.3.3 255.255.255.0

router bgp 65000

neighbor 10.5.5.2 remote-as 65000
neighbor 10.5.5.2 update-source Loopback0
address-family vpnv4
neighbor 10.5.5.2 activate
neighbor 10.5.5.2 send-community both
exit-address-family
address-family ipv4 vrf cust-one
redistribute connected
exit-address-family

ip route 10.5.5.2 255.255.255.255 10.2.2.2

Results
Check that VPNv4 route redistribution is working:

[admin@PE1] > /routing bgp vpnv4-route print detail

Flags: L - label present
0 L route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 dst-address=10.3.3.0/24 gateway=10.5.5.3
interface=ether2 in-label=17 out-label=17 bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-med=0
bgp-origin=incomplete bgp-ext-communities="RT:1.1.1.1:111"

1 L route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 dst-address=10.1.1.0/24 interface=ether1

in-label=16 bgp-ext-communities="RT:1.1.1.1:111"

Check that the 10.3.3.0 is installed in IP routes, in cust-one route table:

Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 369

[admin@PE1] > /ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADC 10.1.1.0/24 10.1.1.2 ether1 0
1 ADb 10.3.3.0/24 10.5.5.3 recursi... 20
2 ADC 10.2.2.0/24 10.2.2.2 ether2 0
3 ADC 10.5.5.2/32 10.5.5.2 lobridge 0
4 A S 10.5.5.3/32 10.2.2.3 reachab... 1

Let's take closer look at IP routes in cust-one VRF. The 10.1.1.0/24 IP prefix is a connected route that belongs to an
interface that was configured to belong to cust-one VRF. The 10.3.3.0/24 IP prefix was advertised via BGP as
VPNv4 route from PE2 and is imported in this VRF routing table, because our configured import-route-targets
matched the BGP extended communities attribute it was advertised with.

[admin@PE1] /ip route> print detail where routing-mark=cust-one

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 ADC dst-address=10.1.1.0/24 pref-src=10.1.1.2 gateway=ether1 distance=0 scope=10
routing-mark=cust-one

1 ADb dst-address=10.3.3.0/24 gateway=10.5.5.3 recursive via 10.2.2.3 ether2

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=30 routing-mark=cust-one
bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities="RT:1.1.1.1:111"

The same for Cisco:

PE2#show ip bgp vpnv4 all

BGP table version is 5, local router ID is 10.5.5.3
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i - internal,
r RIB-failure, S Stale
Origin codes: i - IGP, e - EGP, ? - incomplete

Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path

Route Distinguisher: 1.1.1.1:111 (default for vrf cust-one)
*>i10.1.1.0/24 10.5.5.2 100 0 ?
*> 10.3.3.0/24 0.0.0.0 0 32768 ?

PE2#show ip route vrf cust-one

Routing Table: cust-one

Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 370

ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route

o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route

Gateway of last resort is not set

10.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets

B 10.1.1.0 [200/0] via 10.5.5.2, 00:05:33
10.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 10.3.3.0 is directly connected, FastEthernet1/0

You should be able to ping from CE1 to CE2 and vice versa.

[admin@CE1] > /ping 10.3.3.4

10.3.3.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=18 ms
10.3.3.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=13 ms
10.3.3.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=13 ms
10.3.3.4 64 byte ping: ttl=62 time=14 ms
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 13/14.5/18 ms

A more complicated setup (changes only)

As opposed to the simplest setup, in this example we have two customers: cust-one and cust-two.
We configure two VPNs for then, cust-one and cust-two respectively, and exchange all routes between them. (This is
also called "route leaking").
Note that this could be not the most typical setup, because routes are usually not exchanged between different
customers. In contrast, by default it should not be possible to gain access from one VRF site to a different VRF site
in another VPN. (This is the "Private" aspect of VPNs.) Separate routing is a way to provide privacy; and it is also
required to solve the problem of overlapping IP network prefixes. Route exchange is in direct conflict with these two
requirement but may sometimes be needed (e.g. temp. solution when two customers are migrating to single network
infrastructure).
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 371

CE1 Router, cust-one

/ip route add dst-address=10.4.4.0/24 gateway=10.1.1.2

CE2 Router, cust-one

/ip route add dst-address=10.4.4.0/24 gateway=10.3.3.3

CE1 Router, cust-two

/ip address add address=10.4.4.5 interface=ether1
/ip route add dst-address=10.1.1.0/24 gateway=10.3.3.3
/ip route add dst-address=10.3.3.0/24 gateway=10.3.3.3

PE1 Router
# replace the old VRF with this:
/ip route vrf add disabled=no routing-mark=cust-one route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 \
export-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111,2.2.2.2:222 interfaces=ether1

PE2 Router (Cisco)

ip vrf cust-one
rd 1.1.1.1:111
route-target export 1.1.1.1:111
route-target import 1.1.1.1:111
route-target import 2.2.2.2:222
exit

ip vrf cust-two
rd 2.2.2.2:222
route-target export 2.2.2.2:222
route-target import 1.1.1.1:111
route-target import 2.2.2.2:222
exit

interface FastEthernet2/0
ip vrf forwarding cust-two
ip address 10.4.4.3 255.255.255.0

router bgp 65000

address-family ipv4 vrf cust-two
redistribute connected
exit-address-family
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 372

Variation: replace the Cisco with another MT

PE2 Mikrotik config

/interface bridge add name=lobridge
/ip address
add address=10.2.2.3/24 interface=ether1
add address=10.3.3.3/24 interface=ether2
add address=10.4.4.3/24 interface=ether3
add address=10.5.5.3/32 interface=lobridge
/ip route vrf
add disabled=no routing-mark=cust-one route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 \
export-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111,2.2.2.2:222 \
interfaces=ether2
add disabled=no routing-mark=cust-two route-distinguisher=2.2.2.2:222 \
export-route-targets=2.2.2.2:222 import-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111,2.2.2.2:222 \
interfaces=ether3
/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.5.5.3
/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether1
/routing bgp instance set default as=65000
/routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=cust-one redistribute-connected=yes
/routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=cust-two redistribute-connected=yes
/routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.5.5.2 remote-as=65000 address-families=vpnv4 \
update-source=lobridge
# add route to the remote BGP peer's loopback address
/ip route add dst-address=10.5.5.2/32 gateway=10.2.2.2

Results
The output of /ip route print now is interesting enough to deserve detailed observation.

[admin@PE2] /ip route> print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADb 10.1.1.0/24 10.5.5.2 recurs... 20
1 ADC 10.3.3.0/24 10.3.3.3 ether2 0
2 ADb 10.4.4.0/24 20
3 ADb 10.1.1.0/24 10.5.5.2 recurs... 20
4 ADb 10.3.3.0/24 20
5 ADC 10.4.4.0/24 10.4.4.3 ether3 0
6 ADC 10.2.2.0/24 10.2.2.3 ether1 0
7 A S 10.5.5.2/32 10.2.2.2 reacha... 1
8 ADC 10.5.5.3/32 10.5.5.3 lobridge 0

The route 10.1.1.0/24 was received from remote BGP peer and is installed in both VRF routing tables.
The routes 10.3.3.0/24 and 10.4.4.0/24 are also installed in both VRF routing tables. Each is as connected route in
one table and as BGP route in another table. This has nothing to do with their being advertised via BGP. They are
Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 373

simply being "advertised" to local VPNv4 route table and locally reimported after that. Import and export
route-targets determine in which tables they will end up.
This can be deduced from its attributes - they don't have the usual BGP properties. (Route 10.4.4.0/24.)

[admin@PE2] /ip route> print detail where routing-mark=cust-one

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 ADb dst-address=10.1.1.0/24 gateway=10.5.5.2 recursive via 10.2.2.2 ether1
distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=30 routing-mark=cust-one
bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities="RT:1.1.1.1:111"

1 ADC dst-address=10.3.3.0/24 pref-src=10.3.3.3 gateway=ether2 distance=0 scope=10

routing-mark=cust-one

2 ADb dst-address=10.4.4.0/24 distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10

routing-mark=cust-one bgp-ext-communities="RT:2.2.2.2:222"

Static inter-VRF routes

In general it is recommended that all routes between VRF should be exchanged using BGP local import and export
functionality. If that is not enough, static routes can be used to achieve this so-called route leaking.
There are two ways to install a route that has gateway in different routing table than the route itself.
The first way is to explicitly specify routing table in gateway field when adding route. This is only possible for the
"main" routing table. Example:

# add route to 5.5.5.0/24 in 'vrf1' routing table with gateway in the main routing table
add dst-address=5.5.5.0/24 gateway=10.3.0.1@main routing-mark=vrf1

The second way is to explicitly specify interface in gateway field. The interface specified can belong to a VRF
instance. Example:
# add route to 5.5.5.0/24 in the main routing table with gateway at 'ether2' VRF interface
add dst-address=5.5.5.0/24 gateway=10.3.0.1%ether2 routing-mark=main

# add route to 5.5.5.0/24 in the main routing table with 'ptp-link-1' VRF interface as gateway
add dst-address=5.5.5.0/24 gateway=ptp-link-1 routing-mark=main

As can be observed, there are two variations possible - to specify gateway as ip_address%interface or to simply
specify interface. The first should be used for broadcast interfaces in most cases. The second should be used for
point-to-point interfaces, and also for broadcast interfaces, if the route is a connected route in some VRF. For
example, if you have address 1.2.3.4/24 on interface ether2 that is put in a VRF, there will be connected route
to 1.2.3.0/24 in that VRF's routing table. It is acceptable to add static route 1.2.3.0/24 in a different
routing table with interface-only gateway, even though ether2 is a broadcast interface:

add dst-address=1.2.3.0/24 gateway=ether2 routing-mark=main

Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding 374

References
RFC 4364: BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) [1]
MPLS Fundamentals, chapter 7, Luc De Ghein, Cisco Press 2006

References
[1] http:/ / www. ietf. org/ rfc/ rfc4364. txt

Manual:IPv6/Route
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ipv6 route
Standards: RFC 4291
For static routing, the basic principles of IPv6 are exactly the same as for IPv4.
Simple ipv6 routing example:

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 route add dst-address=2001::/16 gateway=fc00:dead:beef::2

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 route print detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, o - ospf, b - bgp, U - unreachable
0 A S dst-address=2001::/16 gateway=fc00:dead:beef::2 reachable ether1 distance=1
scope=30 target-scope=10

Most notable difference between ipv4 and ipv6 is that link local addresses can be used as route nexthops if interface
is specified:
[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 route add dst-address=2002::/16 gateway=fe80::21a:4dff:fe56:1f4d%ether1
[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 route print detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, o - ospf, b - bgp, U - unreachable
...
1 A S dst-address=2002::/16
gateway=fe80::21a:4dff:fe56:1f4d%ether1 reachable distance=1
scope=30 target-scope=10

Another small difference is that there are no blackhole or prohibit routes, only unreachable.
IPv4 and IPv6 routing also differs in the area of multipath route. Technically speaking, in Linux kernel there is no
support for multiple nexthops for a IPv6 route. However, RouterOS allows to set more than one gateway address for
a single route. In this case, a route is installed in the kernel for each of the different interfaces to which route's
nexthops belong.
Example:
Manual:IPv6/Route 375

[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 address p

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS INTERFACE ADVERTISE
0 G fc00:1::1/64 ether1 no
1 G fc00:2::1/64 ether2 no
[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 route add dst-address=2001::/16 gateway=fc00:1::2,fc00:2::2
[admin@MikroTik] > ipv6 route print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, o - ospf, b - bgp, U - unreachable
# DST-ADDRESS GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 A S 2001::/16 fc00:2::2 reachable ether1, 1
fc00:1::2 reachable ether2

When printing the Linux kernel route table, we see that two routes were added, not one:
# ip -6 route

2001::/16 via fc00:2::2 dev eth1 proto static metric 1024 mtu 1500 advmss 1440 metric10 4294967295

2001::/16 via fc00:1::2 dev eth0 proto static metric 1024 mtu 1500 advmss 1440 metric10 4294967295

...

Properties
Property Description

bgp-as-path (list of AS numbers; Value of BGP AS_PATH attribute. Read more>>

Default: )

bgp-atomic-aggregate (yes |
no; Default: )

bgp-communities (list of two Value of BGP communities list. This attribute can be used to group or filter routes. Named values have
integers separated by :; Default: ) special meanings:
• internet - advertise this route to the Internet community (i.e. all routers)
• no-advertise - do not advertise this route to any peers
• no-export - do not advertise this route to EBGP peers
• local-as - same as no-export, except that route is also advertised to EBGP peers inside local
confederation

bgp-local-pref (integer; Default: Value of BGP LOCAL_PREF attribute. Read more>>

100)

bgp-med (integer; Default: 0) Value of BGP MULTI_EXIT_DISC BGP attribute. Read more>>

bgp-origin (igp | egp | incomplete; Value of BGP ORIGIN attribute. Read more>>
Default: )

bgp-prepend (integer [0..16]; How many times to prepend router's own AS number to AS_PATH attribute when announcing route via
Default: ) BGP. Affects only routes sent to eBGP peers (for iBGP value 0 is always used). Read more>>

check-gateway (ping | arp; Periodically (every 10 seconds) check gateway by sending either ICMP echo request (ping) or ARP
Default: ) request (arp). If no response from gateway is received for 10 seconds, request times out. After two
timeouts gateway is considered unreachable. After receiving reply from gateway it is considered reachable
and timeout counter is reset.

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of an item

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether interface is disabled or not. By default it is disabled.
Manual:IPv6/Route 376

distance (integer; Default: ) Value used in route selection. Routes with smaller distance value are given preference. If value of this
property is not set, then the default depends on route protocol:
• connected routes: 0
• static routes: 1
• eBGP: 20
• OSPF: 110
• RIP: 120
• MME: 130
• iBGP: 200

dst-address (IPv6/Netmask; IPv6 prefix of route, specifies destination addresses that this route can be used for. Netmask (integer
Default: ::/0) [0..128]) part of this property specifies how many of the most significant bits in packet destination address
must match this value. If there are several active routes that match destination address of packet, then the
most specific one (with largest netmask value) is used.

gateway (ipv6 address[,ipv6 Specifies which host or interface packets should be sent to. Link Local addresses can also be used as
address[,..]]; Default: ) gateways if interface is specified. Read more>>

route-tag (integer; Default: ) Value of route tag attribute for RIP or OSPF. For RIP only values 0..65535 are valid.

scope (integer [0..255]; Default: ) Used in nexthop resolution. Route can resolve nexthop only through routes that have scope less than or
equal to the target-scope of this route. Default value depends on route protocol:
• connected routes: 10 (if interface is running)
• OSPF, RIP, MME routes: 20
• static routes: 30
• BGP routes: 40
• connected routes: 200 (if interface is not running)

target-scope (integer [0..255]; Used in nexthop resolution. This is the maximum value of scope for a route through which a nexthop of
Default: 10 (30 for iBGP)) this route can be resolved. See nexthop lookup.

type (unicast | unreachabe; Default: Routes that do not specify nexthop for packets, but instead perform some other action on packets have type
unicast) different from the usual unicast.

Read-only properties

Property Description

active (yes | no) Whether route is currently active and is used for packet forwarding.

bgp (yes | no) BGP route

bgp-weight (integer) BGP weight attribute

connect (yes | no) Directly connected route

dynamic (yes | no) Dynamically added route

gateway-status ()

ospf (yes | no) OSPF route

ospf-metric (integer)

ospf-type (external-type-1 | intra-area | Type of the OSPF route

...)

received-from (string) Name of the BGP peer from which this route was received.

rip (yes | no) RIP route

static (yes | no) Statically added route by user.

unreachable (yes | no) Discard packet forwarded by this route. Notify sender with ICMP host unreachable (type 3 code 1)
message.
Manual:IPv6/Route 377

See Also
• Ipv4 Routing and route selection
• Simple IPv6 routing example
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Simple Static IPv6 Routing

Introduction
Lets make a simple routing setup illustrated in image below

Lets consider ISP is giving us prefix 2001:db8::/62 and prefix is routed to us with link-local address (fe80::1:1).
Ether1 of Router1 is connected to ISP and will be the gateway of our networks. Router2 is connected to ether2 of
Router1 and will act as a gateway for clients connected to it from LAN2. Router1 also connects one client to ether3.
Our goal is to create setup so that clients from LAN1 can reach clients from LAN2 and all of them can connect to the
internet.
Manual:Simple Static IPv6 Routing 378

Configuration
At first we need to find what link-local addresses are on Router1 and on Router's 2 ether1 for routing. We can do
IPv6 routing without globally configuring addresses on every link that way addresses are not wasted. In current setup
there is no global addresses even between ISP and our gateway.

[admin@R1] /ipv6 address> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS FROM-POOL INTERFACE ADVERTISE
0 DL fe80::219:d1ff:fe00:3511/64 ether1 no
1 DL fe80::219:d1ff:fe00:3512/64 ether2 no
1 DL fe80::219:d1ff:fe00:3513/64 ether3 no

[admin@R2] /ipv6 address> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS FROM-POOL INTERFACE ADVERTISE
0 DL fe80::219:d1ff:fe39:3535/64 ether1 no
1 DL fe80::219:d1ff:fe39:3536/64 ether2 no

Now we can start configuration.

Router1

/ipv6 address
add address=2001:db8:1::1/64 interface=ether3 advertise=yes

/ipv6 route
add gateway=fe80::1:1%ether1
add dst-address=2001:db8:2::/64 gateway=fe80::219:d1ff:fe39:3535%ether2

Router2

/ipv6 address
add address=2001:db8:2::1/64 interface=ether2 advertise=yes

/ipv6 route
add gateway=fe80::219:d1ff:fe00:3512%ether1

Notice how link local addresses are configured as gateways. We provide directly connected neighbour routers
link-local address and explicitly specify on which interface ll address is reachable.
Added global addresses are with advertise flag meaning that RA will be used to automatically configure IPv6
addressing on the client PCs. Read more>>
That is all required configuration. At this point all clients are directly reachable from remote locations.
Note: Since IPv6 does not have NAT all clients have direct connection to the Internet. IPv6 firewall rules are
required to protect the clients from unwanted access or attacks

See Also
• IPv6 routing example with tunnel broker
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 379

Manual:IP/DHCP Server
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Summary
Standards: RFC 2131, RFC 3315, RFC 3633
Package: dhcp
The DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is needed for easy distribution of IP addresses in a network. The
MikroTik RouterOS implementation includes both server and client parts and is compliant with RFC 2131.
The router supports an individual server for each Ethernet-like interface. The MikroTik RouterOS DHCP server
supports the basic functions of giving each requesting client an IP address/netmask lease, default gateway, domain
name, DNS-server(s) and WINS-server(s) (for Windows clients) information (set up in the DHCP networks
submenu)
In order DHCP server to work, you must set up also IP pools (do not include the DHCP server's own IP address into
the pool range) and DHCP networks.
It is also possible to hand out leases for DHCP clients using the RADIUS server, here are listed the parameters for
used in RADIUS server.
Access-Request:
• NAS-Identifier - router identity
• NAS-IP-Address - IP address of the router itself
• NAS-Port - unique session ID
• NAS-Port-Type - Ethernet
• Calling-Station-Id - client identifier (active-client-id)
• Framed-IP-Address - IP address of the client (active-address)
• Called-Station-Id - name of DHCP server
• User-Name - MAC address of the client (active-mac-address)
• Password - ""
Access-Accept:
• Framed-IP-Address - IP address that will be assigned to client
• Framed-Pool - ip pool from which to assign ip address to client
• Rate-Limit - Datarate limitation for DHCP clients. Format is: rx-rate[/tx-rate] [rx-burst-rate[/tx-burst-rate]
[rx-burst-threshold[/tx-burst-threshold] [rx-burst-time[/tx-burst-time][priority] [rx-rate-min[/tx-rate-min]]]]. All
rates should be numbers with optional 'k' (1,000s) or 'M' (1,000,000s). If tx-rate is not specified, rx-rate is as
tx-rate too. Same goes for tx-burst-rate and tx-burst-threshold and tx-burst-time. If both rx-burst-threshold and
tx-burst-threshold are not specified (but burst-rate is specified), rx-rate and tx-rate are used as burst thresholds. If
both rx-burst-time and tx-burst-time are not specified, 1s is used as default. Priority takes values 1..8, where 1
implies the highest priority, but 8 - the lowest. If rx-rate-min and tx-rate-min are not specified rx-rate and tx-rate
values are used. The rx-rate-min and tx-rate-min values can not exceed rx-rate and tx-rate values.
• Ascend-Data-Rate - tx/rx data rate limitation if multiple attributes are provided, first limits tx data rate, second -
rx data rate. If used together with Ascend-Xmit-Rate, specifies rx rate. 0 if unlimited
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 380

• Ascend-Xmit-Rate - tx data rate limitation. It may be used to specify tx limit only instead of sending two
sequential Ascend-Data-Rate attributes (in that case Ascend-Data-Rate will specify the receive rate). 0 if
unlimited
• Session-Timeout - max lease time (lease-time)
Note: Currently DHCP server requires real interface to receive raw ethernet packets. It cannot function
correctly on dummy (empty bridge) interface.

Quick Setup Guide

RouterOS has built in command that lets you easily set up DHCP server. Lets say we want to
configure DHCP server on ether1 interface to lend addresses from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254 which belong to the
192.168.0.0/24 network. The gateway and DNS server is 192.168.0.1.
From /ip dhcp-server menu run setup command and follow instructions:

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server> setup

Select interface to run DHCP server on

dhcp server interface: ether1

Select network for DHCP addresses

dhcp address space: 192.168.0.0/24

Select gateway for given network

gateway for dhcp network: 192.168.0.1

Select pool of ip addresses given out by DHCP server

addresses to give out: 192.168.0.2-192.168.0254

Select DNS servers

dns servers: 192.168.0.1

Select lease time

lease time: 3d
[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server>

The wizard has made the following configuration based on the answers above:

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# NAME INTERFACE RELAY ADDRESS-POOL LEASE-TIME ADD-ARP
0 dhcp1 ether1 0.0.0.0 dhcp_pool1 3d no

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server> network print

# ADDRESS GATEWAY DNS-SERVER WINS-SERVER DOMAIN
0 192.168.0.0/24 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.1

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server> /ip pool print

# NAME RANGES
0 dhcp_pool1 192.168.0.2-192.168.0.254
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 381

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server>

IPv6
Starting from v5.8 RouterOS supports IPv6 prefix delegation according to RFC 3315 and RFC 3633.
Starting from v5.9, DHCPv6 server configuration was moved to /ipv6 sub-menu. Read-more >>

General
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-server

Property Description

add-arp (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to add dynamic ARP entry. If set to no either ARP mode should be enabled on that interface or
static ARP entries should be administratively defined in /ip arp submenu.

address-pool (string | static-only; IP pool, from which to take IP addresses for the clients. If set to static-only, then only the clients that
Default: static-only) have a static lease (added in lease submenu) will be allowed.

always-broadcast (yes | no; Always send replies as broadcasts.

Default: no)

authoritative (after-10sec-delay | Option changes the way how server responds to DHCP requests:
after-2sec-delay | yes | no; Default: • yes - replies to clients request for an address that is not available from this server, dhcp server will
after-2sec-delay) send negative acknowledgment (DHCPNAK)
• no - dhcp server ignores clients requests for addresses that are not available from this server
• after-10sec-delay - requests with "secs < 10" will be processed as in "no" setting case and
requests with "secs >= 10" will be processed as in "yes" case.
• after-2sec-delay - requests with "secs < 2" will be processed as in "no" setting case and
requests with "secs >= 2" will be processed as in "yes" case.
If all requests with "secs < x" should be ignored, then delay-thershold=x setting should be used.

bootp-support (none | static | Support for BOOTP clients:

dynamic; Default: static) • none - do not respond to BOOTP requests
• static - offer only static leases to BOOTP clients
• dynamic - offer static and dynamic leases for BOOTP clients

delay-threshold (time | none; If secs field in DHCP packet is smaller than delay-threshold, then this packet is ignored. If set to none -
Default: none) there is no threshold (all DHCP packets are processed)

interface (string; Default: ) Interface on which server will be running.

lease-script (string; Default: ) Script that will be executed after lease is assigned or deassigned. Internal "global" variables that can be
used in the script:
• leaseBound - set to "1" if bound, otherwise set to "0"
• leaseServerName - dhcp server name
• leaseActMAC - active mac address
• leaseActIP - active IP address

lease-time (time; Default: 72h) The time that a client may use the assigned address. The client will try to renew this address after a half of
this time and will request a new address after time limit expires.

name (string; Default: ) Reference name

relay (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) The IP address of the relay this DHCP server should process requests from:
• 0.0.0.0 - the DHCP server will be used only for direct requests from clients (no DHCP really
allowed)
• 255.255.255.255 - the DHCP server should be used for any incomming request from a DHCP
relay except for those, which are processed by another DHCP server that exists in the /ip
dhcp-server submenu.
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 382

src-address (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) The address which the DHCP client must send requests to in order to renew an IP address lease. If there is
only one static address on the DHCP server interface and the source-address is left as 0.0.0.0, then the
static address will be used. If there are multiple addresses on the interface, an address in the same subnet
as the range of given addresses should be used.

use-radius (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to use RADIUS server for dynamic leases

Menu specific commands

Property Description

setup () Start DHCP server setup wizard, which guides you through the steps to easily create all necessary configuration. Read more>>

Lease Store Configuration

Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-server config
This sub-menu allows to configure how often DHCP leases will be stored on disk. If they would be saved on disk on
every lease change, a lot of disk writes would happen which is very bad for Compact Flash (especially, if lease times
are very short). To minimize writes on disk, all changes are saved on disk every store-leases-disk seconds.
Additionally leases are always stored on disk on graceful shutdown and reboot.
Note: Manual changes to leases - addition/removal of static lease, removal of dynamic lease will cause
changes to be pushed for this lease to storage.

This sub-menu has only one configurable property:

Property Description

store-leases-disk (time | immediately | never; Default: 5m) How frequently lease changes should be stored on disk

Networks
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-server network

Property Description

address (IP/netmask; the network DHCP server(s) will lend addresses from
Default: )

boot-file-name (string; Boot file name

Default: )

dhcp-option (string; Add additional DHCP options from option list.

Default: )

dns-server (string; the DHCP client will use these as the default DNS servers. Two comma-separated DNS servers can be specified to
Default: ) be used by DHCP client as primary and secondary DNS servers

domain (string; Default: ) The DHCP client will use this as the 'DNS domain' setting for the network adapter.

gateway (IP; Default: The default gateway to be used by DHCP Client.

0.0.0.0)

netmask (integer: 0..32; The actual network mask to be used by DHCP client. If set to '0' - netmask from network address will be used.
Default: 0)
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 383

next-server (IP; Default: IP address of next server to use in bootstrap.

)

ntp-server (IP; Default: ) the DHCP client will use these as the default NTP servers. Two comma-separated NTP servers can be specified to
be used by DHCP client as primary and secondary NTP servers

wins-server (IP; Default: The Windows DHCP client will use these as the default WINS servers. Two comma-separated WINS servers can
) be specified to be used by DHCP client as primary and secondary WINS servers

Leases
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-server lease
DHCP server lease submenu is used to monitor and manage server's leases. The issued leases are showed here as
dynamic entries. You can also add static leases to issue a particular client (identified by MAC address) the desired IP
address.
Generally, the DHCP lease it allocated as follows:
• an unused lease is in waiting state
• if a client asks for an IP address, the server chooses one
• if the client will receive statically assigned address, the lease becomes offered, and then bound with the respective
lease time
• if the client will receive a dynamic address (taken from an IP address pool), the router sends a ping packet and
waits for answer for 0.5 seconds. During this time, the lease is marked testing
• in case, the address does not respond, the lease becomes offered, and then bound with the respective lease time
• in other case, the lease becomes busy for the lease time (there is a command to retest all busy addresses), and the
client's request remains unanswered (the client will try again shortly)
A client may free the leased address. The dynamic lease is removed, and the allocated address is returned to the
address pool. But the static lease becomes busy until the client will reacquire the address.
Note: that the IP addresses assigned statically are not probed.

Properties

Property Description

address (IP; Default: ) Specify ip address (or ip pool) for static lease. If set to 0.0.0.0 - pool from server will be used

address-list (string; Default: ) Address list to which address will be added if lease is bound.

always-broadcast (yes | no; Default: ) Send all replies as broadcasts

block-access (yes | no; Default: no) Block access for this client

client-id (string; Default: ) If specified, must match DHCP 'client identifier' option of the request

lease-time (time; Default: 0s) Time that the client may use the address. If set to 0s lease will never expire.

mac-address (MAC; Default: 00:00:00:00:00:00) If specified, must match the MAC address of the client

src-mac-address (MAC; Default: ) Source MAC address

use-src-mac (MAC; Default: ) Use this source MAC address instead

Manual:IP/DHCP Server 384

Read only properties

Property Description

active-address (IP) Actual IP address for this lease

active-client-id (string) Actual client-id of the client

active-mac-address Actual MAC address of the client

(MAC)

active-server (list) Actual dhcp server, which serves this client

agent-circuit-id (string) Circuit ID of DHCP relay agent

agent-remote-id (string) Remote ID, set by DHCP relay agent

blocked ( flag ) Whether the lease is blocked

expires-after (time) Time until lease expires

host-name (text) Shows host name option from last received DHCP request

radius (yes | no) Shows, whether this dynamic lease is authenticated by RADIUS or not

rate-limit (string) Sets rate limit for active lease. Format is: rx-rate[/tx-rate] [rx-burst-rate[/tx-burst-rate]
[rx-burst-threshold[/tx-burst-threshold] [rx-burst-time[/tx-burst-time]]]]. All rates should be numbers with
optional 'k' (1,000s) or 'M' (1,000,000s). If tx-rate is not specified, rx-rate is as tx-rate too. Same goes for
tx-burst-rate and tx-burst-threshold and tx-burst-time. If both rx-burst-threshold and tx-burst-threshold are not
specified (but burst-rate is specified), rx-rate and tx-rate is used as burst thresholds. If both rx-burst-time and
tx-burst-time are not specified, 1s is used as default

server (string) Server name which serves this client

status (waiting | testing | Lease status:

authorizing | busy | offered | • waiting - not used static lease
bound) • testing - testing whether this address is used or not (only for dynamic leases) by pinging it with timeout of
0.5s
• authorizing - waiting for response from radius server
• busy - this address is assigned statically to a client or already exists in the network, so it can not be leased
• offered - server has offered this lease to a client, but did not receive confirmation from the client
• bound - server has received client's confirmation that it accepts offered address, it is using it now and will free
the address not later, than the lease time will be over

Menu specific commands

Property Description

check-status (id) Check status of a given busy dynamic lease, and free it in case of no response

make-static (id) Convert a dynamic lease to a static one

Alerts
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-server alert
To find any rogue DHCP servers as soon as they appear in your network, DHCP Alert tool can be used. It will
monitor ethernet for all DHCP replies and check, whether this reply comes from a valid DHCP server. If reply from
unknown DHCP server is detected, alert gets triggered:

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server alert>/log print

00:34:23 dhcp,critical,error,warning,info,debug dhcp alert on Public:
discovered unknown dhcp server, mac 00:02:29:60:36:E7, ip 10.5.8.236
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 385

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-server alert>

When the system alerts about a rogue DHCP server, it can execute a custom script.
As DHCP replies can be unicast, rogue dhcp detector may not receive any offer to other dhcp clients at all. To deal
with this, rogue dhcp detector acts as a dhcp client as well - it sends out dhcp discover requests once a minute

Properties

Property Description

alert-timeout (none | time; Time, after which alert will be forgotten. If after that time the same server will be detected, new alert will be
Default: none) generated. If set to none timeout will never expire.

interface (string; Default: ) Interface, on which to run rogue DHCP server finder.

on-alert (string; Default: ) Script to run, when an unknown DHCP server is detected.

valid-server (string; Default: ) List of MAC addresses of valid DHCP servers.

Read only properties

Property Description

unknown-server (string) List of MAC addresses of detected unknown DHCP servers. Server is removed from this list after alert-timeout

Menu specific commands

Property Description

reset-alert (id) Clear all alerts on an interface

DHCP Options
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-server option
With help of DHCP Option list, it is possible to define additional custom options for DHCP Server to advertise.
According to the DHCP protocol, a parameter is returned to the DHCP client only if it requests this parameter,
specifying the respective code in DHCP request Parameter-List (code 55) attribute. If the code is not included in
Parameter-List attribute, DHCP server will not send it to the DHCP client.

Properties
Manual:IP/DHCP Server 386

Property Description

code (integer:1..254; Default: ) dhcp option code. All codes are available at [1]

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the option

value (string; Default: ) Parameter's value.

Starting from v6 available data types for options are:
• 0xXXXX - hex string (works also in v5)
• 'XXXXX' - text (works also in v5 but without ' ' around the text)
• $(XXXXX) - variable (currently there are no variables for server)
Now it is also possible to combine data types into one, for example: "0x01'vards'$(HOSTNAME)"
For example if HOSTNAME is kvm,. then raw value will be 0x0176617264736b766d

raw-value (HEX string ) Read only field which shows raw dhcp option value (the format it is sent out)

Example
Classless route adds specified route in clients routing table. In our example it will add dst-address=160.0.0.0/24
gateway=10.1.101.1

/ip dhcp-server option

add code=121 name=classless value=0x18A000000A016501000A016501
/ip dhcp-server network
set 0 dhcp-option=classless

Result:
[admin@MikroTik] /ip route> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic, C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
m - mme, B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADS 0.0.0.0/0 10.1.101.1 0
1 ADS 160.0.0.0/24 10.1.101.1 0

Configuration Examples
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References
[1] http:/ / www. iana. org/ assignments/ bootp-dhcp-parameters
Manual:IP/DHCP Client 387

Manual:IP/DHCP Client
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
The MikroTik RouterOS DHCP client may be enabled on any Ethernet-like interface at a time. The client will accept
an address, netmask, default gateway, and two dns server addresses. The received IP address will be added to the
interface with the respective netmask. The default gateway will be added to the routing table as a dynamic entry.
Should the DHCP client be disabled or not renew an address, the dynamic default route will be removed. If there is
already a default route installed prior the DHCP client obtains one, the route obtained by the DHCP client would be
shown as invalid.
RouterOS DHCP cilent asks for following options:
• option 1 - SUBNET_MASK,
• option 3 - GATEWAY_LIST,
• option 6 - TAG_DNS_LIST,
• option 33 - STATIC_ROUTE,
• option 42 - NTP_LIST,
• option 121 - CLASSLESS_ROUTE,

Option
DHCP client has possibility to set up options that are sent to DHCP server. For example, host-name and MAC
address. Syntax is same as for DHCP server options.
Note: This feature is available since RouterOS 6.0

Currently there are two variables that can be used in options:

• HOSTNAME;
• CLIENT_MAC - client's interface MAC address;

IPv6
Starting from v5.8 DHCP Client can receive delegated prefixes from DHCPv6 server. Currently received prefix is
added to IPv6 pool, which later can be used for example in pppoe server configuration. Starting from v5.9, DHCPv6
client configuration was moved to /ipv6 sub-menu. Read-more >>

Quick setup example

Add a DHCP client on ether1 interface:

/ip dhcp-client add interface=ether1 disabled=no

After interface is added, you can use rint" or "print detail" command to see what parameters DHCP client acquired:

[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-client> print detail

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
Manual:IP/DHCP Client 388

0 interface=ether1 add-default-route=yes use-peer-dns=yes use-peer-ntp=yes

status=bound address=192.168.0.65/24 gateway=192.168.0.1
dhcp-server=192.168.0.1 primary-dns=192.168.0.1 primary-ntp=192.168.0.1
expires-after=9m44s
[admin@MikroTik] ip dhcp-client>

Note: If interface used by DHCP client is part of VRF configuration, then default route and other received
routes from DHCP server will be added to VRF routing table.

Properties
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-client

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no | Whether to install default route in routing table received from dhcp server. By default RouterOS client
special-classless; Default: yes) complies to RFC and ignores option 3 if classless option 121 is received. To force client not to ignore
option 3 set special-classless. This parameter is available in v6rc12+
• yes - adds classless route if received, if not then add default route (old behavior)
• special-classless - adds both classless route if received and default route (MS style)

client-id (string; Default: ) Corresponds to the settings suggested by the network administrator or ISP. If not specified, client's
MAC address will be sent

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the client

default-route-distance Distance of default route. Applicable if add-default-route is set to yes.

(integer:0..255; Default: )

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes)

host-name (string; Default: ) Host name of the client sent to a DHCP server. If not specified, client's system identity will be used.

interface (string; Default: ) Interface on which DHCP client will be running.

use-peer-dns (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to accept the DNS settings advertised by DHCP Server. (Will override the settings put in the
/ip dns submenu.

use-peer-ntp (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to accept the NTP settings advertised by DHCP Server. (Will override the settings put in the
/system ntp client submenu)

Status
Command /ip dhcp-client print detail will show current status of dhcp client and read-only
properties listed in table below:
Manual:IP/DHCP Client 389

Property Description

address (IP/Netmask) IP address and netmask, which is assigned to DHCP Client from the
Server

dhcp-server (IP) IP address of the DHCP server.

expires-after (time) Time when the lease expires (specified by the DHCP server).

gateway (IP) IP address of the gateway which is assigned by DHCP server

invalid (yes | no) Shows whether configuration is invalid.

netmask (IP)

primary-dns (IP) IP address of the primary DNS server, assigned by the DHCP server

primary-ntp (IP) IP address of the primary NTP server, assigned by the DHCP server

secondary-dns (IP) IP address of the secondary DNS server, assigned by the DHCP server

secondary-ntp (IP) IP address of the secondary NTP server, assigned by the DHCP server

status (bound | error | rebinding... | requesting... | searching... | Shows the status of DHCP Client
stopped)

Menu specific commands

Property Description

release Release current binding and restart DHCP client

(numbers)

renew Renew current leases. If the renew operation was not successful, client tries to reinitialize lease (i.e. it starts lease request
(numbers) procedure (rebind) as if it had not received an IP address yet)

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:IP/DHCP Relay 390

Manual:IP/DHCP Relay
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
DHCP Relay is just a proxy that is able to receive a DHCP request and resend it to the real DHCP server.

Properties
Sub-menu: /ip dhcp-relay

Property Description

add-relay-info (yes | no; Adds DHCP relay agent information if enabled according to RFC 3046. Agent Circuit ID Sub-option contains
Default: no) mac address of an interface, Agent Remote ID Sub-option contains MAC address of the client from which
request was received.

delay-threshold (time | If secs field in DHCP packet is smaller than delay-threshold, then this packet is ignored
none; Default: none)

dhcp-server (string; Default: ) List of DHCP servers' IP addresses which should the DHCP requests be forwarded to

interface (string; Default: ) Interface name the DHCP relay will be working on.

local-address (IP; Default: The unique IP address of this DHCP relay needed for DHCP server to distinguish relays. If set to 0.0.0.0 - the
0.0.0.0) IP address will be chosen automatically

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name for the relay

DHCP relay does not choose the particular DHCP server in the dhcp-server list, it just send the incoming request to
all the listed servers.

Example setup
Let us consider that you have several IP networks 'behind' other routers, but you want to keep all DHCP servers on a
single router. To do this, you need a DHCP relay on your network which relies DHCP requests from clients to
DHCP server.
This example will show you how to configure a DHCP server and a DHCP relay which serve 2 IP networks -
192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24 that are behind a router DHCP-Relay.
Manual:IP/DHCP Relay 391

IP Address Configuration
IP addresses of DHCP-Server:

[admin@DHCP-Server] ip address> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 192.168.0.1/24 192.168.0.0 192.168.0.255 To-DHCP-Relay
1 10.1.0.2/24 10.1.0.0 10.1.0.255 Public
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip address>

IP addresses of DHCP-Relay:

[admin@DHCP-Relay] ip address> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 192.168.0.2/24 192.168.0.0 192.168.0.255 To-DHCP-Server
1 192.168.1.1/24 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.255 Local1
2 192.168.2.1/24 192.168.2.0 192.168.2.255 Local2
[admin@DHCP-Relay] ip address>

DHCP Server Setup

To setup 2 DHCP Servers on DHCP-Server router add 2 pools. For networks 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0:

/ip pool add name=Local1-Pool ranges=192.168.1.11-192.168.1.100

/ip pool add name=Local1-Pool ranges=192.168.2.11-192.168.2.100
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip pool> print
Manual:IP/DHCP Relay 392

# NAME RANGES
0 Local1-Pool 192.168.1.11-192.168.1.100
1 Local2-Pool 192.168.2.11-192.168.2.100
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip pool>

Create DHCP Servers:

/ip dhcp-server add interface=To-DHCP-Relay relay=192.168.1.1 \

address-pool=Local1-Pool name=DHCP-1 disabled=no
/ip dhcp-server add interface=To-DHCP-Relay relay=192.168.2.1 \
address-pool=Local2-Pool name=DHCP-2 disabled=no
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip dhcp-server> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# NAME INTERFACE RELAY ADDRESS-POOL LEASE-TIME ADD-ARP
0 DHCP-1 To-DHCP-Relay 192.168.1.1 Local1-Pool 3d00:00:00
1 DHCP-2 To-DHCP-Relay 192.168.2.1 Local2-Pool 3d00:00:00
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip dhcp-server>

Configure respective networks:

/ip dhcp-server network add address=192.168.1.0/24 gateway=192.168.1.1 \

dns-server=159.148.60.20
/ip dhcp-server network add address=192.168.2.0/24 gateway=192.168.2.1 \
dns-server 159.148.60.20
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip dhcp-server network> print
# ADDRESS GATEWAY DNS-SERVER WINS-SERVER DOMAIN
0 192.168.1.0/24 192.168.1.1 159.148.60.20
1 192.168.2.0/24 192.168.2.1 159.148.60.20
[admin@DHCP-Server] ip dhcp-server network>

DHCP Relay Config

Configuration of DHCP-Server is done. Now let's configure DHCP-Relay:

/ip dhcp-relay add name=Local1-Relay interface=Local1 \

dhcp-server=192.168.0.1 local-address=192.168.1.1 disabled=no
/ip dhcp-relay add name=Local2-Relay interface=Local2 \
dhcp-server=192.168.0.1 local-address=192.168.2.1 disabled=no
[admin@DHCP-Relay] ip dhcp-relay> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# NAME INTERFACE DHCP-SERVER LOCAL-ADDRESS
0 Local1-Relay Local1 192.168.0.1 192.168.1.1
1 Local2-Relay Local2 192.168.0.1 192.168.2.1
[admin@DHCP-Relay] ip dhcp-relay>

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Manual:IP/Pools 393

Manual:IP/Pools
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

IP pools are used to define range of IP addresses that is used for DHCP server and Point-to-Point
servers

Specifications
• Packages required: system
• License required: Level1
• Submenu level: /ip pool
• Standards and Technologies: none
• Hardware usage: Not significant

Description
IP pools simply group IP addresses for further usage. It is a single configuration point for all features that assign IP
addresses to clients.
Note: Whenever possible, the same ip address is given out to each client (OWNER/INFO pair).

Setup
Sub-menu: /ip pool

Property Description
• name (name) - the name of the pool
• next-pool (name) - when address is acquired from pool that has no free addresses, and next-pool property is set to
another pool, then next IP address will be acquired from next-pool
• ranges (IP address) - IP address list of non-overlapping IP address ranges in form of:
from1-to1,from2-to2,...,fromN-toN. For example, 10.0.0.1-10.0.0.27,10.0.0.32-10.0.0.47

Example
To define a pool named ip-pool with the 10.0.0.1-10.0.0.125 address range excluding gateway's address 10.0.0.1 and
server's address 10.0.0.100, and the other pool dhcp-pool, with the 10.0.0.200-10.0.0.250 address range:

[admin@MikroTik] ip pool> add name=ip-pool ranges=10.0.0.2-10.0.0.99,10.0.0.101

10.0.0.126
[admin@MikroTik] ip pool> add name=dhcp-pool ranges=10.0.0.200-10.0.0.250
[admin@MikroTik] ip pool> print
# NAME RANGES
0 ip-pool 10.0.0.2-10.0.0.99
10.0.0.101-10.0.0.126
1 dhcp-pool 10.0.0.200-10.0.0.250

[admin@MikroTik] ip pool>
Manual:IP/Pools 394

Used Addresses from Pool

• Submenu level: /ip pool used

Description
Here you can see all used IP addresses from IP pools.

Property Description
• address (read-only: IP address) - IP address that is assigned to client form the pool
• info (read-only: name) - name of the interface to which the client is connected to
• owner (read-only: MAC address) - MAC address of the client
• pool (read-only: name) - name of the IP pool

Example
See used addresses from pool:

[admin@MikroTik] ip pool used> print

POOL ADDRESS OWNER INFO
local 192.168.0.100 00:0C:42:03:1F:60 test
local 192.168.0.99 00:0C:42:03:21:0F test

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Manual:IPv6/DHCP Server
Applies to RouterOS: v5.9+

Summary
Standards: RFC 3315, RFC 3633
Package: dhcp,ipv6
Starting from v5.9 DHCPv6 server is moved to /ipv6 sub menu
Single DUID is used for client and server identification, only IAID will vary between cients corresponding to their
assigned interface.
Client binding creates dynamic pool with timeout set to binding's expiration time (note that now dynamic pools can
have a timeout), which will be updated every time binding gets renewed.
When client is bound to prefix, DHCP server adds routing information to know how to reach assigned prefix.
Client bindings in server does not show MAC address anymore (as it was in v5.8), DUID (hex) and IAID are used
instead. After upgrade MAC addresses will be converted to DUIDs automatically, but due to unknown DUID type
and unknown IAID, they should be further updated by user;
Manual:IPv6/DHCP Server 395

General
Sub-menu: /ipv6 dhcp-server
This sub menu lists and allows to configure DHCPv6 servers.
Properties

Property Description

authoritative (after-10sec-delay | Whether the DHCP server is the only one DHCP server for the network:
after-2sec-delay | yes | no; Default: • after-10sec-delay - to clients request for an address, dhcp server will wait 10 seconds and if
after-2sec-delay) there is another request from the client after this period of time, then dhcp server will offer the
address to the client or will send DHCPNAK, if the requested address is not available from this
server
• after-2sec-delay - to clients request for an address, dhcp server will wait 2 seconds and if
there is another request from the client after this period of time, then dhcp server will offer the
address to the client or will send DHCPNAK, if the requested address is not available from this
server
• yes - to clients request for an address that is not available from this server, dhcp server will send
negative acknowledgment (DHCPNAK)
• no - dhcp server ignores clients requests for addresses that are not available from this server

delay-threshold (time | none; If secs field in DHCP packet is smaller than delay-threshold, then this packet is ignored. If set to none -
Default: none) there is no threshold (all DHCP packets are processed)

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether DHCPv6 server participate in prefix assignment process.

lease-time (time; Default: 3d) The time that a client may use the assigned address. The client will try to renew this address after a half
of this time and will request a new address after time limit expires.

address-pool (string | static-only; IPv6 pool, from which to take IPv6 prefix for the clients. If set to static-only, then only the clients that
Default: static-only) have a static binding (added in bindings submenu) will be allowed.

interface (string; Default: ) Interface on which server will be running.

name (string; Default: ) Reference name

Read-only Properties

Property Description

dynamic (yes | no)

invalid (yes | no)

Bindings
Sub-menu: /ipv6 dhcp-server binding
DUID is used only for dynamic bindings, so if it changes then client will receive different prefix than previously.
Manual:IPv6/DHCP Server 396

Property Description

address (IPv6 prefix; Default: ) IPv6 prefix that will be assigned to the client

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an item.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether item is disabled

life-time (time; Default: 3d) Time period after which binding expires/

duid (string; Default: ) DUID value. Should be specified only in hexadecimal format.

iaid (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: )

server (string | all; Default: all) Name of the server. If set to all, then binding applies to all created DHCPv6 servers.

Read-only properties

Property Description

dynamic (yes | no) Whether item is dynamically created.

expires-after (time) Time period after which binding expires.

last-seen (time) Time period since client was last seen.

status (waiting | Three status vales are possible:

offered | bound) • waiting - Shown for static bindings if it is not used. For dynamic bindings this status is shown if it was used
previously, server will wait 10 minutes to allow old client to get this binding, otherwise binding will be cleared and
prefix willbe offered to other clients.
• offered - if solicit message was received, and server responded with advertise message, but request was not
received. During this state client have 2 minutes to get this binding, otherwise it is freed or changed status to
waiting for static bindings.
• bound - currently bound.

For example, dynamically assigned /62 prefix

[admin@RB493G] /ipv6 dhcp-server binding> print detail

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic
0 D address=2a02:610:7501:ff00::/62 duid="1605fcb400241d1781f7" iaid=0
server=local-dhcp life-time=3d status=bound expires-after=2d23h40m10s
last-seen=19m50s

1 D address=2a02:610:7501:ff04::/62 duid="0019d1393535" iaid=2

server=local-dhcp life-time=3d status=bound expires-after=2d23h43m47s
last-seen=16m13s
Manual:IPv6/DHCP Server 397

Menu specific commands

Property Description

make-static () Set dynamic binding as static.

Configuration Examples

Enabling IPv6 Prefix delegation

Lets consider that we already have running DHCP server.
To enable IPv6 prefix delegation, first we need to create address pool

/ipv6 pool add name=myPool prefix=2001:db8:7501::/60 prefix-length=62

Notice that prefix-length is 62 bits, it means that clients will receive /62 prefixes from the /60 pool.
Next step is to enable DHCPv6.

/ipv6 dhcp-server add name=myServer address-pool=myPool interface=local

To test our server we will set up wide-dhcpv6 on ubuntu machine:

• install wide-dhcpv6-client
• edit "/etc/wide-dhcpv6/dhcp6c.conf" as above
Note: You can use also RouterOS as DHCPv6-PD client. Read more >>

interface eth2{
send ia-pd 0;
};

id-assoc pd {
prefix-interface eth3{
sla-id 1;
sla-len 2;
};
};

• Run DHCPv6 client

sudo dhcp6c -d -D -f eth2

• Verify that prefix was added to eth3

mrz@bumba:/media/aaa$ ip -6 addr
..
2: eth3: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qlen 1000
inet6 2001:db8:7501:1:200:ff:fe00:0/64 scope global
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
Manual:IPv6/DHCP Server 398

inet6 fe80::224:1dff:fe17:81f7/64 scope link

valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

• You can make binding to specific client static, so that it always receives the same prefix

[admin@RB493G] /ipv6 dhcp-server binding> print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS DU IAID SER.. STATUS
0 D 2001:db8:7501:1::/62 16 0 loc.. bound
[admin@RB493G] /ipv6 dhcp-server binding> make-static 0

• DHCPv6 also installs route to assigned prefix into IPv6 routing table
[admin@RB493G] /ipv6 route> print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic, C - connect, S - static, r - rip, o - ospf, b - bgp, U - unreachable

# DST-ADDRESS GATEWAY DISTANCE

...

2 ADS 2001:db8:7501:1::/62 fe80::224:1dff:fe17:8... 1

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Manual:IPv6/DHCP Client
Applies to RouterOS: v5.9 +

Summary
Currently DHCPv6 client can receive only delegated prefix from DHCPv6-PD server.

Quick setup example

This simple example demonstrates how to enable dhcp client to receive IPv6 prefix and add it to the pool.

/ipv6 dhcp-client add pool-name=test-ipv6 pool-prefix-length=64 interface=ether13

Detailed print should show status of the client and we can verify if prefix is received

[admin@x86-test] /ipv6 dhcp-client> print detail

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, I - invalid
0 interface=bypass pool-name="test-ipv6" pool-prefix-length=64 status=bound
prefix=2001:db8:7501:ff04::/62 expires-after=2d23h11m53s

Notice that server gave us prefix 2a02:610:7501:ff04::/62 . And it should be also added to ipv6 pools
[admin@MikroTik] /ipv6 pool> print
Flags: D - dynamic
# NAME PREFIX PREFIX-LENGTH
0 D test-ipv6 2001:db8:7501:ff04::/62 64
Manual:IPv6/DHCP Client 399

It works! Now you can use this pool, for example, for pppoe clients.

Properties
Sub-menu: /ipv6 dhcp-client

Property Description

add-default-route (yes | no; Whether to add default IPv6 route after client connects.
Default: no)

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the client

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

interface (string; Default: ) Interface on which DHCPv6 client will be running.

pool-name (string; Default: ) Name of the IPv6 pool in which received IPv6 prefix will be added

pool-prefix-length (string; Prefix length parameter that will be set for IPv6 pool in which received IPv6 prefix is added. Prefix length
Default: ) must be greater than the length of received prefix, otherwise prefix-length will be set to received prefix length
+ 8 bits.

Status
Command /ipv6 dhcp-client print detail will show current status of dhcp client and read-only
properties listed in table below:

Property Description

duid (string) Auto generated DUID that is sent to the server. DUID is generated using one of
the MAC addresses available on the router.

dynamic (yes | no)

expires-after (time) Time when the IPv6 prefix expires (specified by the DHCPv6 server).

invalid (yes | no) Shows whether configuration is invalid.

prefix (IPv6 prefix) Shows received IPv6 prefix from DHCPv6-PD server

status (stopped | searching | requesting... | bound | renewing | Shows the status of DHCPv6 Client:
rebinding | error | stopping) • stopped - dhcpv6 client is stopped
• searching - sending "solicit" and trying to get "advertise"
• requesting - sent "request" waiting for "reply"
• bound - received "reply". Prefix assigned.
• renewing - sent "renew", waiting for "reply"
• rebinding - sent "rebind", waiting for "reply"
• error - reply was not received in time or some other error ocurred.
• stopping - sent "release"

To determine what IAID will be used, convert internal ID of an interface on which DHCP client is running from hex
to decimal.
For example, DHCP client is running on interface pppoe-out1. To get internal ID use following command

[admin@t36] /interface> :put [find name="pppoe-out1"]

*15

Now convert hex value 15 to decimal and you get IAID=21

Manual:IPv6/DHCP Client 400

Menu specific commands

Property Description

release Release current binding and restart DHCPv6 client

(numbers)

renew Renew current leases. If the renew operation was not successful, client tries to reinitialize lease (i.e. it starts lease request
(numbers) procedure (rebind) as if it had not received an IP address yet)

Application Examples

Use received prefix for local RA

Consider following setup:

• ISP is routing prefix 2001:DB8::/62 to the router R1

• Router R1 runs DHCPv6 server to delegate /64 prefixes to the customer routers CE1 CE2
• DHCP client on routers CE1 and CE2 receives delegated /64 prefix from the DHCP server (R1).
• Client routers uses received prefix to set up RA on the local interface
Configuration
R1

/ipv6 route
add gateway=fe80::1:1%to-ISP

/ipv6 pool
add name=myPool prefix=2001:db8::/62 prefix-length=64

/ipv6 dhcp-server
add address-pool=myPool disabled=no interface=to-CE-routers lease-time=3m name=server1
Manual:IPv6/DHCP Client 401

CE1

/ipv6 dhcp-client
add interface=to-R1 pool-name=my-ipv6

/ipv6 address
add address=::1/64 from-pool=my-ipv6 interface=to-clients advertise=yes

CE2

/ipv6 dhcp-client
add interface=to-R1 pool-name=my-ipv6

/ipv6 address
add address=::1/64 from-pool=my-ipv6 interface=to-clients advertise=yes

Check the status

After configuration is complete we can verify that each CE router received its own prefix
On server:
[admin@R1] /ipv6 dhcp-server binding> print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS DUID IAID SERVER STATUS
1 D 2001:db8:1::/64 0019d1393536 566 server1 bound
2 D 2001:db8:2::/64 0019d1393535 565 server1 bound

On client:

[admin@CE1] /ipv6 dhcp-client> print

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, I - invalid
# INTERFACE STATUS PREFIX
0 to-R1 bound 2001:db8:1::/64

[admin@CE1] /ipv6 dhcp-client> /ipv6 pool print

Flags: D - dynamic
# NAME PREFIX PREFIX-LENGTH
0 D my-ipv6 2001:db8:1::/64 64

We can also see that IPv6 address was automatically added from the prefix pool:

[admin@CE1] /ipv6 address> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic, G - global, L - link-local
# ADDRESS FROM-POOL INTERFACE ADVERTISE
0 G 2001:db8:1::1/64 to-clients yes
..

And pool usage shows that 'Address' is allocating the pool

[admin@CE1] /ipv6 pool used> print

POOL PREFIX OWNER INFO
my-ipv6 2001:db8:1::/64 Address to-clients

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Manual:IPv6/Pool 402

Manual:IPv6/Pool
Applies to RouterOS: v5.7+

Summary
Sub-menu: /ipv6 pool
Standards:
Package : IPv6
IPv6 pools are used to define range of IPv6 addresses that is used for DHCPv6 server and Point-to-Point servers
IPv6 pools simply group IPv6 addresses for further usage. It is a single configuration point for all features that assign
IPv6 addresses to clients.

Pool Configuration
Property Description

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the pool.

prefix (IPv6/0..128; Default: ) Ipv6 address prefix

prefix-length (integer [1..128]; Default: ) Option represents the prefix size that will be give out to the client.

Read-only properties

Property Description

dynamic (yes | no) Whether pool is dynamic.

id (integer)

expire-time (time) Expire time is set to dynamic pools added by DHCPv6 client.

Example
Define a pool named "test" with prefix "2001::/64":

[admin@test-host] /ipv6 pool> add

name: test
prefix: 2001::/60
prefix-length: 62
[admin@test-host] /ipv6 pool> print
# NAME PREFIX PREFIX-LENGTH
0 test 2001::/60 62bits
[admin@test-host] /ipv6 pool>
Manual:IPv6/Pool 403

Used Addresses from Pool

Sub-menu: /ipv6 pool used
In this menu you can see all used IPv6 addresses from the pools.
All properties are read-only.

Property Description

info (string) Shows DUID related information received from client (value in hex).Can contain also raw timestamp in hex.

owner (string) What reserved the prefix ("DHCP", etc.)

pool (string) Name of the pool.

prefix (IPv6/0..128) IPv6 prefix that is assigned to client form the pool.

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Routing
List of reference sub-pages Routing protocol case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

Manual:IP/Firewall
List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 404

Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip firewall filter
The firewall implements packet filtering and thereby provides security functions that are used to manage data flow
to, from and through the router. Along with the Network Address Translation it serves as a tool for preventing
unauthorized access to directly attached networks and the router itself as well as a filter for outgoing traffic.
Network firewalls keep outside threats away from sensitive data available inside the network. Whenever different
networks are joined together, there is always a threat that someone from outside of your network will break into your
LAN. Such break-ins may result in private data being stolen and distributed, valuable data being altered or
destroyed, or entire hard drives being erased. Firewalls are used as a means of preventing or minimizing the security
risks inherent in connecting to other networks. Properly configured firewall plays a key role in efficient and secure
network infrastrure deployment.
MikroTik RouterOS has very powerful firewall implementation with features including:
• stateful packet inspection
• Layer-7 protocol detection
• peer-to-peer protocols filtering
• traffic classification by:
• source MAC address
• IP addresses (network or list) and address types (broadcast, local, multicast, unicast)
• port or port range
• IP protocols
• protocol options (ICMP type and code fields, TCP flags, IP options and MSS)
• interface the packet arrived from or left through
• internal flow and connection marks
• DSCP byte
• packet content
• rate at which packets arrive and sequence numbers
• packet size
• packet arrival time
• and much more!
Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 405

Chains
The firewall operates by means of firewall rules. Each rule consists of two parts - the matcher which matches traffic
flow against given conditions and the action which defines what to do with the matched packet.
Firewall filtering rules are grouped together in chains. It allows a packet to be matched against one common criterion
in one chain, and then passed over for processing against some other common criteria to another chain. For example
a packet should be matched against the IP address:port pair. Of course, it could be achieved by adding as many rules
with IP address:port match as required to the forward chain, but a better way could be to add one rule that matches
traffic from a particular IP address, e.g.: /ip firewall filter add src-address=1.1.1.2/32 jump-target="mychain" and in
case of successfull match passes control over the IP packet to some other chain, id est mychain in this example. Then
rules that perform matching against separate ports can be added to mychain chain without specifying the IP
addresses.
There are three predefined chains, which cannot be deleted:
• input - used to process packets entering the router through one of the interfaces with the destination IP address
which is one of the router's addresses. Packets passing through the router are not processed against the rules of the
input chain
• forward - used to process packets passing through the router
• output - used to process packets originated from the router and leaving it through one of the interfaces. Packets
passing through the router are not processed against the rules of the output chain
Packet flow diagrams illustrate how packets are processed in RouterOS.
When processing a chain, rules are taken from the chain in the order they are listed there from top to bottom. If a
packet matches the criteria of the rule, then the specified action is performed on it, and no more rules are processed
in that chain (the exception is the passthrough action). If a packet has not matched any rule within the chain, then it
is accepted.

Properties
Property Description

action (action name; Default: accept) Action to take if packet is matched by the rule:
• accept - accept the packet. Packet is not passed to next firewall rule.
• add-dst-to-address-list - add destination address to address list
specified by address-list parameter
• add-src-to-address-list - add source address to address list
specified by address-list parameter
• drop - silently drop the packet
• jump - jump to the user defined chain specified by the value of
jump-target parameter
• log - add a message to the system log containing following data:
in-interface, out-interface, src-mac, protocol, src-ip:port->dst-ip:port and
length of the packet. After packet is matched it is passed to next rule in the
list, similar as passthrough
• passthrough - ignore this rule and go to next one (useful for statistics).
• reject - drop the packet and send an ICMP reject message
• return - passes control back to the chain from where the jump took place
• tarpit - captures and holds TCP connections (replies with SYN/ACK to
the inbound TCP SYN packet)

address-list (string; Default: ) Name of the address list to be used. Applicable if action is
add-dst-to-address-list or add-src-to-address-list
Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 406

address-list-timeout (time; Default: 00:00:00) Time interval after which the address will be removed from the address list
specified by address-list parameter. Used in conjunction with
add-dst-to-address-list or add-src-to-address-list
actions
Value of 00:00:00 will leave the address in the address list forever

chain (name; Default: ) Specifies to which chain rule will be added. If the input does not match the
name of an already defined chain, a new chain will be created.

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive comment for the rule.

connection-bytes (integer-integer; Default: ) Matches packets only if a given amount of bytes has been transfered through
the particular connection. 0 - means infinity, for example
connection-bytes=2000000-0 means that the rule matches if more
than 2MB has been transfered through the relevant connection

connection-limit (integer,netmask; Default: ) Restrict connection limit per address or address block

connection-mark (no-mark | string; Default: ) Matches packets marked via mangle facility with particular connection mark. If
no-mark is set, rule will match any unmarked connection.

connection-rate (Integer 0..4294967295; Default: ) Connection Rate is a firewall matcher that allow to capture traffic based on
present speed of the connection. Read more >>

connection-state (estabilished | invalid | new | related; Interprets the connection tracking analysis data for a particular packet:
Default: ) • established - a packet which belongs to an existing connection
• invalid - a packet which could not be identified for some reason
• new - the packet has started a new connection, or otherwise associated with
a connection which has not seen packets in both directions.
• related - a packet which is related to, but not part of an existing
connection, such as ICMP errors or a packet which begins FTP data
connection

connection-type (ftp | h323 | irc | pptp | quake3 | sip | tftp; Matches packets from related connections based on information from their
Default: ) connection tracking helpers. A relevant connection helper must be enabled
under /ip firewall service-port

content (string; Default: ) Match packets that contain specified text

dscp (integer: 0..63; Default: ) Matches DSCP IP header field.

dst-address (IP/netmask | IP range; Default: ) Matches packets which destination is equal to specified IP or falls into
specified IP range.

dst-address-list (name; Default: ) Matches destination address of a packet against user-defined address list

dst-address-type (unicast | local | broadcast | multicast; Matches destination address type:

Default: ) • unicast - IP address used for point to point transmission
• local - if dst-address is assigned to one of router's interfaces
• broadcast - packet is sent to all devices in subnet
• multicast - packet is forwarded to defined group of devices

dst-limit (integer,time,integer,dst-address | dst-port | Matches packets within given pps limit. As opposed to the limit matcher,
src-address, time; Default: ) every destination IP address / destination port has it's own limit. Parameters are
written in following format: count,time,burst,mode,expire.
• count - maximum average packet rate measured in packets per time
interval
• time - specifies the time interval in which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets which are not counted by packet rate
• mode - the classifier for packet rate limiting
• expire - specifies interval after which recored ip address /port will be
deleted

dst-port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) List of destination port numbers or port number ranges
Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 407

fragment (yes|no; Default: ) Matches fragmented packets. First (starting) fragment does not count. If
connection tracking is enabled there will be no fragments as system
automatically assembles every packet

hotspot (auth | from-client | http | local-dst | to-client; Default:

)

icmp-options (integer:integer; Default: ) Matches ICMP type:code fileds

in-bridge-port (name; Default: ) Actual interface the packet has entered the router, if incoming interface is
bridge. Works only if use-ip-firewall is enabled in bridge settings.

in-interface (name; Default: ) Interface the packet has entered the router

ingress-priority (integer: 0..63; Default: ) Matches ingress priority of the packet. Priority may be derived from VLAN,
WMM or MPLS EXP bit. Read more>>

ipv4-options (any | loose-source-routing | no-record-route | Matches IPv4 header options.

no-router-alert | no-source-routing | no-timestamp | none | • any - match packet with at least one of the ipv4 options
record-route | router-alert | strict-source-routing | timestamp; • loose-source-routing - match packets with loose source routing
Default: ) option. This option is used to route the internet datagram based on
information supplied by the source
• no-record-route - match packets with no record route option. This
option is used to route the internet datagram based on information supplied
by the source
• no-router-alert - match packets with no router alter option
• no-source-routing - match packets with no source routing option
• no-timestamp - match packets with no timestamp option
• record-route - match packets with record route option
• router-alert - match packets with router alter option
• strict-source-routing - match packets with strict source routing
option
• timestamp - match packets with timestamp

jump-target (name; Default: ) Name of the target chain to jump to. Applicable only if action=jump

layer7-protocol (name; Default: ) Layer7 filter name defined in layer7 protocol menu.

limit (integer,time,integer; Default: ) Matches packets within given pps limit. Parameters are written in following
format: count,time,burst.
• count - maximum average packet rate measured in packets per time
interval
• time - specifies the time interval in which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets which are not counted by packet rate

log-prefix (string; Default: ) Adds specified text at the beginning of every log message. Applicable if
action=log

nth (integer,integer; Default: ) Matches every nth packet. Read more >>

out-bridge-port (name; Default: ) Actual interface the packet is leaving the router, if outgoing interface is bridge.
Works only if use-ip-firewall is enabled in bridge settings.

out-interface (; Default: ) Interface the packet is leaving the router

p2p (all-p2p | bit-torrent | blubster | direct-connect | edonkey | Matches packets from various peer-to-peer (P2P) protocols. Does not work on
fasttrack | gnutella | soulseek | warez | winmx; Default: ) encrypted p2p packets.

packet-mark (no-mark | string; Default: ) Matches packets marked via mangle facility with particular packet mark. If
no-mark is set, rule will match any unmarked packet.

packet-size (integer[-integer]:0..65535; Default: ) Matches packets of specified size or size range in bytes.

per-connection-classifier PCC matcher allows to divide traffic into equal streams with ability to keep
(ValuesToHash:Denominator/Remainder; Default: ) packets with specific set of options in one particular stream. Read more >>
Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 408

port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) Matches if any (source or destination) port matches the specified list of ports or
port ranges. Applicable only if protocol is TCP or UDP

protocol (name or protocol ID; Default: tcp) Matches particular IP protocol specified by protocol name or number

psd (integer,time,integer,integer; Default: ) Attempts to detect TCP and UDP scans. Parameters are in following format
WeightThreshold, DelayThreshold, LopPortWeight,
HighPortWeight
• WeightThreshold - total weight of the latest TCP/UDP packets with
different destination ports coming from the same host to be treated as port
scan sequence
• DelayThreshold - delay for the packets with different destination ports
coming from the same host to be treated as possible port scan subsequence
• LowPortWeight - weight of the packets with privileged (<=1024)
destination port
• HighPortWeight - weight of the packet with non-priviliged destination
port

random (integer: 1..99; Default: ) Matches packets randomly with given probability.

reject-with (; Default: ) Specifies error to be sent back if packet is rejected. Applicable if

action=reject

routing-mark (string; Default: ) Matches packets marked by mangle facility with particular routing mark

src-address (Ip/Netmaks, Ip range; Default: ) Matches packets which source is equal to specified IP or falls into specified IP
range.

src-address-list (name; Default: ) Matches source address of a packet against user-defined address list

src-address-type (unicast | local | broadcast | multicast; Matches source address type:

Default: ) • unicast - IP address used for point to point transmission
• local - if address is assigned to one of router's interfaces
• broadcast - packet is sent to all devices in subnet
• multicast - packet is forwarded to defined group of devices

src-port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) List of source ports and ranges of source ports. Applicable only if protocol is
TCP or UDP.

src-mac-address (MAC address; Default: ) Matches source MAC address of the packet

tcp-flags (ack | cwr | ece | fin | psh | rst | syn | urg; Default: ) Matches specified TCP flags
• ack - acknowledging data
• cwr - congestion window reduced
• ece - ECN-echo flag (explicit congestion notification)
• fin - close connection
• psh - push function
• rst - drop connection
• syn - new connection
• urg - urgent data

tcp-mss (integer: 0..65535; Default: ) Matches TCP MSS value of an IP packet

time (time-time,sat | fri | thu | wed | tue | mon | sun; Default: ) Allows to create filter based on the packets' arrival time and date or, for locally
generated packets, departure time and date

ttl (integer: 0..255; Default: ) Matches packets TTL value

Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 409

Stats
/ip firewall filter print stats will show additional read-only properties

Property Description

bytes (integer) Total amount of bytes matched by the rule

packets (integer) Total amount of packets matched by the rule

By default print is equivalent to print static and shows only static rules.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 prerouting mark-routing 17478158 127631
1 prerouting mark-routing 782505 4506

To print also dynamic rules use print all.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print all stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 prerouting mark-routing 17478158 127631
1 prerouting mark-routing 782505 4506
2 D forward change-mss 0 0
3 D forward change-mss 0 0
4 D forward change-mss 0 0
5 D forward change-mss 129372 2031

Or to print only dynamic rules use print dynamic

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print stats dynamic

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 D forward change-mss 0 0
1 D forward change-mss 0 0
2 D forward change-mss 0 0
3 D forward change-mss 132444 2079
Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 410

Menu specific commands

Property Description

reset-counters (id) Reset statistics counters for specified firewall rules.

reset-counters-all () Reset statistics counters for all firewall rules.

Basic examples

Router protection
Lets say our private network is 192.168.0.0/24 and public (WAN) interface is ether1. We will set up firewall to allow
connections to router itself only from our local network and drop the rest. Also we will allow ICMP protocol on any
interface so that anyone can ping your router from internet.

/ip firewall filter

add chain=input connection-state=invalid action=drop \
comment="Drop Invalid connections"
add chain=input connection-state=established action=accept \
comment="Allow Established connections"
add chain=input protocol=icmp action=accept \
comment="Allow ICMP"
add chain=input src-address=192.168.0.0/24 action=accept \
in-interface=!ether1
add chain=input action=drop comment="Drop everything else"

Customer protection
To protect the customer's network, we should check all traffic which goes through router and block unwanted. For
icmp, tcp, udp traffic we will create chains, where will be droped all unwanted packets:

/ip firewall filter

add chain=forward protocol=tcp connection-state=invalid \
action=drop comment="drop invalid connections"
add chain=forward connection-state=established action=accept \
comment="allow already established connections"
add chain=forward connection-state=related action=accept \
comment="allow related connections"

Block "bogon" IP addresses

add chain=forward src-address=0.0.0.0/8 action=drop

add chain=forward dst-address=0.0.0.0/8 action=drop
add chain=forward src-address=127.0.0.0/8 action=drop
add chain=forward dst-address=127.0.0.0/8 action=drop
add chain=forward src-address=224.0.0.0/3 action=drop
add chain=forward dst-address=224.0.0.0/3 action=drop

Make jumps to new chains:

add chain=forward protocol=tcp action=jump jump-target=tcp

add chain=forward protocol=udp action=jump jump-target=udp
Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 411

add chain=forward protocol=icmp action=jump jump-target=icmp

Create tcp chain and deny some tcp ports in it:

add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=69 action=drop \

comment="deny TFTP"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=111 action=drop \
comment="deny RPC portmapper"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=135 action=drop \
comment="deny RPC portmapper"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=137-139 action=drop \
comment="deny NBT"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=445 action=drop \
comment="deny cifs"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=2049 action=drop comment="deny NFS"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=12345-12346 action=drop comment="deny NetBus"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=20034 action=drop comment="deny NetBus"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=3133 action=drop comment="deny BackOriffice"
add chain=tcp protocol=tcp dst-port=67-68 action=drop comment="deny DHCP"

Deny udp ports in udp chain:

add chain=udp protocol=udp dst-port=69 action=drop comment="deny TFTP"

add chain=udp protocol=udp dst-port=111 action=drop comment="deny PRC portmapper"
add chain=udp protocol=udp dst-port=135 action=drop comment="deny PRC portmapper"
add chain=udp protocol=udp dst-port=137-139 action=drop comment="deny NBT"
add chain=udp protocol=udp dst-port=2049 action=drop comment="deny NFS"
add chain=udp protocol=udp dst-port=3133 action=drop comment="deny BackOriffice"

Allow only needed icmp codes in icmp chain:

add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=0:0 action=accept \

comment="echo reply"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=3:0 action=accept \
comment="net unreachable"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=3:1 action=accept \
comment="host unreachable"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=3:4 action=accept \
comment="host unreachable fragmentation required"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=4:0 action=accept \
comment="allow source quench"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=8:0 action=accept \
comment="allow echo request"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=11:0 action=accept \
comment="allow time exceed"
add chain=icmp protocol=icmp icmp-options=12:0 action=accept \
comment="allow parameter bad"
add chain=icmp action=drop comment="deny all other types"

other ICMP codes are found here [1].

Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter 412

Brute force protection

Bruteforce_login_prevention_(FTP_&_SSH)
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References
[1] http:/ / www. iana. org/ assignments/ icmp-parameters

Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip firewall nat
Network Address Translation is an Internet standard that allows hosts on local area networks to use one set of IP
addresses for internal communications and another set of IP addresses for external communications. A LAN that
uses NAT is referred as natted network. For NAT to function, there should be a NAT gateway in each natted
network. The NAT gateway (NAT router) performs IP address rewriting on the way a packet travel from/to LAN.
There are two types of NAT:
• source NAT or srcnat. This type of NAT is performed on packets that are originated from a natted network. A
NAT router replaces the private source address of an IP packet with a new public IP address as it travels through
the router. A reverse operation is applied to the reply packets travelling in the other direction.
• destination NAT or dstnat. This type of NAT is performed on packets that are destined to the natted network. It
is most comonly used to make hosts on a private network to be acceesible from the Internet. A NAT router
performing dstnat replaces the destination IP address of an IP packet as it travel through the router towards a
private network.
Hosts behind a NAT-enabled router do not have true end-to-end connectivity. Therefore some Internet protocols
might not work in scenarios with NAT. Services that require the initiation of TCP connection from outside the
private network or stateless protocols such as UDP, can be disrupted. Moreover, some protocols are inherently
incompatible with NAT, a bold example is AH protocol from the IPsec suite.
To overcome these limitations RouterOS includes a number of so-called NAT helpers, that enable NAT traversal for
various protocols.

Properties
Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT 413

Property Description

action (action name; Default: accept) Action to take if packet is matched by the rule:

• accept - accept the packet. Packet is not passed to next NAT rule.
• add-dst-to-address-list - add destination address to Address list
specified by address-list parameter
• add-src-to-address-list - add source address to Address list
specified by address-list parameter
• dst-nat - replaces destination address and/or port of an IP packet to
values specified by to-addresses and to-ports parameters
• jump - jump to the user defined chain specified by the value of
jump-target parameter
• log - add a message to the system log containing following data:
in-interface, out-interface, src-mac, protocol, src-ip:port->dst-ip:port and
length of the packet. After packet is matched it is passed to next rule in the
list, similar as passthrough
• masquerade - replace source address of an IP packet to IP determined by
routing facility.
• netmap - creates a static 1:1 mapping of one set of IP addresses to another
one. Often used to distribute public IP addresses to hosts on private
networks
• passthrough - ignore this rule and go to next one (useful for statistics).
• redirect - replaces destination port of an IP packet to one specified by
to-ports parameter and destination address to one of the router's local
addresses
• return - passes control back to the chain from where the jump took place
• same - gives a particular client the same source/destination IP address
from supplied range for each connection. This is most frequently used for
services that expect the same client address for multiple connections from
the same client
• src-nat - replaces source address of an IP packet to values specified by
to-addresses and to-ports parameters

address-list (string; Default: ) Name of the address list to be used. Applicable if action is
add-dst-to-address-list or add-src-to-address-list

address-list-timeout (time; Default: 00:00:00) Time interval after which the address will be removed from the address list
specified by address-list parameter. Used in conjunction with
add-dst-to-address-list or add-src-to-address-list
actions
Value of 00:00:00 will leave the address in the address list forever

chain (name; Default: ) Specifies to which chain rule will be added. If the input does not match the
name of an already defined chain, a new chain will be created.

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive comment for the rule.

connection-bytes (integer-integer; Default: ) Matches packets only if a given amount of bytes has been transfered through
the particular connection. 0 - means infinity, for example
connection-bytes=2000000-0 means that the rule matches if more
than 2MB has been transfered through the relevant connection

connection-limit (integer,netmaks; Default: ) Restrict connection limit per address or address block/td>

connection-mark (no-mark | string; Default: ) Matches packets marked via mangle facility with particular connection mark. If
no-mark is set, rule will match any unmarked connection.

connection-rate (Integer 0..4294967295; Default: ) Connection Rate is a firewall matcher that allow to capture traffic based on
present speed of the connection. Read more>>

connection-type (ftp | h323 | irc | pptp | quake3 | sip | tftp; Matches packets from related connections based on information from their
Default: ) connection tracking helpers. A relevant connection helper must be enabled
under /ip firewall service-port
Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT 414

content (string; Default: ) Match packets that contain specified text

dscp (integer: 0..63; Default: ) Matches DSCP IP header field.

dst-address (IP/netmask | IP range; Default: ) Matches packets which destination is equal to specified IP or falls into
specified IP range.

dst-address-list (name; Default: ) Matches destination address of a packet against user-defined address list

dst-address-type (unicast | local | broadcast | multicast; Matches destination address type:

Default: ) • unicast - IP address used for point to point transmission
• local - if dst-address is assigned to one of router's interfaces
• broadcast - packet is sent to all devices in subnet
• multicast - packet is forwarded to defined group of devices

dst-limit (integer,time,integer,dst-address | dst-port | Matches packets within given pps limit. As opposed to the limit matcher,
src-address, time; Default: ) every destination IP address / destination port has it's own limit. Parameters are
written in following format: count,time,burst,mode,expire.
• count - maximum average packet rate measured in packets per time
interval
• time - specifies the time interval in which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets which are not counted by packet rate
• mode - the classifier for packet rate limiting
• expire - specifies interval after which recored ip address /port will be
deleted

dst-port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) List of destination port numbers or port number ranges

fragment (yes|no; Default: ) Matches fragmented packets. First (starting) fragment does not count. If
connection tracking is enabled there will be no fragments as system
automatically assembles every packet

hotspot (auth | from-client | http | local-dst | to-client; Default:

)

icmp-options (integer:integer; Default: ) Matches ICMP type:code fileds

in-bridge-port (name; Default: ) Actual interface the packet has entered the router, if incoming interface is
bridge

in-interface (name; Default: ) Interface the packet has entered the router

ingress-priority (integer: 0..63; Default: ) Matches ingress priority of the packet. Priority may be derived from VLAN,
WMM or MPLS EXP bit. Read more>>

ipv4-options (any | loose-source-routing | no-record-route | Matches IPv4 header options.

no-router-alert | no-source-routing | no-timestamp | none | • any - match packet with at least one of the ipv4 options
record-route | router-alert | strict-source-routing | timestamp; • loose-source-routing - match packets with loose source routing
Default: ) option. This option is used to route the internet datagram based on
information supplied by the source
• no-record-route - match packets with no record route option. This
option is used to route the internet datagram based on information supplied
by the source
• no-router-alert - match packets with no router alter option
• no-source-routing - match packets with no source routing option
• no-timestamp - match packets with no timestamp option
• record-route - match packets with record route option
• router-alert - match packets with router alter option
• strict-source-routing - match packets with strict source routing
option
• timestamp - match packets with timestamp

jump-target (name; Default: ) Name of the target chain to jump to. Applicable only if action=jump

layer7-protocol (name; Default: ) Layer7 filter name defined in layer7 protocol menu.
Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT 415

limit (integer,time,integer; Default: ) Matches packets if given pps limit is exceeded. Parameters are written in
following format: count,time,burst.
• count - maximum average packet rate measured in packets per time
interval
• time - specifies the time interval in which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets which are not counted by packet rate

log-prefix (string; Default: ) Adds specified text at the beginning of every log message. Applicable if
action=log

nth (integer,integer; Default: ) Matches every nth packet. Read more >>

out-bridge-port (name; Default: ) Actual interface the packet is leaving the router, if outgoing interface is bridge

out-interface (; Default: ) Interface the packet is leaving the router

packet-mark (no-mark | string; Default: ) Matches packets marked via mangle facility with particular packet mark. If
no-mark is set, rule will match any unmarked packet.

packet-size (integer[-integer]:0..65535; Default: ) Matches packets of specified size or size range in bytes.

per-connection-classifier PCC matcher allows to divide traffic into equal streams with ability to keep
(ValuesToHash:Denominator/Remainder; Default: ) packets with specific set of options in one particular stream. Read more >>

port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) Matches if any (source or destination) port matches the specified list of ports or
port ranges. Applicable only if protocol is TCP or UDP

protocol (name or protocol ID; Default: tcp) Matches particular IP protocol specified by protocol name or number

psd (integer,time,integer,integer; Default: ) Attempts to detect TCP and UDP scans. Parameters are in following format
WeightThreshold, DelayThreshold, LopPortWeight,
HighPortWeight
• WeightThreshold - total weight of the latest TCP/UDP packets with
different destination ports coming from the same host to be treated as port
scan sequence
• DelayThreshold - delay for the packets with different destination ports
coming from the same host to be treated as possible port scan subsequence
• LowPortWeight - weight of the packets with privileged (<=1024)
destination port
• HighPortWeight - weight of the packet with non-priviliged destination
port

random (integer: 1..99; Default: ) Matches packets randomly with given probability.

routing-mark (string; Default: ) Matches packets marked by mangle facility with particular routing mark

same-not-by-dst (yes | no; Default: ) Specifies whether to take into account or not destination IP address when
selecting a new source IP address. Applicable if action=same

src-address (Ip/Netmaks, Ip range; Default: ) Matches packets which source is equal to specified IP or falls into specified IP
range.

src-address-list (name; Default: ) Matches source address of a packet against user-defined address list

src-address-type (unicast | local | broadcast | multicast; Matches source address type:

Default: ) • unicast - IP address used for point to point transmission
• local - if address is assigned to one of router's interfaces
• broadcast - packet is sent to all devices in subnet
• multicast - packet is forwarded to defined group of devices

src-port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) List of source ports and ranges of source ports. Applicable only if protocol is
TCP or UDP.

src-mac-address (MAC address; Default: ) Matches source MAC address of the packet
Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT 416

tcp-flags (ack | cwr | ece | fin | psh | rst | syn | urg; Default: ) Matches specified TCP flags
• ack - acknowledging data
• cwr - congestion window reduced
• ece - ECN-echo flag (explicit congestion notification)
• fin - close connection
• psh - push function
• rst - drop connection
• syn - new connection
• urg - urgent data

tcp-mss (integer: 0..65535; Default: ) Matches TCP MSS value of an IP packet

time (time-time,sat | fri | thu | wed | tue | mon | sun; Default: ) Allows to create filter based on the packets' arrival time and date or, for locally
generated packets, departure time and date

to-addresses (IP address[-IP address]; Default: 0.0.0.0) Replace original address with specified one. Applicable if action is dst-nat,
netmap, same, src-nat

to-ports (integer[-integer]: 0..255; Default: ) Replace original port with specified one. Applicable if action is dst-nat,
redirect, netmap, same, src-nat

ttl (integer: 0..255; Default: ) Matches packets TTL value

/ip firewall nat print stats will show additional read-only properties

Property Description

bytes (integer) Total amount of bytes matched by the rule

packets (integer) Total amount of packets matched by the rule

By default print is equivalent to print static and shows only static rules.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 prerouting mark-routing 17478158 127631
1 prerouting mark-routing 782505 4506

To print also dynamic rules use print all.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print all stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 prerouting mark-routing 17478158 127631
1 prerouting mark-routing 782505 4506
2 D forward change-mss 0 0
3 D forward change-mss 0 0
4 D forward change-mss 0 0
5 D forward change-mss 129372 2031

Or to print only dynamic rules use print dynamic

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print stats dynamic

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 D forward change-mss 0 0
1 D forward change-mss 0 0
Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT 417

2 D forward change-mss 0 0
3 D forward change-mss 132444 2079

Property Description

reset-counters (id) Reset statistics counters for specified firewall rules.

reset-counters-all () Reset statistics counters for all firewall rules.

Basic examples
If you want to "hide" the private LAN 192.168.0.0/24 "behind" one address 10.5.8.109 given to you by the ISP, you
should use the source network address translation (masquerading) feature of the MikroTik router. The masquerading
will change the source IP address and port of the packets originated from the network 192.168.0.0/24 to the address
10.5.8.109 of the router when the packet is routed through it.
To use masquerading, a source NAT rule with action 'masquerade' should be added to the firewall configuration:

/ip firewall nat add chain=srcnat action=masquerade out-interface=Public

All outgoing connections from the network 192.168.0.0/24 will have source address 10.5.8.109 of the router and
source port above 1024. No access from the Internet will be possible to the Local addresses. If you want to allow
connections to the server on the local network, you should use destination Network Address Translation (NAT).
If you want to link Public IP 10.5.8.200 address to Local one 192.168.0.109, you should use destination address
translation feature of the MikroTik router. Also if you want allow Local server to talk with outside with given Public
IP you should use source address translation, too.
Add Public IP to Public interface:

/ip address add address=10.5.8.200/32 interface=Public

Add rule allowing access to the internal server from external networks:

/ip firewall nat add chain=dstnat dst-address=10.5.8.200 action=dst-nat \

to-addresses=192.168.0.109

Add rule allowing the internal server to talk to the outer networks having its source address translated to 10.5.8.200:

/ip firewall nat add chain=srcnat src-address=192.168.0.109 action=src-nat \

to-addresses=10.5.8.200

If you want to link Public IP subnet 11.11.11.0/24 to local one 2.2.2.0/24, you should use destination address
translation and source address translation features with action=netmap.

/ip firewall nat add chain=dstnat dst-address=11.11.11.0/24 \

action=netmap to-addresses=2.2.2.0/24

/ip firewall nat add chain=srcnat src-address=2.2.2.0/24 \

action=netmap to-addresses=11.11.11.0/24

Same can be written using different address notation, that still have to match with the described network

/ip firewall nat add chain=dstnat dst-address=11.11.11.0-11.11.11.255 \

action=netmap to-addresses=2.2.2.0-2.2.2.255

/ip firewall nat add chain=srcnat src-address=2.2.2.0-2.2.2.255 \

Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT 418

action=netmap to-addresses=11.11.11.0-11.11.11.255

If you would like to direct requests for a certain port to an internal machine (sometimes called opening a port, port
mapping), you can do it like this:
/ip firewall nat add chain=dstnat dst-port=1234 action=dst-nat protocol=tcp to-address=192.168.1.1 to-port=1234

This rule translates to: when an incoming connection requests TCP port 1234, use the DST-NAT action and redirect
it to local address 192.168.1.1 and the port 1234
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Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip firewall mangle
Mangle is a kind of 'marker' that marks packets for future processing with special marks. Many other facilities in
RouterOS make use of these marks, e.g. queue trees, NAT, routing. They identify a packet based on its mark and
process it accordingly. The mangle marks exist only within the router, they are not transmitted across the network.
Additionally, the mangle facility is used to modify some fields in the IP header, like TOS (DSCP) and TTL fields.

Properties
Property Description

action (action name; Default: accept) Action to take if packet is matched by the rule:
Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle 419

• accept - accept the packet. Packet is not passed to next firewall rule.
• add-dst-to-address-list - add destination address to Address list
specified by address-list parameter
• add-src-to-address-list - add source address to Address list
specified by address-list parameter
• change-dscp - change Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) field
value specified by the new-dscp parameter
• change-mss - change Maximum Segment Size field value of the packet
to a value specified by the new-mss parameter
• change-ttl - change Time to Live field value of the packet to a value
specified by the new-ttl parameter
• jump - jump to the user defined chain specified by the value of
jump-target parameter
• log - add a message to the system log containing following data:
in-interface, out-interface, src-mac, protocol, src-ip:port->dst-ip:port and
length of the packet. After packet is matched it is passed to next rule in the
list, similar as passthrough
• mark-connection - place a mark specified by the
new-connection-mark parameter on the entire connection that matches the
rule
• mark-packet - place a mark specified by the new-packet-mark
parameter on a packet that matches the rule
• mark-routing - place a mark specified by the new-routing-mark
parameter on a packet. This kind of marks is used for policy routing
purposes only
• passthrough - ignore this rule and go to next one (useful for statistics).
• return - pass control back to the chain from where the jump took place
• set-priority - set priority speciefied by the new-priority parameter on
the packets sent out through a link that is capable of transporting priority
(VLAN or WMM-enabled wireless interface). Read more>
• strip-ipv4-options - strip IPv4 option fields from IP header.

address-list (string; Default: ) Name of the address list to be used. Applicable if action is
add-dst-to-address-list or add-src-to-address-list

address-list-timeout (time; Default: 00:00:00) Time interval after which the address will be removed from the address list
specified by address-list parameter. Used in conjunction with
add-dst-to-address-list or add-src-to-address-list
actions
Value of 00:00:00 will leave the address in the address list forever

chain (name; Default: ) Specifies to which chain rule will be added. If the input does not match the
name of an already defined chain, a new chain will be created.

comment (string; Default: ) Descriptive comment for the rule.

connection-bytes (integer-integer; Default: ) Matches packets only if a given amount of bytes has been transfered through
the particular connection. 0 - means infinity, for example
connection-bytes=2000000-0 means that the rule matches if more
than 2MB has been transfered through the relevant connection

connection-limit (integer,netmaks; Default: ) Restrict connection limit per address or address block/td>

connection-mark (no-mark | string; Default: ) Matches packets marked via mangle facility with particular connection mark. If
no-mark is set, rule will match any unmarked connection.

connection-rate (Integer 0..4294967295; Default: ) Connection Rate is a firewall matcher that allow to capture traffic based on
present speed of the connection. Read more >>
Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle 420

connection-state (estabilished | invalid | new | related; Interprets the connection tracking analysis data for a particular packet:
Default: ) • established - a packet which belongs to an existing connection
• invalid - a packet which could not be identified for some reason
• new - the packet has started a new connection, or otherwise associated with
a connection which has not seen packets in both directions
• related - a packet which is related to, but not part of an existing
connection, such as ICMP errors or a packet which begins FTP data
connection

connection-type (ftp | h323 | irc | pptp | quake3 | sip | tftp; Matches packets from related connections based on information from their
Default: ) connection tracking helpers. A relevant connection helper must be enabled
under /ip firewall service-port

content (string; Default: ) Match packets that contain specified text

dscp (integer: 0..63; Default: ) Matches DSCP IP header field.

dst-address (IP/netmask | IP range; Default: ) Matches packets which destination is equal to specified IP or falls into
specified IP range.

dst-address-list (name; Default: ) Matches destination address of a packet against user-defined address list

dst-address-type (unicast | local | broadcast | multicast; Matches destination address type:

Default: ) • unicast - IP address used for point to point transmission
• local - if dst-address is assigned to one of router's interfaces
• broadcast - packet is sent to all devices in subnet
• multicast - packet is forwarded to defined group of devices

dst-limit (integer,time,integer,dst-address | dst-port | Matches packets within given pps limit. As opposed to the limit matcher,
src-address, time; Default: ) every destination IP address / destination port has it's own limit. Parameters are
written in following format: count,time,burst,mode,expire.
• count - maximum average packet rate measured in packets per time
interval
• time - specifies the time interval in which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets which are not counted by packet rate
• mode - the classifier for packet rate limiting
• expire - specifies interval after which recored ip address /port will be
deleted

dst-port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) List of destination port numbers or port number ranges

fragment (yes|no; Default: ) Matches fragmented packets. First (starting) fragment does not count. If
connection tracking is enabled there will be no fragments as system
automatically assembles every packet

hotspot (auth | from-client | http | local-dst | to-client; Default:

)

icmp-options (integer:integer; Default: ) Matches ICMP type:code fileds

in-bridge-port (name; Default: ) Actual interface the packet has entered the router, if incoming interface is
bridge

in-interface (name; Default: ) Interface the packet has entered the router

ingress-priority (integer: 0..63; Default: ) Matches ingress priority of the packet. Priority may be derived from VLAN,
WMM or MPLS EXP bit. Read more >>
Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle 421

ipv4-options (any | loose-source-routing | no-record-route | Matches IPv4 header options.

no-router-alert | no-source-routing | no-timestamp | none | • any - match packet with at least one of the ipv4 options
record-route | router-alert | strict-source-routing | timestamp; • loose-source-routing - match packets with loose source routing
Default: ) option. This option is used to route the internet datagram based on
information supplied by the source
• no-record-route - match packets with no record route option. This
option is used to route the internet datagram based on information supplied
by the source
• no-router-alert - match packets with no router alter option
• no-source-routing - match packets with no source routing option
• no-timestamp - match packets with no timestamp option
• record-route - match packets with record route option
• router-alert - match packets with router alter option
• strict-source-routing - match packets with strict source routing
option
• timestamp - match packets with timestamp

jump-target (name; Default: ) Name of the target chain to jump to. Applicable only if action=jump

layer7-protocol (name; Default: ) Layer7 filter name defined in layer7 protocol menu.

limit (integer,time,integer; Default: ) Matches packets if given pps limit is exceeded. Parameters are written in
following format: count,time,burst.
• count - maximum average packet rate measured in packets per time
interval
• time - specifies the time interval in which the packet rate is measured
• burst - number of packets which are not counted by packet rate

log-prefix (string; Default: ) Adds specified text at the beginning of every log message. Applicable if
action=log

new-connection-mark (string; Default: )

new-dscp (integer: 0..63; Default: )

new-mss (integer; Default: )

new-packet-mark (string; Default: )

new-priority (integer; Default: )

new-routing-mark (string; Default: )

new-ttl (decrement | increment | set:integer; Default: )

nth (integer,integer; Default: ) Matches every nth packet. Read more >>

out-bridge-port (name; Default: ) Actual interface the packet is leaving the router, if outgoing interface is bridge

out-interface (; Default: ) Interface the packet is leaving the router

p2p (all-p2p | bit-torrent | blubster | direct-connect | edonkey | Matches packets from various peer-to-peer (P2P) protocols. Does not work on
fasttrack | gnutella | soulseek | warez | winmx; Default: ) encrypted p2p packets.

packet-mark (no-mark | string; Default: ) Matches packets marked via mangle facility with particular packet mark. If
no-mark is set, rule will match any unmarked packet.

packet-size (integer[-integer]:0..65535; Default: ) Matches packets of specified size or size range in bytes.

per-connection-classifier PCC matcher allows to divide traffic into equal streams with ability to keep
(ValuesToHash:Denominator/Remainder; Default: ) packets with specific set of options in one particular stream. Read more >>

port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) Matches if any (source or destination) port matches the specified list of ports or
port ranges. Applicable only if protocol is TCP or UDP

protocol (name or protocol ID; Default: tcp) Matches particular IP protocol specified by protocol name or number
Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle 422

psd (integer,time,integer,integer; Default: ) Attempts to detect TCP and UDP scans. Parameters are in following format
WeightThreshold, DelayThreshold, LopPortWeight,
HighPortWeight
• WeightThreshold - total weight of the latest TCP/UDP packets with
different destination ports coming from the same host to be treated as port
scan sequence
• DelayThreshold - delay for the packets with different destination ports
coming from the same host to be treated as possible port scan subsequence
• LowPortWeight - weight of the packets with privileged (<=1024)
destination port
• HighPortWeight - weight of the packet with non-priviliged destination
port

random (integer: 1..99; Default: ) Matches packets randomly with given probability.

routing-mark (string; Default: ) Matches packets marked by mangle facility with particular routing mark

src-address (Ip/Netmaks, Ip range; Default: ) Matches packets which source is equal to specified IP or falls into specified IP
range.

src-address-list (name; Default: ) Matches source address of a packet against user-defined address list

src-address-type (unicast | local | broadcast | multicast; Matches source address type:

Default: ) • unicast - IP address used for point to point transmission
• local - if address is assigned to one of router's interfaces
• broadcast - packet is sent to all devices in subnet
• multicast - packet is forwarded to defined group of devices

src-port (integer[-integer]: 0..65535; Default: ) List of source ports and ranges of source ports. Applicable only if protocol is
TCP or UDP.

src-mac-address (MAC address; Default: ) Matches source MAC address of the packet

tcp-flags (ack | cwr | ece | fin | psh | rst | syn | urg; Default: ) Matches specified TCP flags
• ack - acknowledging data
• cwr - congestion window reduced
• ece - ECN-echo flag (explicit congestion notification)
• fin - close connection
• psh - push function
• rst - drop connection
• syn - new connection
• urg - urgent data

tcp-mss (integer: 0..65535; Default: ) Matches TCP MSS value of an IP packet

time (time-time,sat | fri | thu | wed | tue | mon | sun; Default: ) Allows to create filter based on the packets' arrival time and date or, for locally
generated packets, departure time and date

ttl (equal | greater-than | less-than | not-equal : integer(0..255); Matches packets TTL value.
Default: )

Stats
/ip firewall filter print stats will show additional read-only properties
Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle 423

Property Description

bytes (integer) Total amount of bytes matched by the rule

packets (integer) Total amount of packets matched by the rule

By default print is equivalent to print static and shows only static rules.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 prerouting mark-routing 17478158 127631
1 prerouting mark-routing 782505 4506

To print also dynamic rules use print all.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print all stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 prerouting mark-routing 17478158 127631
1 prerouting mark-routing 782505 4506
2 D forward change-mss 0 0
3 D forward change-mss 0 0
4 D forward change-mss 0 0
5 D forward change-mss 129372 2031

Or to print only dynamic rules use print dynamic

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip firewall mangle> print stats dynamic

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 D forward change-mss 0 0
1 D forward change-mss 0 0
2 D forward change-mss 0 0
3 D forward change-mss 132444 2079

Menu specific commands

Property Description

reset-counters (id) Reset statistics counters for specified firewall rules.

reset-counters-all () Reset statistics counters for all firewall rules.

Basic examples
It is a well known fact that VPN links have smaller packet size due to incapsulation overhead. A large packet with
MSS that exceeds the MSS of the VPN link should be fragmented prior to sending it via that kind of connection.
However, if the packet has DF flag set, it cannot be fragmented and should be discarded. On links that have broken
path MTU discovery (PMTUD) it may lead to a number of problems, including problems with FTP and HTTP data
transfer and e-mail services.
Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle 424

In case of link with broken PMTUD, a decrease of the MSS of the packets coming through the VPN link solves the
problem. The following example demonstrates how to decrease the MSS value via mangle:
/ip firewall mangle
add out-interface=pppoe-out protocol=tcp tcp-flags=syn action=change-mss new-mss=1300 chain=forward

Marking each packet is quite resource expensive especially if rule has to match against many parameters from IP
header or address list containing hundreds of entries.
Lets say we want to
• mark all tcp packets except tcp/80 and match these packets against first address list
• mark all udp packets and match them against second address list.
/ip firewall mangle

add chain=forward protocol=tcp port=!80 dst-address-list=first action=mark-packet new-packet-mark=first

add chain=forward protocol=udp dst-address-list=second action=mark-packet new-packet-mark=second

Setup looks quite simple and probably will work without problems in small networks. Now multiply count of rules
by 10, add few hundred entries in address list, run 100Mbit of traffic over this router and you will see how rapidly
CPU usage is increasing. The reason for such behavior is that each rule reads IP header of every packet and tries to
match collected data against parameters specified in firewall rule.
Fortunately if connection tracking is enabled, we can use connection marks to optimize our setup.
/ip firewall mangle

add chain=forward protocol=tcp port=!80 dst-address-list=first connection-state=new action=mark-connection \

new-connection-mark=first

add chain=forward connection-mark=first action=mark-packet new-packet-mark=first passthrough=no

add chain=forward protocol=udp dst-address-list=second connection-state=new action=mark-connection \

new-connection-mark=second

add chain=forward connection-mark=second action=mark-packet new-packet-mark=second passthrough=no

Now first rule will try to match data from IP header only from first packet of new connection and add connection
mark. Next rule will no longer check IP header for each packet, it will just compare connection marks resulting in
lower CPU consumption. Additionally passthrough=no was added that helps to reduce CPU consumption even
more.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:IP/Firewall/Address list 425

Manual:IP/Firewall/Address list
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip firewall address-list
Firewall address lists allow user to create lists of IP addresses grouped together. Firewall filter, mangle and NAT
facilities can use address lists to match packets against them.
The address list records could be updated dynamically via the action=add-src-to-address-list or
action=add-dst-to-address-list items found in NAT, mangle and filter facilities.

Properties
Property Description

address (IP address/netmask | IP-IP; Default: ) IP address or range to add to address list

list (string; Default: ) Name of the address list where to add IP address

Example
The following example creates an address list of people thet are connecting to port 23 (telnet) on the router and drops
all further traffic from them. Additionaly, the address list will contain one static entry of address=192.0.34.166/32
(www.example.com):
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip firewall address-list add list=drop_traffic address=192.0.34.166/32
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip firewall address-list print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic
# LIST ADDRESS
0 drop_traffic 192.0.34.166
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting protocol=tcp dst-port=23 \
\... action=add-src-to-address-list address-list=drop_traffic
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip firewall filter add action=drop chain=input src-address-list=drop_traffic
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip firewall address-list print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic
# LIST ADDRESS
0 drop_traffic 192.0.34.166
1 D drop_traffic 1.1.1.1
2 D drop_traffic 10.5.11.8
[admin@MikroTik] >

As seen in the output of the last print command, two new dynamic entries appeared in the address list. Hosts with
these IP addresses tried to initialize a telnet session to the router.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:IP/Firewall/L7 426

Manual:IP/Firewall/L7
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
layer7-protocol is a method of searching for patterns in ICMP/TCP/UDP streams.
L7 matcher is collecting first 10 packets of connection or first 2KB of connection and searches for pattern in
collected data. If pattern is not found in collected data, matcher is not inspecting further. Allocated memory is freed
and protocol is considered as unknown. You should take into account that a lot of connections will significantly
increase memory usage. To avoid it add regular firewall matchers to reduce amount of data passed to layer-7 filters.
Additional requirement is that layer7 matcher must see both directions of traffic (incoming and outgoing). To satisfy
this requirement l7 rules should be set in forward chain. If rule is set in input/prerouting chain then the same rule
must be set also in output/postrouting chain, otherwise collected data may not be complete resulting in incorrectly
matched pattern.
L7 patterns found in l7-filter project page [1] and in [2] are compatible with RouterOS.
[3]
You can also download a script with a list of common protocols here (only for RouterOS v3), just run Import
command with this file.
Warning: In some cases when layer 7 regular expression cannot be performed, RotuerOS will log
topic=firewall, warning with error message stating exactly what is te problem in the message

Warning: Layer 7 matcher is case insensitive

Properties
Sub-menu: /ip firewall layer7-protocol

Property Description

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of l7 pattern used by configuration in firewall rules. See example >>.

regexp (string; Default: ) POSIX compliant regular expression used to match pattern.
Manual:IP/Firewall/L7 427

Examples

Simple L7 usage example

First, add Regexp strings to the protocols menu, to define strings you will be looking for. In this example we will use
pattern to match rdp packets.

/ip firewall layer7-protocol

add name=rdp regexp="rdpdr.*cliprdr.*rdpsnd"

Then, use the defined protocols in firewall.

/ip firewall filter

# add few known protocols to reduce mem usage

add action=accept chain=forward comment="" disabled=no port=80 protocol=tcp
add action=accept chain=forward comment="" disabled=no port=443 protocol=tcp

# add l7 matcher
add action=accept chain=forward comment="" disabled=no layer7-protocol=\
rdp protocol=tcp

As you can see before l7 rule we added several regular rules that will match known traffic thus reducing memory
usage.

L7 in input chain
In this example we will try to match telnet protocol connecting to our router.
/ip firewall layer7-protocol add comment="" name=telnet regexp="^\\xff[\\xfb-\\xfe].\\xff[\\xfb-\\xfe].\\xff[\\xfb-\\xfe]"

Note that we need both directions that is why we need also l7 rule in output chain that sees outgoing packets.

/ip firewall filter

add action=accept chain=input comment="" disabled=no layer7-protocol=telnet \

protocol=tcp

add action=passthrough chain=output comment="" disabled=no layer7-protocol=telnet \

protocol=tcp

[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / l7-filter. sourceforge. net/ protocols
[2] http:/ / protocolinfo. org/ wiki/ Main_Page
[3] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download/ l7-protos. rsc
Manual:IP/Firewall/Connection tracking 428

Manual:IP/Firewall/Connection tracking
Connection tracking entries
Sub-menu: /ip firewall connection
There are several ways to see what connections are making their way though the router.
In the Winbox Firewall window, you can switch to the Connections tab, to see current connections to/from/through
your router. It looks like this:

Properties
All properties in connection list are read-only

Property Description

seen reply (yes | no)

assured (yes | no) "assured" flag indicates that this connection is assured and that it will not be erased if maximum possible
tracked connection count is reached.

connection-mark (string) connection mark set by mangle rule.

connection-type (pptp | ftp | Type of connection, property is empty if connection tracking is unable to determine predefined connection
p2p) type.

dst-address (ip[:port]) Destination address and port (if protocol is port based).

gre-key (integer)

gre-version (string)

icmp-code (string)

icmp-id (string)
Manual:IP/Firewall/Connection tracking 429

icmp-type (string)

p2p (yes | no) Shows if connection is identified as p2p by firewall p2p matcher.

protocol (string) IP protocol type

reply-dst-address Destination address (and port) expected of return packets. Usually the same as "src-address:port"
(ip[:port])

reply-src-address Source address (and port) expected of return packets. Usually the same as "dst-address:port"
(ip[:port])

src-address (ip[:port]) Source address and port (if protocol is port based).

tcp-state (string) Current state of TCP connection :

• "established"
• "time-wait"
• "close"
• "syn-sent"
• "syn-received"

timeout (time) Time after connection will be removed from connection list.

Connection tracking settings

Sub-menu: /ip firewall connection tracking

Properties

Property Description

enabled (yes | no | auto; Default: auto) Allows to disable or enable connection tracking. Disabling connection tracking will cause several
firewall features to stop working. See the list of affected features. Starting from v6.0rc2 default value is
auto. Which means that connection tracing is disabled until at least one firewall rule is added.

tcp-syn-sent-timeout (time; TCP SYN timeout.

Default: 5s)

tcp-syn-received-timeout TCP SYN timeout.

(time; Default: 5s)

tcp-established-timeout (time; Time when established TCP connection times out.

Default: 1d)

tcp-fin-wait-timeout (time;
Default: 10s)

tcp-close-wait-timeout (time;
Default: 10s)

tcp-last-ack-timeout (time;
Default: 10s)

tcp-time-wait-timeout (time;
Default: 10s)

tcp-close-timeout (time; Default:

10s)

udp-timeout (time; Default: 10s)

udp-stream-timeout (time;
Default: 3m)

icmp-timeout (time; Default: 10s)

Manual:IP/Firewall/Connection tracking 430

generic-timeout (time; Default: Timeout for all other connection entries

10m)

Read-only properties

Property Description

max-entries Max amount of entries that connection tracking table can hold. This value depends on installed amount of RAM. Note that
(integer) system does not create maximum size connection tracking table when it starts, maximum entry amount can increase if
situation demands it and router still has free ram left.

total-entries Amount of connections that currently connection table holds.

(integer)

Features affected by connection tracking

• NAT
• firewall:
• connection-bytes
• connection-mark
• connection-type
• connection-state
• connection-limit
• connection-rate
• layer7-protocol
• p2p
• new-connection-mark
• tarpit
• p2p matching in simple queues
Manual:IPv6/Firewall 431

Manual:IPv6/Firewall
List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Filter
Applies to RouterOS: v5

Summary
Sub-menu: /ipv6 firewall filter

Properties
Property Description

action (accept | Action to take if packet is matched by the rule:

add-dst-to-address-list | ...; • accept - Accept the packet. It is not passed to the next firewall rule.
Default: accept) • add-dst-to-address-list - Add destination address to address list specified by
address-list parameter
• add-src-to-address-list - Add source address to address list specified by address-list
parameter
• drop -Silently drop the packet.
• jump - Jump to the user defined chain specified by the value of jump-target parameter
• log - Add a message to the system log containing following data: in-interface, out-interface, src-mac,
protocol, src-ip:port->dst-ip:port and length of the packet. After packet is matched it is passed to the next
rule in the list, similar as passthrough
• passthrough - Ignore this rule and go to next one (useful for statistics).
• reject - Drop the packet and send an ICMP reject message
• return - Passes control back to the chain from where the jump took place.

address-list (; Default: )

time (; Default: )

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Mangle 432

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Mangle

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Address-list

Manual:IP/Services
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip service
This document lists protocols and ports used by various MikroTik RouterOS services. It helps you to determine why
your MikroTik router listens to certain ports, and what you need to block/allow in case you want to prevent or grant
access to the certain services. Please see the relevant sections of the Manual for more explanations.

Properties
Note that it is not possible to add new services, only existing service modifications are allowed.

Property Description

address (IP address/netmask | IPv6/0..128; List of IP/IPv6 prefixes from which the service is accessible.
Default: )

certificate (name; Default: none) The name of the certificate used by particular service. Applicable only for services that depends on
certificates (www-ssl, api-ssl)

name (name; Default: none) Service name

port (integer: 1..65535; Default: ) The port particular service listens on

Example
For example allow telnet only from specific IPv6 address range

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip service> set api address=10.5.101.0/24,2001:db8:fade::/64

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /ip service> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# NAME PORT ADDRESS CERTIFICATE
0 telnet 23
1 ftp 21
2 www 80
3 ssh 22
4 X www-ssl 443 none
5 api 8728 10.5.101.0/24
Manual:IP/Services 433

2001:db8:fade::/64
6 winbox 8291

Service Ports
Sub-menu: /ip firewall service-port
Hosts behind a NAT-enabled router do not have true end-to-end connectivity. Therefore some Internet protocols
might not work in scenarios with NAT.
To overcome these limitations RouterOS includes a number of NAT helpers, that enable NAT traversal for various
protocols.
Note: If connection tracking is not enabled then firewall service ports will be shown as inactive

Helper Description

FTP FTP service helper

h323 H323 service helper

irc

PPTP PPTP tunneling helper.

SIP

tftp

Protocols and ports

Table below shows the list of protocols and ports used by RouterOS.

Proto/Port Description

20/tcp FTP data connection

21/tcp FTP control connection

22/tcp Secure Shell (SSH) remote Login protocol

23/tcp Telnet protocol

53/tcp DNS
53/udp

67/udp Bootstrap protocol or DHCP Server

68/udp Bootstrap protocol or DHCP Client

80/tcp World Wide Web HTTP

123/udp Network Time Protocol ( NTP)

161/udp Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

179/tcp Border Gateway Protocol ( BGP)

443/tcp Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encrypted HTTP

500/udp Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol

Manual:IP/Services 434

520/udp RIP routing protocol

521/udp

646/tcp LDP transport session

646/udp LDP hello protocol

1080/tcp SOCKS proxy protocol

1698/udp 1699/udp RSVP TE Tunnels

1701/udp Layer 2 Tunnel Protocol ( L2TP)

1723/tcp Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol ( PPTP)

1900/udp Universal Plug and Play ( uPnP)

2828/tcp

1966/udp MME originator message traffic

1966/tcp MME gateway protocol

2000/tcp Bandwidth test server

5678/udp Mikrotik Neighbor Discovery Protocol

8080/tcp HTTP Web Proxy

8291/tcp Winbox

8728/tcp API

8729/tcp API-SSL

20561/udp MAC winbox

/1 ICMP

/2 Multicast | IGMP

/4 IPIP encapsulation

/41 IPv6 (encapsulation)

/46 RSVP TE tunnels

/47 General Routing Encapsulation (GRE) - used for PPTP and EoIP tunnels

/50 Encapsulating Security Payload for IPv4 (ESP)

/51 Authentication Header for IPv4 (AH)

/89 OSPF routing protocol

/103 Multicast | PIM

/112 VRRP

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:PCC 435

Manual:PCC
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Introduction
PCC matcher will allow you to divide traffic into equal streams with ability to keep packets with specific set of
options in one particular stream (you can specify this set of options from src-address, src-port, dst-address, dst-port)

Theory
PCC takes selected fields from IP header, and with the help of a hashing algorithm converts selected fields into
32-bit value. This value then is divided by a specified Denominator and the remainder then is compared to a
specified Remainder, if equal then packet will be captured. You can choose from src-address, dst-address, src-port,
dst-port from the header to use in this operation.
per-connection-classifier=
PerConnectionClassifier ::= [!]ValuesToHash:Denominator/Remainder
Remainder ::= 0..4294967295 (integer number)
Denominator ::= 1..4294967295 (integer number)
ValuesToHash ::= both-addresses|both-ports|dst-address-and-port|
src-address|src-port|both-addresses-and-ports|dst-address|dst-port|src-address-and-port

Example
This configuration will divide all connections into 3 groups based on source address and port

/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting action=mark-connection \

new-connection-mark=1st_conn per-connection-classifier=src-address-and-port:3/0
/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting action=mark-connection \
new-connection-mark=2nd_conn per-connection-classifier=src-address-and-port:3/1
/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting action=mark-connection \
new-connection-mark=3rd_conn per-connection-classifier=src-address-and-port:3/2

Notes
PCC is available in RouterOS since v3.24. This option was introduced to address configuration issues with load
balancing over multiple gateways with masquerade
Previous configurations:
• ECMP load balancing with masquerade
• NTH load balancing with masquerade
• NTH load balancing with masquerade (another approach)
Manual:PCC 436

Note: PCC setups is not designed to work if RP Filter is enabled

Application Example - Load Balancing

Consider the following network layout:

Quick Start for Impatient

Configuration export from the gateway router:
/ ip address

add address=192.168.0.1/24 network=192.168.0.0 broadcast=192.168.0.255 interface=LAN

add address=10.111.0.2/24 network=10.111.0.0 broadcast=10.111.0.255 interface=ISP1

add address=10.112.0.2/24 network=10.112.0.0 broadcast=10.112.0.255 interface=ISP2

/ ip firewall mangle

add chain=prerouting dst-address=10.111.0.0/24 action=accept in-interface=LAN

add chain=prerouting dst-address=10.112.0.0/24 action=accept in-interface=LAN

add chain=prerouting in-interface=ISP1 connection-mark=no-mark action=mark-connection \

new-connection-mark=ISP1_conn

add chain=prerouting in-interface=ISP2 connection-mark=no-mark action=mark-connection \

new-connection-mark=ISP2_conn

add chain=prerouting in-interface=LAN connection-mark=no-mark dst-address-type=!local \

per-connection-classifier=both-addresses:2/0 action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=ISP1_conn

add chain=prerouting in-interface=LAN connection-mark=no-mark dst-address-type=!local \

per-connection-classifier=both-addresses:2/1 action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=ISP2_conn

add chain=prerouting connection-mark=ISP1_conn in-interface=LAN action=mark-routing \

Manual:PCC 437

new-routing-mark=to_ISP1

add chain=prerouting connection-mark=ISP2_conn in-interface=LAN action=mark-routing \

new-routing-mark=to_ISP2

add chain=output connection-mark=ISP1_conn action=mark-routing new-routing-mark=to_ISP1

add chain=output connection-mark=ISP2_conn action=mark-routing new-routing-mark=to_ISP2

/ ip route

add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.111.0.1 routing-mark=to_ISP1 check-gateway=ping

add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.112.0.1 routing-mark=to_ISP2 check-gateway=ping

add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.111.0.1 distance=1 check-gateway=ping

add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.112.0.1 distance=2 check-gateway=ping

/ ip firewall nat

add chain=srcnat out-interface=ISP1 action=masquerade

add chain=srcnat out-interface=ISP2 action=masquerade

Explanation
Let's assume this configuration:

IP Addresses
/ ip address
add address=192.168.0.1/24 network=192.168.0.0 broadcast=192.168.0.255 interface=LAN
add address=10.111.0.2/24 network=10.111.0.0 broadcast=10.111.0.255 interface=ISP1
add address=10.112.0.2/24 network=10.112.0.0 broadcast=10.112.0.255 interface=ISP2

The router has two upstream (ISP) interfaces with the addresses of 10.111.0.2/24 and 10.112.0.2/24. The LAN
interface has IP address of 192.168.0.1/24.

Policy routing
/ ip firewall mangle
add chain=prerouting dst-address=10.111.0.0/24 action=accept in-interface=LAN
add chain=prerouting dst-address=10.112.0.0/24 action=accept in-interface=LAN

With policy routing it is possible to force all traffic to the specific gateway, even if traffic is destined to the host
(other that gateway) from the connected networks. This way routing loop will be generated and communications
with those hosts will be impossible. To avoid this situation we need to allow usage of default routing table for traffic
to connected networks.

add chain=prerouting in-interface=ISP1 connection-mark=no-mark action=mark-connection \

new-connection-mark=ISP1_conn
add chain=prerouting in-interface=ISP2 connection-mark=no-mark action=mark-connection \
new-connection-mark=ISP2_conn

First it is necessary to manage connection initiated from outside - replies must leave via same interface (from same
Public IP) request came. We will mark all new incoming connections, to remember what was the interface.
add chain=prerouting in-interface=LAN connection-mark=no-mark dst-address-type=!local \

per-connection-classifier=both-addresses:2/0 action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=ISP1_conn

add chain=prerouting in-interface=LAN connection-mark=no-mark dst-address-type=!local \

Manual:PCC 438

per-connection-classifier=both-addresses:2/1 action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=ISP2_conn

Action mark-routing can be used only in mangle chain output and prerouting, but mangle chain prerouting is
capturing all traffic that is going to the router itself. To avoid this we will use dst-address-type=!local. And with the
help of the new PCC we will divide traffic into two groups based on source and destination addressees.
add chain=prerouting connection-mark=ISP1_conn in-interface=LAN action=mark-routing \
new-routing-mark=to_ISP1
add chain=prerouting connection-mark=ISP2_conn in-interface=LAN action=mark-routing \
new-routing-mark=to_ISP2
add chain=output connection-mark=ISP1_conn action=mark-routing new-routing-mark=to_ISP1
add chain=output connection-mark=ISP2_conn action=mark-routing new-routing-mark=to_ISP2

Then we need to mark all packets from those connections with a proper mark. As policy routing is required only for
traffic going to the Internet, do not forget to specify in-interface option.

/ ip route
add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.111.0.1 routing-mark=to_ISP1 check-gateway=ping
add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.112.0.1 routing-mark=to_ISP2 check-gateway=ping

Create a route for each routing-mark

add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.111.0.1 distance=1 check-gateway=ping

add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.112.0.1 distance=2 check-gateway=ping

To enable failover, it is necessary to have routes that will jump in as soon as others will become inactive on gateway
failure. (and that will happen only if check-gateway option is active)

NAT
/ ip firewall nat
add chain=srcnat out-interface=ISP1 action=masquerade
add chain=srcnat out-interface=ISP2 action=masquerade

As routing decision is already made we just need rules that will fix src-addresses for all outgoing packets. If this
packet will leave via wlan1 it will be NATed to 10.112.0.2, if via wlan2 then NATed to 10.111.0.2
Manual:Connection Rate 439

Manual:Connection Rate
Applies to RouterOS: 3, v4

Introduction
Connection Rate is a firewall matcher that allow to capture traffic based on present speed of the connection.

Theory
Each entry in connection tracking table represents bidirectional communication. Every time packet gets associated to
particular entry, packet size value (including IP header) is added to "connection-bytes" value for this entry. (in
another words "connection-bytes" includes both - upload and download)
Connection Rate calculates speed of connection based on change of "connection-bytes". Connection Rate is
recalculated every second and does not have any averages.
Both options "connection-bytes" and "connection-rate" work only with TCP and UDP traffic. (you need to specify
protocol to activate these options)
In "connection-rate" you can specify range of speed that you like to capture.

ConnectionRate ::= [!]From-To

From,To ::= 0..4294967295 (integer number)

Example
These rules will capture TCP/UDP traffic that was going trough the router when connection speed was below
100kbps

/ip firewall filter

add action=accept chain=forward connection-rate=0-100k protocol=tcp
add action=accept chain=forward connection-rate=0-100k protocol=udp

Notes
Connection Rate is available in RouterOS since v3.30. This option was introduced to allow capture traffic intensive
connections.

Application Example - Traffic Prioritization

Connection-rate can be used in various different ways, that still need to be realized, but most common setup will be
to detect and set lower priorities to the "heavy connections" (connections that maintain fast rate for long periods of
time (such as P2P,HTTP,FTP downloads). By doing this you can prioritize all other traffic that usually includes
VOIP and HTTP browsing and online gaming.
Method described in this example can be used together with other ways to detect and prioritize traffic
As connection-rate option does not have any averages we need to determine what will be the margin that identifies
"heavy connections". If we assume that normal HTTP browsing connection is less than 500kB (4Mb) long and VOIP
requires no more than 200kbps speed, then every connection that after first 500kB still have more than 200kbps
Manual:Connection Rate 440

speed can be assumed as "heavy".

(You might have different "connection-bytes" for HTTP browsing and differenet "connection-rate" for VOIP in your
network - so, please, do your own research before applying this example)
For this example lets assume that we have 6Mbps upload and download connection to ISP.

Quick Start for Impatient

/ip firewall mangle
add chain=forward action=mark-connection connection-mark=!heavy_traffic_conn \
new-connection-mark=all_conn
add chain=forward action=mark-connection connection-bytes=500000-0 \
connection-mark=all_conn connection-rate=200k-100M \
new-connection-mark=heavy_traffic_conn protocol=tcp
add chain=forward action=mark-connection connection-bytes=500000-0 \
connection-mark=all_conn connection-rate=200k-100M \
new-connection-mark=heavy_traffic_conn protocol=udp
add chain=forward action=mark-packet connection-mark=heavy_traffic_conn \
new-packet-mark=heavy_traffic passthrough=no
add chain=forward action=mark-packet connection-mark=all_conn \
new-packet-mark=other_traffic passthrough=no

/queue tree
add name=upload parent=public max-limit=6M
add name=other_upload parent=upload limit-at=4M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=other_traffic priority=1
add name=heavy_upload parent=upload limit-at=2M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=heavy_traffic priority=8
add name=download parent=local max-limit=6M
add name=other_download parent=download limit-at=4M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=other_traffic priority=1
add name=heavy_download parent=download limit-at=2M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=heavy_traffic priority=8

Explanation
In mangle we need to separate all connections into two groups, then mark packets from there 2 groups. As we are
talking about client's traffic most logical place for marking would be mangle chain forward.
Keep in mind that as soon as "heavy" connection will have lower priority and queue will hit max-limit - heavy
connection will drop speed, and connection-rate will be lower. This will result in a change to higher priority and
connection will be able to get more traffic for a short while, when again connection-rate will raise and that again will
result in change to lower priority). To avoid this we must make sure that once detected "heavy connections" will
remain marked as "heavy connections" for all times.
Manual:Connection Rate 441

IP Firewall mangle
/ip firewall mangle
add chain=forward action=mark-connection connection-mark=!heavy_traffic_conn \
new-connection-mark=all_conn

This rule will ensure that that "heavy" connections will remain heavy". and mark rest of the connections with default
connection mark.

add chain=forward action=mark-connection connection-bytes=500000-0 \

connection-mark=all_conn connection-rate=200k-100M \
new-connection-mark=heavy_traffic_conn protocol=tcp
add chain=forward action=mark-connection connection-bytes=500000-0 \
connection-mark=all_conn connection-rate=200k-100M \
new-connection-mark=heavy_traffic_conn protocol=udp

These two rules will mark all heavy connections based on our standarts, that every connection that after first 500kB
still have more than 200kbps speed can be assumed as "heavy"

add chain=forward action=mark-packet connection-mark=heavy_traffic_conn \

new-packet-mark=heavy_traffic passthrough=no
add chain=forward action=mark-packet connection-mark=all_conn \
new-packet-mark=other_traffic passthrough=no

Last two rules in mangle will simple mark all traffic from corresponding connections.

Queue
This is a simple queue tree that is placed on the Interface HTB - "public" is interface where your ISP is connected,
"local" where are your clients. If you have more than 1 "public" or more than 1 "local" you will need to mangle
upload and download separately and place queue tree in global-out.

/queue tree
add name=upload parent=public max-limit=6M
add name=other_upload parent=upload limit-at=4M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=other_traffic priority=1
add name=heavy_upload parent=upload limit-at=2M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=heavy_traffic priority=8
add name=download parent=local max-limit=6M
add name=other_download parent=download limit-at=4M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=other_traffic priority=1
add name=heavy_download parent=download limit-at=2M max-limit=6M \
packet-mark=heavy_traffic priority=8
Manual:NTH in RouterOS 3.x 442

Manual:NTH in RouterOS 3.x

In v3.0 it is a little different implementation of NTH. It has only two parameters 'every' and 'packet'.

How it works in v3.0

Every rule has its own counter. When rule receives packet counter for current rule is increased by one. If counter
matches value of 'every' packet will be matched and counter will be set to zero.
If passthrough is not set then packets will be marked as follows:
• first rule nth=2,1 rule will match every first packet of 2, hence, 50% of all the traffic that is matched by the rules
• second rule if passthrough=no will match ONLY 25% of traffic because in 3.0 you need only one rule to catch
traffic not like 2.9

Example
Now it is possible to match 50% of all traffic only with one rule:

/ip firewall mangle

add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=AAA nth=2,1;

If more than one rule is needed, then there are two ways to match packets:
• first rule sees all packets and matches 1/3 of all, second rule sees 2/3 of packets and matches 1/2, third rule sees
and matches all packets that passed through first two rules ( 1/3 of all packets ).

/ip firewall mangle

add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=AAA nth=3,1 passthrough=no;
add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=BBB nth=2,1 passthrough=no;
add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=CCC ;

• all rules can see all packets and each rule matches every 3-rd packet.

/ip firewall mangle

add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=AAA nth=3,1 passthrough=yes;
add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=BBB nth=3,2 passthrough=yes;
add action=mark-packet chain=prerouting new-packet-mark=CCC nth=3,3 passthrough=yes;
Manual:Routing Table Matcher 443

Manual:Routing Table Matcher

Sometimes ISP's are giving different local and overseas bandwidth. To set up QoS you had to make static address list
of local IP addresses, keep track of Ip ranges used in your country and update address list accordingly. Here you can
find article describing mentioned approach.
With introduction of routing-table matcher it is possible to match packet which destination address is resolved in
specific routing table. So we just need BGP peering with ISP and ask them to send all routes local to your country,
add them to routing table and set up mangle rules accordingly.
Note: It is not possible to match source address against routing table.

Consider following setup:

R1 is ISP router sending BGP routes R2 is client's main gateway and clients local network is 192.168.1.0/24
After setting up bgp peering (which is not covered in this article) we get following BGP routes

[admin@MikroTik] /ip route> print where bgp

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
..
1 ADb 10.10.1.0/24 10.1.101.1 20
2 ADb 10.10.10.4/32 10.1.101.1 20

Next step is to add all received BGP rotues to another routing table, to do that we set up routing filters

#at first we have to specify input filter chain

/routing bgp peer set 0 in-filter=bbgp

#now we set up filter itself

/routing filter
add action=passthrough chain=bbgp set-routing-mark=local

As you can see now routes are added to "local" routing table

[admin@MikroTik] /ip route> print detail where routing-mark="local"

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

...
Manual:Routing Table Matcher 444

1 ADb dst-address=10.10.1.0/24 gateway=10.1.101.1

gateway-status=10.1.101.1 reachable ether1 distance=20 scope=255
target-scope=255 routing-mark=local
bgp-as-path="3001,3001,3010,3002,3000" bgp-origin=incomplete
received-from=ISP

2 ADb dst-address=10.10.10.4/32 gateway=10.1.101.1

gateway-status=10.1.101.1 reachable ether1 distance=20 scope=255
target-scope=255 routing-mark=local
bgp-as-path="3001,3001,3010,3002,3000" bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-communities=3000:120,3000:200 received-from=ISP

Following mangle rule will match all packets that destination is resolved in "local" routing table.

/ip firewall mangle

add action=log chain=forward routing-table=local

Now when we try to send packets from the client for example to address 10.10.10.4, mangle rule will not match
anything. This is because by default every destination is resolved in "main" routing table.
To fix this we have to explicitly specify to resolve all packets coming from client in "local" routing table.

/ip route rule

add action=lookup src-address=192.168.1.0/24 table=local

To verify if packets are actually matched:

[admin@MikroTik] /ip firewall mangle> print stats

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# CHAIN ACTION BYTES PACKETS
0 forward log 28736 449

Also check log messages

[admin@MikroTik] /log> print

...
11:06:31 firewall,info forward: in:bridge1 out:ether1, src-mac 00:0c:42:21:f1:ec
, proto ICMP (type 8, code 0), 192.168.1.10->10.10.10.4, len 44
11:06:32 firewall,info forward: in:bridge1 out:ether1, src-mac 00:0c:42:21:f1:ec
, proto ICMP (type 8, code 0), 192.168.1.10->10.10.10.4, len 44
...

As you can see from the logs only packets coming from the client are matched. The reason for this is because
routing-table matcher is matching only packet which destination address is resolved in local routing table. In our
example 192.168.1.10 as destination is resolved in "main" routing table.
From what was said above, this approach is useful only for upload traffic marking and shaping.
Manual:Routing/Routing filters 445

Manual:Routing/Routing filters
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Properties
Sub-menu: /routing filter
Note: Values from "set-..." properties are set no matter what action is specified in "action" property.

Property Description

action (accept | discard | jump | log | passthrough action to perform on route matching the rule.
| reject | return; Default: passthrough) • accept - accept the routing information
• discard - completely exclude matching prefix from further processing. For incoming
filters, 'discard' means that information about this route is completely lost.
• jump - pass control to another filter list that should be specified as 'jump-target'
parameter
• log - log message about this match in system log and continue with the next rule in
chain
• passthrough - continue to the next rule in chain
• reject - reject the routing information for matching prefix. For incoming filters, 'reject'
means that information about this route stored in memory, but the route will not become
active. For outgoing filters it's the same as 'discard'
• return - return to the previous chain from which a jump to the current chain took place

address-family match by BGP address family

(ip|ipv6|l2vpn|l2vpn-cisco|vpnv4;)

append-bgp-communities (integer:integer | similar to 'set-bgp-communities', but does not delete any existing information about
internet | local-as | no-advertise | no-export;) communities

append-route-targets (AsIP|AsNum;) Append value to route target EXTENDED_COMMUNITIES path attribute

bgp-as-path (string;) unanchored pattern to be searched inside AS_PATH attribute of the route. POSIX regular
expressions are supported.

bgp-as-path-length (integer-integer;) match length of AS_PATH BGP attribute, representing the number of ASes that have been
traversed. Read how the AS_PATH length is calculated before using this matcher

bgp-atomic-aggregate (absent | present;) match ATOMIC_AGGREGATE BGP attribute

bgp-communities (integer:integer | internet | match the COMMUNITIES BGP attribute. Match is done when communities attribute in a
local-as | no-advertise | no-export;) route contains all entries from this configured list. But note that if communities list contains
'internet', the whole list always matched.

bgp-local-pref (integer[-integer];) match LOCAL_PREF BGP attribute. If the LOCAL_PREF for a route is not set, value 0 is
used instead

bgp-med (integer[-integer];) match MULTI_EXIT_DISC BGP attribute. If the MULTI_EXIT_DISC for a route is not
set, value 0 is used instead
Manual:Routing/Routing filters 446

bgp-origin (igp | egp | incomplete;) match ORIGIN BGP attribute. If the ORIGIN for a route is not set, value 'incomplete' is
used instead

bgp-weight (signed integer[-signed integer];) match BGP weight property. If this property for a route is not set, value 0 is used instead

chain (string;) chain name to place this rule in. If a chain with the specified name does not exist it will be
automatically created
• ospf-in - predefined filter chain for routes received via OSPF;
• ospf-out - predefined filter chain for external routes redistributed via OSPF;
• rip-in - predefined filter chain for routes received via RIP;
• rip-out - predefined filter chain for external routes redistributed via RIP;
• mme-in - predefined filter chain for routes received via MME;
• connected-in - predefined filter chain for all connected routes;
• dynamic-in - predefined filter chain for all other dynamic routes, i.e. all dynamic
routes except (1) those added by routing protocols and (2) connected routes. In this
category falls routes added by some external program, for example PPP daemon.
Note that internal RIP filtering is done using prefix lists [and internal (intra-area) OSPF
filtering is not supported yet]

distance (integer: 0..255[ - integer:0..255];) match routes with specific administrative distance

invert-math (yes | no; Default: no) invert this match, i.e. apply the rule to routes that would fail to match it and vice versa

jump-target (string;) name of the target chain to jump to, if the 'action=jump' is used

locally-originated-bgp (yes|no;)

match-chain (string;) the name of the chain which is used to evaluate the route. If the chain accepts the route,
'match-chain' property produces a true match

ospf-type (string;) OSPF route type matcher

pref-src (IP address range;) match routes with a specific preferred source value

prefix (IP prefix; Default: 0.0.0.0/0) network prefix to match. If prefix-length is not set, only exact match is done. For example,
0.0.0.0/0 then matches only the default route and nothing else. If network mask is not set, /32
is assumed

prefix-length (integer; Default: 0-32) network prefix mask length to match. If prefix-length is set, for a route to match the prefix
and prefix-length of a rule, the following should hold:
• the network prefix of the route falls within the range of the prefix of the rule, (i.e.
• the network mask of the route is greater than or equal to the network mask of the
prefix;
• the network address of the route masked out by the network mask of the prefix is
equal to the network address of the prefix;)
• the length of the network mask of the route falls within the range of the prefix-length

protocol (connect | static | rip | ospf | bgp;) match routes coming from a specific protocol (the values are self-explanatory)

route-comment (string;) match routes with a specific comment

route-tag (integer;) match routes with a specific route-tag property value

route-target ([integer|IP]:integer;) Match value against route target EXTENDED_COMMUNITIES path attribute

routing-mark (string;) match routes with a specific routing mark

scope (integer 0..255[-integer 0..255];) match routes with a specific scope property value

set-bgp-communities (integer:integer | set COMMUNITIES BGP attribut

internet | local-as | no-advertise | no-export;)

set-bgp-local-pref (integer;) set LOCAL_PREF BGP attribute

set-bgp-med (integer;) set MULTI_EXIT_DISC BGP attribute

Manual:Routing/Routing filters 447

set-bgp-prepend (integer: 0..16 | default;) how many times to prepend router's own AS number to AS_PATH attribute
For incoming filters, it affects the AS_PATH attribute length, which is used in BGP route
selection process. For outgoing filters, the prepending is done when announcing route via
BGP and affects only routes sent to EBGP peers (for IBGP value 1 is always used)
If value is set to 0 then peer's own AS is removed from AS_PATH (Similar to CISCO feature
"no bgp enforce-first-as")

set-bgp-prepend-path (AS list;) add specified list of AS numbers to AS_PATH attribute

If both set-bgp-prepend and set-bgp-prepend-path are used then set-bgp-prepend will
have highest priority.

set-bgp-weight (signed integer;) set BGP weight property to be used in BGP route selection process. Valid only in incoming
filters and for BGP routes

set-check-gateway (arp | none | ping;) set which protocol to use for gateway reachability, if any. Valid only in incoming filters

set-disabled (yes | no;) if set, the route will not become active. Valid only in incoming filters

set-distance (integer: 0..255;) set the administrative distance of the route. If set to value 255, the route will not become
active. Valid only in incoming filters

set-in-nexthop (IP address;) set gateway value to the specific IP address[es]. Valid only in incoming filters

set-in-nexthop-direct (interface name;) set gateway value to the specific interface. Valid only in incoming filters

set-in-nexthop-ipv6 (IPv6 address;) set gateway value to the specific IPv6 address[es]. Valid only in incoming filters

set-in-nexthop-linklocal (IPv6 link-local set gateway value to the specific IPv6 link-local address[es] on specific interfaces. The
address % interface name;) syntax separates address and interface by '%'. Valid only in incoming filters

set-out-nexthop (IP address;) set gateway to be announced to the specific IP address[es]. Valid only in outgoing filters

set-out-nexthop-ipv6 (IPv6 address;) set gateway to be announced to the specific IPv6 address[es]. Valid only in outgoing filters

set-out-nexthop-linklocal (IPv6 set gateway value to be announced using BGP link-local nexthop feature. Valid only in
link-local address;) outgoing filters and for BGP routes

set-pref-src (IP address;) set the preferred source address for packets leaving via this route. Valid only in incoming
filters

set-route-comment (string;) set comment text. Valid only in incoming filters

set-route-tag (integer;) set OSPF or RIP route tag property value. For RIP only values 0..65535 are valid

set-route-targets (AsNum|AsIP;) Set route target EXTENDED_COMMUNITIES path attribute

set-routing-mark (string;) set routing mark for the route. Valid only in incoming filters

set-scope (integer: 0..255;) set scope property, used in recursive nexthop resolving. Valid only in incoming filters

set-target-scope (integer: 0..255;) set target-scope property, used in recursive nexthop resolving. Valid only in incoming filters

set-type (blackhole | prohibit | unicast | set route type. Valid only in incoming filters
unreachable;) • unicast - standard route
• blackhole - silently discard packets
• prohibit - reply to sender with ICMP Communication Administratively Prohibited
messages
• unreachable - reply to sender with ICMP Network Unreachable messages

set-use-te-nexthop (yes|no;)

site-of-origin (string;) Match BGP Site of Origin extended community. Available starting from v4.3

set-site-of-origin (string;) Set BGP Site of Origin extended community. Available starting from v4.3

target-scope (integer 0..255[-integer 0..255];) match routes with a specific 'target-scope' value
Manual:Routing/Routing filters 448

Examples
• Routing filter usage in BGP Simple Multihoming
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Routing/OSPF
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
MikroTik RouterOS implements OSPF version 2 (RFC 2328). The OSPF protocol is the link-state protocol that takes
care of the routes in the dynamic network structure that can employ different paths to its subnetworks. It always
chooses shortest path to the subnetwork first.

Instance
Sub-menu: /routing ospf instance
Since v3.17 it is possible to run multiple OSPF instances. General OSPF configuration now is moved to instances.

Properties

Property Description

distribute-default (never | specifies how to distribute default route. Should be used for ABR (Area Border router) or
if-installed-as-type-1 | if-installed-as-type-2 | ASBR (Autonomous System boundary router)
always-as-type-1 | always-as-type-2; Default: • never - do not send own default route to other routers
never) • if-installed-as-type-1 - send the default route with type 1 metric only if it has
been installed (a static default route, or route added by DHCP, PPP, etc.)
• if-installed-as-type-2 - send the default route with type 2 metric only if it has
been installed (a static default route, or route added by DHCP, PPP, etc.)
• always-as-type-1 - always send the default route with type 1 metric
• always-as-type-2 - always send the default route with type 2 metric

domain-id (Hex|Address;) MPLS related parameter. Identifies OSPF domain of the instance. This value is attached to
OSPF routes redistributed in BGP as VPNv4 routes as BGP extended community attribute, and
used when BGP VPNv4 routes are redistributed back OSPF to determine whether to generate
inter-area or AS-external LSA for that route. By default Null domain-id is used, as described in
RFC 4577.

domain-tag (integer: 0..4294967295 ;) if set, then used in route redistribution (as route-tag in all external LSAs generated by this
router), and in route calculation (all external LSAs having this route tag are ignored). Needed
for interoperability with older Cisco systems. By default not set.

in-filter (string;) name of the routing filter chain used for incoming prefixes

metric-bgp (integer|auto; Default: 20) routes learned from the BGP protocol are redistributed with this metric. When set to auto,
MED attribute value from BGP route will be used, if MED is not set then default value 20 is
used.

metric-connected (integer; Default: 20) routes to directly connected networks are distributed with this metric

metric-default (integer; Default: 1) the default route is distributed with this metric
Manual:Routing/OSPF 449

metric-other-ospf (integer|auto; Default: routes learned from other OSPF instances are redistributed with this metric. If auto is
20) configured, then the cost from previous instance is taken into account, otherwise cost is set to
statically configured value.

metric-rip (integer; Default: 20) routes learned from the RIP protocol are redistributed with this metric

metric-static (integer; Default: 20) static routes are distributed with this metric

mpls-te-area (string;) the area used for MPLS traffic engineering. TE Opaque LSAs are generated in this area. No
more than one OSPF instance can have mpls-te-area configured.

mpls-te-router-id (ip;) loopback interface from which to take IP address used as Router-ID in MPLS TE Opaque
LSAs

out-filter (string;) name of the routing filter chain used for outgoing prefixes

redistribute-bgp (as-type-1 | as-type-2 | no; redistribute routes learned by the BGP protocol
Default: no)

redistribute-connected (as-type-1 | redistribute connected routes, i.e. routes to directly reachable networks
as-type-2 | no; Default: no)

redistribute-other-ospf (as-type-1 | redistribute routes learned by other OSPF instances

as-type-2 | no; Default: no)

redistribute-rip (as-type-1 | as-type-2 | no; redistribute routes learned by the RIP protocol
Default: no)

redistribute-static (as-type-1 | as-type-2 redistribute static routes

| no; Default: no)

router-id (IP address; Default: 0.0.0.0) the OSPF Router ID. If not specified, OSPF use one of router's IP addresses.

routing-table (name of routing table;) the routing table this OSPF instance operates on

use-dn (yes | no;) Forces to use or ignore DN bit. Useful in some CE PE scenarios to inject intra area routes into
VRF. If parameter is unset then DN bit is used according to RFC. Available since v6rc12.

Notes
OSPF protocol supports two types of metrics:
• type1 - ospf metric is the sum of the internal OSPF cost and the external route cost
• type2 - ospf metric is equal only to the external route cost.

Status
Command /routing ospf monitor will display current OSPF status.
For multi instance OSPF you have to use following command: /routing ospf instance print status
Available read only properties:
Manual:Routing/OSPF 450

Property Description

state (down | running) shows if OSPF is running or not

effective-router-id (IP address) Router-ID chosen by OSPF.

dijkstras (integer) shows how many times Dijkstra's algorithm was executed (i.e. OSPF routes were recalculated)

db-exchanges (integer) number of OSPF database exchanges currently going on

external-imports (integer) how many external routes were imported into OSPF from this router

Area
Sub-menu: /routing ospf area

Description
OSPF allows collections of routers to be grouped together. Such a group is called an area. Each area runs a separate
copy of the basic link-state routing algorithm. This means that each area has its own link-state database and
corresponding shortest path tree.
The structure of an area is invisible from other areas. This isolation of knowledge makes the protocol more scalable
if multiple areas are used; routing table calculation takes less CPU resources and routing traffic is reduced.
However, multi-area setups create additional complexity. It is not recommended separate areas with fewer than 50
routers. The maximum number of routers in one area is mostly dependent on CPU power you have for routing table
calculation.

Properties

Property Description

area-id (IP address; Default: 0.0.0.0) OSPF area identifier. If the router has networks in more than one area, then an area with area-id=0.0.0.0
(the backbone) must always be present. The backbone always contains all area border routers. The
backbone is responsible for distributing routing information between non-backbone areas. The
backbone must be contiguous, i.e. there must be no disconnected segments. However, area border
routers do not need to be physically connected to the backbone - connection to it may be simulated
using a virtual link.

default-cost (integer; Default: 1) specifies the cost for the default route originated by this stub area ABR. Applicable only for stub areas
on ABRs

inject-summary-lsas (yes | no; specifies whether to flood summary LSAs in this stub area. Applicable only for stub areas on ABRs
Default: yes)

name (string; Default: ) the name of the area

translator-role (translate-always | Parameter indicates which ABR will be used as translator from type7 to type5. Applicable only if area
translate-candidate | translate-never; type is NSSA
Default: translate-candidate) • translate-always - router will be always used as translator
• translate-never - router will never be used as translator
• translate-candidate - ospf ellects one of candidate routers to be a translator

type (default | nssa | stub; Default: area type

default)
Manual:Routing/OSPF 451

Status
/routing ospf area print status will show additional read-only properties

Property Description

interfaces (integer;) count of interfaces assigned to this area

active-interfaces (integer;) count of interfaces in operating state assigned to this area

neighbors (integer;) count of OSPF neighbors in this area

adjacent-neighbors (integer;) count of adjacent OSPF neighbors in this area

Area Range
Sub-menu: /routing ospf area range

Description
Prefix ranges are used to aggregate routing information on area boundaries. By default, ABR creates a summary
LSA for each route in specific area, and advertises it in adjacent areas.
Using ranges allows to create only one summary LSA for multiple routes and send only single advertisement into
adjacent areas, or to suppress advertisements altogether.
If a range is configured with 'advertise' parameter, a single summary LSA is advertised for each range if there are
any routes under the range is the specific area. Else ('advertise' parameter disabled) no summary LSAs are created
and advertised outside area boundaries at all.

Properties

Property Description

advertise (yes | no; Default: yes) whether to create summary LSA and advertise it to adjacent areas

area (string; Default: ) the OSPF area associated with this range

cost (integer | default; Default: default) the cost of the summary LSA this range will create
default - use the largest cost of all routes used (i.e. routes that fall within this range)

range (IP prefix; Default: ) the network prefix of this range

Note: For an active range (i.e. one that has at least one OSPF route from the specified area falling under it), a
route with type 'unreachable' is created and installed in the routing table.

Network
Sub-menu: /routing ospf network
To start the OSPF protocol, you have to define the networks on which OSPF will run and associated area for each of
these networks
Manual:Routing/OSPF 452

Property Description

area (string; the OSPF area to be associated with the specified address range
Default: backbone)

network (IP the network prefix associated with the area. OSPF will be enabled on all interfaces that has at least one address falling within
prefix; Default: ) this range. Note that the network prefix of the address is used for this check (i.e. not the local address). For point-to-point
interfaces this means the address of the remote endpoint.

Interface
Sub-menu: /routing ospf interface

Property Description

authentication (none | simple | md5; specifies authentication method for OSPF protocol messages.
Default: none) • none - do not use authentication
• simple - plain text authentication
• md5 - keyed Message Digest 5 authentication

authentication-key (string; Default: authentication key to be used for simple or MD5 authentication
"")

authentication-key-id (integer; key id is used to calculate message digest (used only when MD5 authentication is enabled). Value
Default: 1) should match on all OSPF routers from the same region.

cost (integer: 1..65535; Default: 1) interface cost expressed as link state metric

dead-interval (time; Default: 40s) specifies the interval after which a neighbor is declared as dead. This interval is advertised in hello
packets. This value must be the same for all routers on a specific network, otherwise adjacency
between them will not form

hello-interval (time; Default: 10s) the interval between hello packets that the router sends out this interface. The smaller this interval is,
the faster topological changes will be detected, but more routing traffic will ensue. This value must
be the same for all routers on a specific network, otherwise adjacency between them will not form

interface (string | all; Default: all) the interface name

• all - for all interfaces without specific configuration

network-type (broadcast | nbma | the OSPF network type on this interface. Note that if interface configuration does not exist, the
point-to-point | ptmp; Default: broadcast) default network type is 'point-to-point' on PtP interfaces, and 'broadcast' on all other interfaces.
• broadcast - network type suitable for Ethernet and other multicast capable link layers. Elects
designated router
• nbma - Non-Broadcast Multiple Access. Protocol packets are sent to each neighbors unicast
address. Requires manual configuration of neighbors. Elects designated router
• point-to-point - suitable for networks that consists only of two nodes. Does not elect
designed router
• ptmp - Point-to-Multipoint. Easier to configure than NBMA because it requires no manual
configuration of neighbor. Does not elect designed router. This is the most robust network type
and as such suitable for wireless networks, if 'broadcast' mode does not works good enough for
them

passive (yes | no; Default: no) if enabled, do not send or receive OSPF traffic on this interface

priority (integer: 0..255; Default: 1) router's priority. Used to determine the designated router in a broadcast network. The router with
highest priority value takes precedence. Priority value 0 means the router is not eligible to become
designated or backup designated router at all.

retransmit-interval (time; Default: time between retransmitting lost link state advertisements. When a router sends a link state
5s) advertisement (LSA) to its neighbor, it keeps the LSA until it receives back the acknowledgment. If
it receives no acknowledgment in time, it will retransmit the LSA
Manual:Routing/OSPF 453

transmit-delay (time; Default: 1s) link state transmit delay is the estimated time it takes to transmit a link state update packet on the
interface

Status
/routing ospf interface print status will show additional information about used interfaces

Property Description

ip-address (IP address;) Ip address assigned to this interface

state (backup | designated-router | point-to-point | passive;) current interface state

instance (instance name;) OSPF instance that is using this interface

area (area name;) area to which interface is assigned

neighbors (integer;) count of OSPF neighbors found on this interface

adjacent-neighbors (integer;) count of OSPF neighbors found on this interface that have formed adjacencies

designated-router (IP address;) router-ID of elected designated router (DR)

backup-designated-router (IP address;) router-ID of elected backup designated router (BDR)

NBMA Neighbor
Sub-menu: /routing ospf nbma-neighbor
Manual configuration for non-broadcast multi-access neighbors. Required only if interfaces with
'network-type=nbma' are configured.

Property Description

address (IP address; Default: ) the unicast IP address of the neighbor

poll-interval (time; Default: 2m) how often to send hello messages to neighbors which are in "down" state (i.e. there is no traffic from
them)

priority (integer: 0..255; Default: assumed priority value of neighbors which are in "down" state
0)

Virtual Link
Sub-menu: /routing ospf virtual-link

Description
As stated in OSPF RFC, the backbone area must be contiguous. However, it is possible to define areas in such a way
that the backbone is no longer contiguous. In this case the system administrator must restore backbone connectivity
by configuring virtual links. Virtual link can be configured between two routers through common area called transit
area, one of them should have to be connected with backbone. Virtual links belong to the backbone. The protocol
treats two routers joined by a virtual link as if they were connected by an unnumbered point-to-point network
Manual:Routing/OSPF 454

Properties

Property Description

authentication (none | simple | md5; Default: none) specifies authentication method for OSPF protocol messages.

authentication-key (string; Default: "") authentication key to be used for simple or MD5 authentication

authentication-key-id (integer; Default: 1) key id used in MD5 authentication

neighbor-id (IP address; Default: 0.0.0.0) specifies router-id of the neighbour

transit-area (string; Default: (unknown)) a non-backbone area the two routers have in common

Note: Virtual link should be configured on both routers. Virtual links can not be established through stub
areas.

LSA
Sub-menu: /routing ospf lsa
Read only properties:

Property Description

instance (string) Instance name where LSA is used.

area (string)

type (string)

id (IP address) LSA record ID

originator (IP address) LSA record originator

sequence-number (string) Number of times the LSA for a link has been updated.

age (integerr) How long ago (in seconds) the last update occurred

checksum (string) LSA checksum

options (string)

body (string)

Neighbor
Sub-menu: /routing ospf Neighbor
Read only properties:

Property Description

router-id (IP address) neighbor router's RouterID

address (IP address) IP address of neighbor router that is used to form OSPF connection

interface (string) interface that neighbor router is connected to

priority (integer) priority configured on neighbor

dr-address (IP address) IP address of Designated Router

backup-dr-address (IP address) IP address of Backup Designated Router

Manual:Routing/OSPF 455

state (down | attempt | init | 2-way | • Down - No Hello packets has been received from neighbor.
ExStart | Exchange | Loading | full) • Attempt - Applies only to NBMA clouds. State indicates that no recent information was received
from neighbor.
• Init - Hello packet received from the neighbor, but bidirectional communication is not established
(Its own RouterID is not listed in Hello packet).
• 2-way - This state indicates that bi-directional communication is established. DR and BDR
election occur during this state, routers build adjacencies based on whether router is DR or BDR,
link is point-to-point or a virtual link.
• ExStart - Routers try to establish the initial sequence number that is used for the packets
information exchange. Router with higher ID becomes the master and starts the exchange.
• Exchange - Routers exchange database description (DD) packets.
• Loading - In this state actual link state information is exchanged. Link State Request packets are
sent to neighbors to request any new LSAs that were found during Exchange state.
• Full - Adjacency is complete, neighbor routers are fully adjacent. LSA information is
synchronized between adjacent routers. Routers achieve the full state with their DR and BDR
only, exception is P2P links.

state-changes (integer) Total count of OSPF state changes since neighbor identification

ls-retransmits (integer)

ls-requests (integer)

db-summaries (integer)

adjacency (time) Elapsed time since adjacency was formed

OSPF Router
Sub-menu: /routing ospf ospf-router
List of all area border routers (ABRs).
Read only properties:

Property Description

area (string)

router-id (IP address)

state (string)

gateway (IP address)

cost (integer)

Route
Sub-menu: /routing ospf route
Read only properties:
Manual:Routing/OSPF 456

Property Description

instance (string) Which OSPF instance route belongs to

dst-address (IP prefix) Destination prefix

state (intra-area | inter-area | ext-1 | ext-2 | imported-ext-1 | imported-ext-2) State representing origin of the route

gateway (IP address) used gateway

interface (string) used interface

cost (integer) Cost of the route

area (external | backbone | <other area>) Which OSPF area this route belongs to

Sham link
Sub-menu: /routing ospf sham-link

Description
A sham-link is required between any two VPN sites that belong to the same OSPF area and share an OSPF backdoor
link. If there is no intra-area link between the CE routers, you do not need to configure an OSPF sham link.
Sham link configuration example
Sham link must be configured on both sides.
For a sham link to be active, two conditions must be met:
• src-address is a valid local address with /32 netmask in OSPF instance's routing table.
• there is a valid route to dst-address in the OSPF instance's routing table.
When the sham link is active, hello packets are sent on it only until the neighbor reaches full state. After that, hello
packet sending on the sham link is suppressed.
RouterOS does not support periodic LSA refresh suppression on sham-links yet.

Properties

Property Description

area (area name) name of area that shares an OSPF backdoor link

cost (integer: 1..65535 ) cost of the link

dst-address (IP address) loopback address of link's remote router

src-address (IP address) loopback address of link's local router

See More
• OSPF case studies
• OSPF Configuration Examples
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 457

Manual:OSPF Case Studies

Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
This chapter describes the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol support in RouterOS.
OSPF is Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) and distributes routing information only between routers belonging to the
same Autonomous System (AS).
OSPF is based on link-state technology that has several advantages over distance-vector protocols such as RIP:
• no hop count limitations;
• multicast addressing is used to send routing information updates;
• updates are sent only when network topology changes occur;
• logical definition of networks where routers are divided into areas
• transfers and tags external routes injected into AS.
However there are few disadvantages:
• OSPF is quite CPU and memory intensive due to SPF algorithm and maintenance of multiple copies of routing
information;
• more complex protocol to implement compared to RIP;
MikroTik RouterOS implements OSPF version 2 (RFC 2328) and version 3 (RFC 5340, OSPF for IPv6).

OSPF Terminology
Term definitions related to OSPF operations.
• Neighbor - connected (adjacent) router that is running OSPF with the adjacent interface assigned to the same
area. Neighbors are found by Hello packets.
• Adjacency - logical connection between router and its corresponding DR and BDR. No routing information is
exchanged unless adjacencies are formed.
• Link - link refers to a network or router interface assigned to any given network.
• Interface - physical interface on the router. Interface is considered as link, when it is added to OSPF. Used to
build link database.
• LSA - Link State Advertisement, data packet contains link-state and routing information, that is shared among
OSPF neighbors.
• DR - Designated Router, chosen router to minimize the number of adjacencies formed. Option is used in broadcast
networks.
• BDR -Backup Designated Router, hot standby for the DR. BDR receives all routing updates from adjacent routers,
but it does not flood LSA updates.
• Area - areas are used to establish a hierarchical network.
• ABR - Area Border Router, router connected to multiple areas.
• ASBR - Autonomous System Boundary Router, router connected to an external network (in a different AS).
• NBMA - Non-broadcast multi-access, networks allow multi-access but have no broadcast capability (for example
X.25, Frame Relay). Additional OSPF neighbor configuration is required for those networks.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 458

• Broadcast - Network that allows broadcasting, for example Ethernet.

• Point-to-point - Network type eliminates the need for DRs and BDRs
• Router-ID - IP address used to identify OSPF router. If the OSPF Router-ID is not configured manually, router
uses one of the IP addresses assigned to the router as its Router-ID.
• Link State - The term link state refers to the status of a link between two routers. It defines the relationship
between a router's interface and its neighboring routers.
• Cost - Link-state protocols assign a value to each link called cost. the cost value is depend to speed of media. A
cost is associated with the outside of each router interface. This is referred to as interface output cost.
• Autonomous System - An autonomous system is a group of routers that use a common routing protocol to
exchange routing information.
All of these terms are important for understanding the operation of the OSPF and they are used throughout the
article.

OSPF Operation
OSPF is a link-state protocol. Interface of the router is considered an OSPF link and state of all the links are stored in
link-state database.
Link-state routing protocols are distributing, replicating database that describes the routing topology. Each router in
routing domain collects local routing topology and sends this information via link-state advertisements (LSAs).
LSAs are flooded to all other routers in routing domain and each router generates link-state database from received
LSAs. The link-state protocol's flooding algorithm ensures that each router has identical link-state database. Each
router is calculating routing table based on this link-state database.
OSPF defines several LSA types:
• type 1 - (Router LSA) Sent by routers within the Area, including the list of directly attached links. Does not
cross the ABR or ASBR.
• type 2 - (Network LSA) Generated for every “transit network” within an area. A transit network has at least two
directly attached OSPF routers. Ethernet is an example of a Transit Network. A Type 2 LSA lists each of the
attached routers that make up the transit network and is generated by the DR.
• type 3 - (Summary LSA) The ABR sends Type 3 Summary LSAs. A Type 3 LSA advertises any networks
owned by an area to the rest of the areas in the OSPF AS. By default, OSPF advertises Type 3 LSAs for every
subnet defined in the originating area, which can cause flooding problems, so it´s a good idea to use a manual
summarization at the ABR.
• type 4 - (ASBR-Summary LSA) It announces the ASBR address, it shows “where” the ASBR is located,
announcing it´s address instead of it´s routing table.
• type 5 - (External LSA) Announces the Routes learned through the ASBR. External LSAs are flooded to all
areas except Stub areas. These LSAs divides in two types: external type 1 and external type2.
• type 6 - (Group Membership LSA) This was defined for Multicast extensions to OSPF and is not used by
ROuterOS.
• type 7 - type 7 LSAs are used to tell the ABRs about these external routes imorted in NSSA area. Area Border
Router then translates these LSAs to type 5 external LSAs and floods as normal to the rest of the OSPF
network
• type 8 - (Link-local only LSA for OSPFv3)
• type 9 -
• type 10 -
• type 11 -
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 459

Note: If we do not have any ASBR, there´s no LSA Types 4 and 5 in the network.

Looking at the link-state database each routing domain router knows how many other routers are
in the network, how many interfaces routers have, what networks link between router connects,
cost of each link and so on.
There are several steps before OSPF network becomes fully functional:

• Neighbor discovery
• Database Synchronization
• Routing calculation

Communication between OSPF routers

OSPF runs directly over the IP network layer using protocol number 89.
Destination IP address is set to neighbor's IP address or to one of the OSPF multicast addresses AllSPFRouters
(224.0.0.5) or AllDRRouters (224.0.0.6). Use of these addresses are described later in this article.
Every OSPF packet begins with standard 24-byte header.

Field Description

Packet type There are several types of OSPF packets: Hello packet, Database Description (DD) packet, Link state request packet,
link State Update packet and Link State Acknowledgment packet. All of these packets except Hello packet are used in
link-state database synchronization

Router ID one of router's IP addresses unless configured manually

Area ID Allows OSPF router to associate the packet to the proper OSPF area.

Checksum Allows receiving router to determine if packet was damaged in transit.

Authentication These fields allow the receiving router to verify that the packet's contents was not modified and that packet really came
fields from OSPF router which Router ID appears in the packet.

There are five different OSPF packet types used to ensure proper LSA flooding over the OSPF network.
• Hello packet - used to discover OSPF neighbors and build adjacencies.
• Database Description (DD) - check for Database synchronization between routers. Exchanged after adjacencies
are built.
• Link-State Request (LSR) - used to request up to date pieces of the neighbor’s database. Out of date parts of
routes database are determined after DD exchange.
• Link-State Update (LSU) - carries a collection of specifically requested link-state records.
• Link-State Acknowledgment (LSack) - is used to acknowledge other packet types that way introducing reliable
communication.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 460

Neighbor discovery
Neighbors are discovered by periodically sending OSPF Hello packets out of configured interfaces. By default Hello
packets are sent out with 10 second interval. This interval can be changed by setting hello interval. Router learns the
existence of a neighboring router when it receives the neighbor's Hello in return.
The transmission and reception of Hello packets also allows router to detect failure of the neighbor. If Hello packets
are not received within Dead interval (which by default is 40s) router starts to route packets around the failure. Hello
protocol ensures that the neighboring routers agree on the Hello interval and Dead interval parameters, preventing
situations when not in time received Hello packets mistakenly bring the link down.

Field Description

network mask The IP mask of the originating router's interface IP address.

hello interval period between Hello packets (default 10s)

options OSPF options for neighbor information

router priority an 8-bit value used to aid in the election of the DR and BDR. (Not set in p2p links)

router dead time interval has to be received before consider the neighbor is down. ( By default four times bigger than Hello
interval interval)

DR the router-id of the current DR

BDR the router-id of the current BDR

Neighbor router IDs a list of router-ids for all the originating router's neighbors

On each type of network segment Hello protocol works a little different. It is clear that on point-to-point segments
only one neighbor is possible and no additional actions are required. However if more than one neighbor can be on
the segment additional actions are taken to make OSPF functionality even more efficient.
Note: Network mask, Priority, DR and BDR fields are used only when the neighbors are connected by a
broadcast or NBMA network segment.

Two routers do not become neighbors unless the following conditions are met.
• Two way communication between routers is possible. Determined by flooding Hello packets.
• Interface should belong to the same area;
• Interface should belong to the same subnet and have the same network mask, unless it has network-type
configured as point-to-point;
• Routers should have the same authentication options, and have to exchange same password (if any);
• Hello and Dead intervals should be the same in Hello packets;
• External routing and NSSA flags should be the same in Hello packets.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 461

Discovery on Broadcast Subnets

Attached node to the broadcast subnet can send single packet and that packet is received by all other attached nodes.
This is very useful for auto-configuration and information replication. Another useful capability in broadcast subnets
is multicast. This capability allows to send single packet which will be received by nodes configured to receive
multicast packet. OSPF is using this capability to find OSPF neighbors and detect bidirectional connectivity.
Consider Ethernet network illustrated in image below.
Each OSPF router joins the IP multicast group AllSPFRouters (224.0.0.5), then router periodically multicasts its
Hello packets to the IP address 224.0.0.5. All other routers that joined the same group will receive multicasted Hello
packet. In that way OSPF routers maintain relationships with all other OSPF routers by sending single packet instead
of sending separate packet to each neighbor on the segment.
This approach has several advantages:

• Automatic neighbor discovery by multicasting or broadcasting Hello packets.

• Less bandwidth usage compared to other subnet types. On broadcast segment there are n*(n-1)/2 neighbor
relations, but those relations are maintained by sending only n Hellos.
• If broadcast has multicast capability, then OSPF operates without disturbing non-OSPF nodes on the
broadcast segment. If multicast capability is not supported all routers will receive broadcasted Hello packet
even if node is not OSPF router.

Discovery on NBMA Subnets

Nonbroadcast multiaccess (NBMA) segments similar to broadcast supports more than two routers, only difference is
that NBMA do not support data-link broadcast capability. Due to this limitation OSPF neighbors must be discovered
initially through configuration. On RouterOS NBMA configuration is possible in/routig ospf
nbma-neighbor menu. To reduce the amount of Hello traffic, most routers attached to NBMA subnet should be
assigned Router Priority of 0 (set by default in RouterOS). Routers that are eligible to become Designated Routers
should have priority values other than 0. It ensures that during election of DR and BDR Hellos are sent only to
eligible routers.

Discovery on PTMP Subnets

Point-to-MultiPoint treats the network as a collection of point-to-point links.
On PTMP subnets Hello protocol is used only to detect active OSPF neighbors and to detect bidirectional
communication between neighbors. Routers on PTMP subnets send Hello packets to all other routers that are directly
connected to them. Designated Routers and Backup Designated routers are not elected on Point-to-multipoint
subnets.

Database Synchronization
Link-state Database synchronization between OSPF routers are very important.
There are two types of database synchronizations:

• initial database synchronization

• reliable flooding.
When the connection between two neighbors first come up, initial database synchronization will happen.
Unsynchronized databases may lead to calculation of incorrect routing table, resulting in routing loops or black
holes.
OSPF is using explicit database download when neighbor connections first come up. This procedure is called
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 462

Database exchange. Instead of sending the entire database, OSPF router sends only its LSA headers in a sequence
of OSPF Database Description (DD) packets. Router will send next DD packet only when previous packet is
acknowledged. When entire sequence of DD packets has been received, router knows which LSAs it does not have
and which LSAs are more recent. The router then sends Link-State Request (LSR) packets requesting desired
LSAs, and the neighbor responds by flooding LSAs in Link-State Update (LSU) packets. After all updates are
received neighbors are said to be fully adjacent.
Reliable flooding is another database synchronization method. It is used when adjacencies are already established
and OSPF router wants to inform other routers about LSA changes. When OSPF router receives such Link State
Update, it installs new LSA in link-state database, sends an acknowledgement packet back to sender, repackages
LSA in new LSU and sends it out all interfaces except the one that received the LSA in the first place.
OSPF determines if LSAs are up to date by comparing sequence numbers. Sequence numbers start with
0×80000001, the larger the number, the more recent the LSA is. Sequence number is incremented each time the
record is flooded and neighbor receiving update resets Maximum age timer. LSAs are refreshed every 30 minutes,
but without a refresh LSA remains in the database for maximum age of 60 minutes.
Databases are not always synchronized between all OSPF neighbors, OSPF decides whether databases needs to be
synchronized depending on network segment, for example, on point-to-point links databases are always
synchronized between routers, but on ethernet networks databases are synchronized between certain neighbor pairs.

Synchronization on Broadcast Subnets

On broadcast segment there are
n*(n-1)/2 neighbor relations, it will be
huge amount of Link State Updates
and Acknowledgements sent over the
subnet if OSPF router will try to
synchronize with each OSPF router on
the subnet.
This problem is solved by electing one
Designated Router and one Backup
Designated Router for each broadcast
subnet. All other routers are
synchronizing and forming adjacencies
only with those two elected routers.
This approach reduces amount of adjacencies from n*(n-1)/2 to only 2n-1.

Image on the right illustrates adjacency formations on broadcast subnets. Routers R1 and R2 are Designated Router
and Backup Designated router respectively. For example, R3 wants to flood Link State Update (LSU) to both R1 and
R2, router sends LSU to IP multicast address AllDRouters (224.0.0.6) and only DR and BDR listens to this
multicast address. Then Designated Router sends LSU addressed to AllSPFRouters, updating the rest of the routers.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 463

DR election
DR and BDR routers are elected from data received in Hello packet. The first OSPF router on a subnet is always
elected as Designated Router, when second router is added it becomes Backup Designated Router. When existing
DR or BDR fails new DR or BDR is elected taking into account configured router priority. Router with the highest
priority becomes the new DR or BDR.
Being Designated Router or Backup Designated Router consumes additional resources. If Router Priority is set to 0,
then router is not participating in the election process. This is very useful if certain slower routers are not capable of
being DR or BDR.

Synchronization on NBMA Subnets

Database synchronization on NBMA networks are similar as on broadcast networks. DR and BDR are elected,
databases initially are exchanged only with DR and BDR routers and flooding always goes through the DR. The only
difference is that Link State Updates must be replicated and sent to each adjacent router separately.

Synchronization on PTMP Subnets

On PTMP subnets OSPF router becomes adjacent to all other routes with which it can communicate directly.

Routing table calculation

When link-state databases are synchronized OSPF routers are able to calculate routing table.
Link state database describes the routers and links that interconnect them and are appropriate for forwarding. It also
contains the cost (metric) of each link. This metric is used to calculate shortest path to destination network.
Each router can advertise a different cost for the router's own link direction, making it possible to have asymmetric
links (packets to destination travels over one path, but response travels different path). Asymmetric paths are not
very popular, because it makes harder to find routing problems.
The Cost in RouterOS is set to 10 on all interfaces by default. Value can be changed in ospf interface configuration
menu, for example to add ether2 interface with cost of 100:

/routing ospf interface add interface=ether2 cost=100

The cost of an interface on Cisco routers is inversely proportional to the bandwidth of that interface. Higher
bandwidth indicates lower cost. If similar costs are necessary on RouterOS, then use following formula:
Cost = 100000000/bw in bps.
OSPF router is using Dijkstra's Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm to calculate shortest path. The algorithm places
router at the root of a tree and calculates shortest path to each destination based on the cumulative cost required to
reach the destination. Each router calculates own tree even though all routers are using the same link-state database.

SPT calculation
Assume we have the following network. Network consists of 4(four) routers. OSPF costs for outgoing interfaces are
shown near the line that represents the link. In order to build shortest path tree for router R1, we need to make R1 the
root and calculate the smallest cost for each destination.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 464

As you can see from image above multiple shortest paths have been found to 172.16.1.0 network, allowing load
balancing of the traffic to that destination called equal-cost multipath (ECMP). After the shortest path tree is built,
router starts to build the routing table accordingly. Networks are reached consequently to the cost calculated in the
tree.
Routing table calculation looks quite simple, however when some of the OSPF extensions are used or OSPF areas
are calculated, routing calculation gets more complicated.

Configuring OSPF
Let's look how to configure single-area OSPF network.
One command is required to start OSPF on MikroTik RouterOS - add network in ospf network menu.
Let's assume we have the following network.

It has only one area with three routers connected to the same network 172.16.0.0/24. Backbone area is created during
RouterOS installation and additional configuration is not required for area settings.
R1 configuration:

/ip address add address=172.16.0.1/24 interface=ether1

/routing ospf network add network=172.16.0.0/24 area=backbone

R2 configuration:

/ip address add address=172.16.0.2/24 interface=ether1

/routing ospf network add network=172.16.0.0/24 area=backbone

R3 configuration:
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 465

/ip address add address=172.16.0.3/24 interface=ether1

/routing ospf network add network=172.16.0.0/24 area=backbone

To verify if OSPF instance is running on router:

[admin@MikroTik] /routing ospf> monitor once

state: running
router-id: 172.16.0.1
dijkstras: 6
db-exchanges: 0
db-remote-inits: 0
db-local-inits: 0
external-imports: 0

As you can see OSPF is up and running, notice that router-id is set the same as IP address of the router. It was done
automatically, because router-id was not specified during OSPF configuration.
Add a network to assign interface to the certain area. Look at the OSPF interface menu to verify that dynamic entry
was created and correct network type was detected.

[admin@MikroTik] /routing ospf interface> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic, P - passive
# INTERFACE COST PRIORITY NETWORK-TYPE AUTHENTICATION AUTHENTICATION-KEY
0 D ether1 10 1 broadcast none

Next step is to verify, that both neighbors are found, DR and BDR is elected and adjacencies are established:

[admin@MikroTik] /routing ospf neighbor> print

0 router-id=172.16.0.2 address=172.16.0.2 interface=ether1 priority=1
dr-address=172.16.0.3 backup-dr-address=172.16.0.2 state="Full" state-changes=5
ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=9m2s

1 router-id=172.16.0.3 address=172.16.0.3 interface=ether1 priority=1

dr-address=172.16.0.3 backup-dr-address=172.16.0.2 state="Full" state-changes=5
ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=6m42s

Most of the properties are self explanatory, but if something is unclear, description can be found in neighbor
reference manual
Last thing to check whether LSA table is generated properly.

[admin@MikroTik] /routing ospf lsa> print

AREA TYPE ID ORIGINATOR SEQUENCE-NUMBER AGE
backbone router 172.16.0.1 172.16.0.1 0x80000003 587
backbone router 172.16.0.2 172.16.0.2 0x80000003 588
backbone router 172.16.0.3 172.16.0.3 0x80000002 592
backbone network 172.16.0.3 172.16.0.3 0x80000002 587

We have three router links and one network link. All properties are explained in LSA reference manual.
Congratulations, we have fully working OSPF network at this point.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 466

Authentication
It is possible to secure OSPF packets exchange, MikroTik RouterOS provides two authentication methods, simple
and MD5. OSPF authentication is disabled by default.
Authentication is configured per interface. Add static ospf interface entry and specify authentication properties to
secure OSPF information exchange. md5 authentication configuration on ether1 is shown below:
/routing ospf interface
add interface=ether1 authentication=md5 authentication-key=mySampleKey authentication-key-id=2

Simple authentication is plain text authentication method. Method is vulnerable to passive attacks, anybody with
packet sniffer can easily get password. Method should be used only to protect OSPF from mis-configurations.
MD5 is a cryptographic authentication and is more preferred. Authentication-key, key-id and OSPF packet content is
used to generate message digest that is added to the packet. Unlike the simple authentication method, key is not
exchanged over the network.
Authentication-key-id value is 1, when authentication is not set (even for router that do not allow to set key
id at all).

Multi-area networks
Large single area network can produce serious issues:

• Each router recalculates database every time whenever network topology change occurs, the process takes
CPU resources.
• Each router holds entire link-state database, which shows the topology of the entire network, it takes
memory resources.
• Complete copy of the routing table and number of routing table entries may be significantly greater than the
number of networks, that can take even more memory resources.
• Updating large databases require more bandwidth.
To keep routing table size, memory and CPU demands to a manageable levels. OSPF uses a two-layer area
hierarchy:
• backbone (transit) area - Primary function of this area is the fast and efficient movement of IP packets.
Backbone area interconnects other areas and generally, end users are not found within a backbone area.
• regular area - Primary function of this area is to connect users and resources. To travel from one are to another,
traffic must travel over the backbone, meaning that two regular areas cannot be directly connected. Regular areas
have several Subtypes:
• Standard Area
• Stub Area
• Totally Stubby Area
• Not-so-stubby area (NSSA)
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 467

Each area is identified by 32-bit Area

ID and has its own link-state database,
consisting of router-LSAs and
network-LSAs describing how all
routers within that area are
interconnected. Detailed knowledge of
area's topology is hidden from all other
areas; router-LSAs and network-LSAs
are not flooded beyond the area's
borders. Area Border Routers (ABRs)
leak addressing information from one
area into another in OSPF
summary-LSAs. This allows to pick
the best area border router when
forwarding data to destinations from
another area and is called intra-area
routing.

Routing information exchange between areas is essentially Distance Vector algorithm and to prevent algorithm's
convergence problems, such as counting to infinity, all areas are required to attach directly to backbone area
making simple hub-and-spoke topology. Area-ID of backbone area is always 0.0.0.0 and can not be changed.
There are several types of routing information:

• intra-area routes - routes generated from within an area (destination belongs to the area).
• inter-area routes - routes originated from other areas, also called Summary Routes.
• external routes - routes originated from other routing protocols and that are injected into OSPF by
redistribution.

External Routing Information

On the edge of an OSPF routing
domain, you can find routers called AS
boundary routers (ASBRs) that run
one of other routing protocols. The job
of those routers are to import routing
information learned from other routing
protocols into the OSPF routing
domain. External routes can be
imported at two separate levels
depending on metric type.

• type1 - ospf metric is the sum of

the internal OSPF cost and the
external route cost
• type2 - ospf metric is equal only
to the external route cost.
OSPF provides several area types:
backbone area, standard area, stub area and not-so-stubby area. All areas are covered later in the article.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 468

Backbone area is the core of all OSPF network, all areas have to be connected to backbone area. Start configuring
OSPF from backbone and then expand network configuration to other areas.

Simple multi-area network

Consider the multi-area network shown below.

R1 configuration:

/ip address add address=10.0.3.1/24 interface=ether1

/ip address add address=10.0.2.1/24 interface=ether2
/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1
/routing ospf network add network=10.0.2.0/24 area=backbone
/routing ospf network add network=10.0.3.0/24 area=area1

R2 configuration:

/ip address add address=10.0.1.1/24 interface=ether2

/ip address add address=10.0.2.2/24 interface=ether1
/routing ospf network add network=10.0.2.0/24 area=backbone

R3 configuration:

/ip address add address=10.0.3.2/24 interface=ether2

/ip address add address=10.0.4.1/24 interface=ether1
/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1
/routing ospf network add network=10.0.3.0/24 area=area1

Route Redistribution
OSPF external routes are routes that are being redistributed from other routing protocols or from static routes.
Remember OSPF configuration setup described in previous section. As you may notice networks 10.0.1.0/24 and
10.0.4.0/24 are not redistributed into OSPF. OSPF protocol does not redistribute external routes by default.
Redistribution should be enabled in general OSPF configuration menu to do that. We need to redistribute connected
routes in our case, add following configuration to routers R3 and R2:

/routing ospf set redistribute-connected=as-type-1

Manual:OSPF Case Studies 469

Check routing table to see that both networks are redistributed.

[admin@MikroTik] /ip route> print

Let's add another network to R3:

/ip address add address=10.0.5.1/24 interface=ether1

10.0.5.0/24 and 10.0.4.0/24 networks are redistributed from R3 over OSPF now. But we do not want other routers to
know that 10.0.5.0/24 is reachable over router R3. To achieve it we can add rules in routing filters inside "ospf-out"
chain.
Add routing filter to R3

/routing filter add chain=ospf-out prefix=10.0.5.0/24 action=discard

Routing filters provide two chains to operate with OSPF routes: ospf-in and ospf-out. Ospf-in chain is used to filter
incoming routes and ospf-out is used to filter outgoing routes. More about routing filters can be found in routing
filters reference manual.

Virtual Link
All OSPF areas have to be attached to the backbone area, but sometimes physical connection is not possible. In this
case areas can be attached logically by using virtual links. Also virtual links can be used to glue together
fragmented backbone area.

No physical connection to backbone

Area may not have physical connection
to backbone, virtual link is used to
provide logical path to the backbone of
the disconnected area. Link has to be
established between two ABRs that
have common area with one ABR
connected to the backbone.
We can see that both R1 and R2
routers are ABRs and R1 is connected
to backbone area. Area2 will be used
as transit area and R1 is the entry
point into backbone area. Virtual link
has to be configured on both routers.

R1 configuration:

/routing ospf virtual-link add transit-area=area2 neighbor-id=2.2.2.2

R2 configuration:

/routing ospf virtual-link add transit-area=area2 neighbor-id=1.1.1.1

Manual:OSPF Case Studies 470

Partitioned backbone
OSPF allows to link discontinuous
parts of the backbone area using virtual
links. This might be required when two
separate OSPF networks are merged
into one large network. Virtual link can
be configured between separate ABRs
that touch backbone area from each
side and have a common area.
Additional area could be created to
become transit area, when common
area does not exist, it is illustrated in
the image above.
Virtual Links are not required for non-backbone areas, when they get partitioned. OSPF does not actively attempt to
repair area partitions, each component simply becomes a separate area, when an area becomes partitioned. The
backbone performs routing between the new areas. Some destinations are reachable via intra-area routing, the area
partition requires inter-area routing.
However, to maintain full routing after the partition, an address range has not to be split across multiple components
of the area partition.

Route Summarization
Route summarization is consolidation of multiple routes into one single advertisement. It is normally done at the area
boundaries (Area Border Routers), but summarization can be configured between any two areas.
It is better to summarize in the direction to the backbone. Then way the backbone receives all the aggregate
addresses and injects them into other areas already summarized. There are two types of summarization: inter-area
and external route summarization.

Inter-Area Route Summarization

Inter-area route summarization is done on ABRs, it does not apply to external routes injected into OSPF via
redistribution. Summarization configuration is done in OSPF area range menu.

Stub Area
Main purpose of stub areas is to keep such areas from carrying external routes. Routing from these areas to the
outside world is based on a default route. Stub area reduces the database size inside an area and reduces memory
requirements of routers in the area.
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 471

Stub area has few restrictions, ASBR

routers cannot be internal to the area,
stub area cannot be used as transit area
for virtual links. The restrictions are
made because stub area is mainly
configured not to carry external routes.
Totally stubby area is an extension for
stub area. A totally stubby area blocks
external routes and summarized
(inter-area) routes from going into the
area. Only intra-area routes are
injected into the area.
inject-summary-lsa=no is used to
configure totally stubby area in the
RouterOS.
Let's consider the example above. Area1 is configured as stub area meaning that routers R2 and R3 will not receive
any routing information from backbone area except default route.
R1 configuration:

/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1 type=stub inject-summary-lsa=yes

/routing ospf network
add network=10.0.0.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.0.1.0/24 area=area1
add network=10.0.3.0/24 area=area1

R2 configuration:

/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1 type=stub inject-summary-lsa=yes

/routing ospf network
add network=10.0.1.0/24 area=area1

R3 configuration:

/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1 type=stub inject-summary-lsa=yes

/routing ospf network
add network=10.0.3.0/24 area=area1
Manual:OSPF Case Studies 472

NSSA
Not-so-stubby area (NSSA) is useful
when it is required to inject external
routes, but injection of type 5 LSA
routes is not required.
Look at the image above. There are
two areas (backbone and area1) and
RIP connection to area1. We need
Area1 to be configured as stub area,
but it is also required to inject external
routes from RIP protocol. Area1
should be configured as NSSA in this
case.
Configuration example does not cover RIP configuration.
R1 configuration:

/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1 type=nssa

/routing ospf network
add network=10.0.0.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.0.1.0/24 area=area1

R2 configuration:

/routing ospf set redistribute-rip=as-type-1

/routing ospf area add name=area1 area-id=1.1.1.1 type=nssa
/routing ospf network
add network=10.0.1.0/24 area=area1

NSSA areas have one another limitation: virtual links cannot be used over such area type.

Related Links
• OSPF Configuration Examples
• OSPF Reference Manual
Manual:OSPF-examples 473

Manual:OSPF-examples
Simple OSPF configuration
The following example illustrates how to configure single-area OSPF network. Let’s assume we have the following
network.

Example network consists of 3 routers connected together within 10.10.1.0/24 network and each router has also one
additional attached network.
In this example following IP addresses are configured:

[admin@MikroTikR1]/ip address add address=10.10.1.1/30 interface=ether1

[admin@MikroTikR1]/ip address add address=10.10.1.5/30 interface=ether2
[admin@MikroTikR1]/ip address add address=210.13.1.0/28 interface=ether3

[admin@MikroTikR2]/ip address add address=10.10.1.6/30 interface=ether1

[admin@MikroTikR2]/ip address add address=10.10.1.9/30 interface=ether2
[admin@MikroTikR2]/ip address add address=172.16.1.0/16 interface=ether3

[admin@MikroTikR3]/ip address add address=10.10.1.2 /30 interface=ether1

[admin@MikroTikR3]/ip address add address=10.10.1.10/30 interface=ether2
[admin@MikroTikR3]/ip address add address=192.168.1.0/24 interface=ether3

There are three basic elements of OSPF configuration:

• Enable OSPF instance
• OSPF area configuration
• OSPF network configuration
General information is configured in /routing ospf instance menu. For advanced OSPF setups, it is possible to run
multiple OSPF instances. Default instance configuration is good to start, we just need to enable default instance.
R1:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf instance> add name=default

R2:
Manual:OSPF-examples 474

[admin@MikroTikR2] /routing ospf instance> add name=default

R3:

[admin@MikroTikR3] /routing ospf instance> add name=default

Show OSPF instance information:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf instance> print

Flags: X - disabled
0 name="default" router-id=0.0.0.0 distribute-default=never
redistribute-connected=as-type-1 redistribute-static=as-type-1
redistribute-rip=no redistribute-bgp=no redistribute-other-ospf=no
metric-default=1 metric-connected=20 metric-static=20 metric-rip=20
metric-bgp=auto metric-other-ospf=auto in-filter=ospf-in
out-filter=ospf-out

As you can see router-id is 0.0.0.0, it means that router will use one of router's IP addresses as router-id. In most
cases it is recommended to set up loopback IP address as router-id. Loopback IP address is virtual, software address
that is used for router identification in network. The benefits are that loopback address is always up (active) and can’t
be down as physical interface. OSPF protocol used it for communication among routers that identified by router-id.
Loopback interface are configured as follows:
Create bridge interface named, for example, “loopback”:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /interface bridge> add name=loopback

Add IP address:

[admin@MikroTikR1] > ip address add address=10.255.255.1/32 interface=loopback

Configure router-id as loopback:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf instance> set 0 router-id=10.255.255.1

This can be done on other routers (R2, R3) as well.

Next step is to configure OSPF area. Backbone area is created during RouterOS installation and additional
configuration is not required.
Note: Remember that backbone area-id is always (zero) 0.0.0.0.

And the last step is to add network to the certain OSPF area.
On R1

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf network> add network=210.13.1.0/28 area=backbone

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf network> add network=10.10.1.0/30 area=backbone
[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf network> add network=10.10.1.4/30 area=backbone

Instead of typing in each network, you can aggregate networks using appropriate subnet mask. For example, to
aggregate 10.10.1.0/30, 10.10.1.4/30, 10.10.1.8/30 networks, you can set up following ospf network:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf network> add network=10.10.1.0/'''24''' area=backbone

R2:
Manual:OSPF-examples 475

[admin@MikroTikR2] /routing ospf network> add network=172.16.1.0/16 area=backbone

[admin@MikroTikR2] /routing ospf network> add network=10.10.1.0/24 area=backbone

R3:

[admin@MikroTikR3] /routing ospf network> add network=192.168.1.0/24 area=backbone

[admin@MikroTikR3] /routing ospf network> add network=10.10.1.0/24 area=backbone

You can verify your OSPF operation as follows:

• Look at the OSPF interface menu to verify that dynamic entry was created:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf interface> print

• Check your OSPF neighbors, what DR and BDR is elected and adjacencies established:

[admin@MikroTikR1] /routing ospf neighbor> print

• Check router’s routing table (make sure OSPF routes are present):

[admin@MikroTik_CE1] > ip route print

Simple multi-area configuration

Backbone area is the core of all OSPF network, all areas have to be connected to the backbone area. Start
configuring OSPF from backbone and then expand network configuration to other areas.

Lets assume that IP addresses are already configured and default OSPF instance is enabled.
All we need to do is:
• create an area
• attach OSPF networks to the area
R1 configuration:

/routing ospf> add name=area1 area-id=0.0.0.1

/routing ospf> add network=10.0.1.0/24 area=backbone
/routing ospf> add network=10.1.1.0/30 area=area1

R2 configuration:

/routing ospf> add name=area2 area-id=0.0.0.2

/routing ospf> add network=10.0.1.0/24 area=backbone
Manual:OSPF-examples 476

/routing ospf> add network=10.1.2.0/30 area=area2

R3 configuration:

/routing ospf> add name=area1 area-id=0.0.0.1

/routing ospf> add network=10.1.1.0/30 area=area1

R4 configuration:

/routing ospf> add name=area2 area-id=0.0.0.2

/routing ospf> add network=10.1.2.0/30 area=area2

Now you can check routing table using command /ip route print
Routing table on router R3:

[admin@R3] > ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
1 ADo 10.0.1.0/24 10.1.1.1 110
2 ADC 10.1.1.0/30 10.1.1.2 ether1 110
3 ADo 10.1.2.0/30 10.1.1.1 110
4 ADC 192.168.1.0/24 192.168.1.1 ether2 0

As you can see remote networks 172.16.0.0/16 and 192.168.2.0/24 are not in the routing table, because they are not
distributed by OSPF. Redistribution feature allows different routing protocols to exchange routing information
making possible, for example, to redistribute static or connected routes into OSPF. In our setup we need to
redistribute connected network. We need to add following configuration on routers R1, R2 and R3.

[admin@R3] /routing ospf instance> set 0 redistribute-connected=as-type-1

[admin@R3] /routing ospf instance> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="default" router-id=0.0.0.0 distribute-default=never
<u>redistribute-connected=as-type-1</u> redistribute-static=no
redistribute-rip=no redistribute-bgp=no redistribute-other-ospf=no
metric-default=1 metric-connected=20 metric-static=20 metric-rip=20
metric-bgp=auto metric-other-ospf=auto in-filter=ospf-in
out-filter=ospf-out

Now check router R3 to see if routes 192.168.2.0/24 and 172.16.0.0/16 are installed in routing table.

[admin@R3] > ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
1 ADo 10.0.1.0/24 10.1.1.1 110
2 ADC 10.1.1.0/30 10.1.1.2 ether1 110
3 ADo 10.1.2.0/30 10.1.1.1 110
4 ADo 172.16.0.0/16 10.1.1.1 110
5 ADC 192.168.1.0/24 192.168.1.1 ether2 0
Manual:OSPF-examples 477

6 ADo 192.168.2.0/24 10.1.1.1 110

NBMA networks
OSPF network type NBMA (Non-Broadcast Multiple Access) uses only unicast communications, so it is the
preferred way of OSPF configuration in situations where multicast addressing is not possible or desirable for some
reasons. Examples of such situations:
• in 802.11 wireless networks multicast packets are not always reliably delivered (read Multicast_and_Wireless for
details); using multicast here can create OSPF stability problems;
• using multicast may be not efficient in bridged or meshed networks (i.e. large layer-2 broadcast domains).
Especially efficient way to configure OSPF is to allow only a few routers on a link to become the designated router.
(But be careful - if all routers that are capable of becoming the designated router will be down on some link, OSPF
will be down on that link too!) Since a router can become the DR only when priority on it's interface is not zero, this
priority can be configured as zero in interface and nbma-neighbor configuration to prevent that from happening.

In this setup only C and D are allowed to become designated routers.

On all routers:

routing ospf network add network=10.1.1.0/24 area=backbone

routing ospf nbma-neighbor add address=10.1.1.1 priority=0
routing ospf nbma-neighbor add address=10.1.1.2 priority=0
routing ospf nbma-neighbor add address=10.1.1.3 priority=1
routing ospf nbma-neighbor add address=10.1.1.4 priority=1

(For simplicity, to keep configuration the same on all routers, nbma-neighbor to self is also added. Normally you
wouldn't do that, but it does not cause any harm either.)
Configure interface priorities. On routers A, B:

routing ospf interface add interface=ether1 network-type=nbma priority=0

On routers C, D (they can become the designated router):

routing ospf interface add interface=ether1 network-type=nbma priority=1

Manual:OSPF-examples 478

Results
On Router A:

[admin@A] > routing ospf neighbor print

0 router-id=10.1.1.5 address=10.1.1.5 interface=ether1 priority=1 dr-address=10.1.1.4
backup-dr-address=10.1.1.3 state="Full" state-changes=6 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=4m53s

1 router-id=10.1.1.3 address=10.1.1.3 interface=ether1 priority=1 dr-address=1.1.1.4

backup-dr-address=10.1.1.3 state="Full" state-changes=6 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=4m43s

2 address=10.1.1.2 interface=ether1 priority=0 state="Down" state-changes=2

3 address=10.1.1.1 interface=ether1 priority=0 state="Down" state-changes=2

On Router D:

[admin@D] > routing ospf neighbor print

0 address=10.1.1.4 interface=ether1 priority=1 state="Down" state-changes=2

1 router-id=10.1.1.3 address=10.1.1.3 interface=ether1 priority=1 dr-address=10.1.1.4

backup-dr-address=10.1.1.3 state="Full" state-changes=6 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=6m8s

2 router-id=10.1.1.2 address=10.1.1.2 interface=ether1 priority=0 dr-address=10.1.1.4

backup-dr-address=10.1.1.3 state="Full" state-changes=5 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=6m4s

3 router-id=10.1.1.1 address=10.1.1.1 interface=ether1 priority=0 dr-address=10.1.1.4

backup-dr-address=10.1.1.3 state="Full" state-changes=5 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=6m4s

OSPF Forwarding Address

OSPF may take extra hops at the boundary between OSPF routing domain and another Autonomous System. By
looking at the following illustration you can see that even if router R3 is directly connected, packets will travel
through the OSPF network and use router R1 as a gateway to other AS.
To overcome this problem, concept of OSPF forwarding-address was introduced. This concept allows to say "Send
traffic directly to router R1". This is achieved by setting forwarding address other than itself in LSA updates
indicating that there is an alternate next-hop. Mostly all the time forwarding address is left 0.0.0.0, suggesting that
the route is reachable only through the advertising router.
Sere the full example
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:OSPF and Point-to-Point interfaces 479

Manual:OSPF and Point-to-Point interfaces

OSPF configuration on PPP interfaces often is a subject to misunderstanding. You need to keep in mind two things:
1. There is no need to explicitly configure an interface in "/routing ospf interface" to start running OSPF on it. Only
"routing ospf network" configuration determines whether the interface will be active or not. If it has matching
network network, i.e. the address of the interface falls within range of some network, then the interface will be
running OSPF. Else it won't participate in the protocol. "/routing ospf interface" is used only if specific
configuration for some interface is needed - typically to configure different link cost.
2. In case of PPP interfaces, the interface will be active if either local address or the address of remote are matched
against some network. See sample configuration for an illustration. This counterintuitive behaviour will be
changed in 3.x routing-test package. Only remote address will be considered there.
• Also remember that running OSPF on a big number of (flapping) PPP interfaces is not recommended.

Configuration example: use local address as OSPF network

Assume we have a PPPoE tunnel between two routers 10.0.0.134 and 10.0.0.133. Configure OSPF on the PPPoE
interface on the first router:

[admin@I] > /ip address p

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.0.0.133/24 10.0.0.0 10.0.0.255 ether1
1 D 10.1.1.254/32 10.1.1.1 0.0.0.0 pppoe-out1
[admin@I] > routing ospf network add network=10.1.1.254/32 area=backbone

Do the same on the second router:

[admin@II] > /ip address p

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.0.0.134/24 10.0.0.0 10.0.0.255 ether1
1 D 10.1.1.1/32 10.1.1.254 0.0.0.0 <pppoe-atis>
[admin@II] > routing ospf network add network=10.1.1.1/32 area=backbone

An OSPF adjacency has been established; neighbor at 10.1.1.1 is in 'Full' state:

[admin@I] > routing ospf neighbor pr

router-id=10.0.0.133 address=10.1.1.254 priority=1 dr-address=0.0.0.0
backup-dr-address-id=0.0.0.0 state="2-Way" state-changes=0 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0
router-id=10.0.0.134 address=10.1.1.1 priority=1 dr-address=0.0.0.0
backup-dr-address-id=0.0.0.0 state="Full" state-changes=5 ls-retransmits=0
ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0
[admin@I] >
Manual:OSPF and Point-to-Point interfaces 480

External links
• OSPF in MT manual [1]
• OSPF RFC [2]

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ docs/ ros/ 2. 9/ routing/ ospf
[2] http:/ / rfc-ref. org/ RFC-TEXTS/ 2328/ contents. html

Manual:OSPFv3 with Quagga

In this example we demonstrate interoperability of MikroTik 3.x with Quagga in multi-area OSPF setup with load
balancing.
RouterOS version 3.16 and Quagga 0.99.11 are used respectively.

Router A
/ipv6 address
add address=2003::1:0:0:0:1/64 advertise=no interface=ether2
add address=2003::4:0:0:0:1/64 advertise=no interface=ether1
add address=2003::1/64 advertise=no interface=ToInternet

/routing ospf-v3
set router-id=0.0.0.1 distribute-default=always-as-type-1

/routing ospf-v3 interface

Manual:OSPFv3 with Quagga 481

add interface=ether1 area=backbone

add interface=ether2 area=backbone

Router B
/ipv6 address
add address=2003::1:0:0:0:2/64 advertise=no interface=ether1
add address=2003::2:0:0:0:2/64 advertise=no interface=ether2

/routing ospf-v3
set router-id=0.0.0.2
/routing ospf-v3 area
add area-id=0.0.0.1 name=area1
/routing ospf-v3 interface
add interface=ether1 area=backbone
add interface=ether2 area=area1

Quagga Router
debian:~# ip -6 addr add 2003:0:0:3::4/64 dev eth1
debian:~# ip -6 addr add 2003:0:0:4::4/64 dev eth2
debian:~#
debian:~# cat /etc/quagga/ospf6d.conf
...
interface eth1
ipv6 ospf6 cost 10

interface eth2
ipv6 ospf6 cost 10

router ospf6
router-id 0.0.0.4
interface eth1 area 0.0.0.1
interface eth2 area 0.0.0.0

debian:~# telnet ::1 2606

Hello, this is Quagga (version 0.99.11).
Copyright 1996-2005 Kunihiro Ishiguro, et al.

...

quagga# show ipv6 ospf6 route

*N E1 ::/0 fe80::1200:ff:fe00:100 eth2 00:33:50
*N IA 2003:0:0:1::/64 fe80::1200:ff:fe00:100 eth2 00:32:55
*N IE 2003:0:0:2::/64 fe80::1200:ff:fe00:100 eth2 00:02:44
*N IA 2003:0:0:2::/64 fe80::1200:ff:fe00:301 eth1 00:02:37
*N IE 2003:0:0:3::/64 fe80::1200:ff:fe00:100 eth2 00:02:39
N IA 2003:0:0:3::/64 :: eth1 00:02:46
*N IA 2003:0:0:4::/64 :: eth2 00:33:50
Manual:OSPFv3 with Quagga 482

Router C
/ipv6 address
add address=2003::2:0:0:0:3/64 advertise=no interface=ether1
add address=2003::3:0:0:0:3/64 advertise=no interface=ether2

/routing ospf-v3
set router-id=0.0.0.3
/routing ospf-v3 area
add area-id=0.0.0.1 name=area1
/routing ospf-v3 interface
add interface=ether1 area=area1
add interface=ether2 area=area1

[admin@C] /routing ospf-v3> route print

# DESTINATION STATE COST
0 ::/0 ext-1 21
1 2003::1:0:0:0:0/64 inter-area 20
2 2003::2:0:0:0:0/64 intra-area 10
3 2003::3:0:0:0:0/64 intra-area 10
4 2003::4:0:0:0:0/64 inter-area 20

[admin@C] /routing ospf-v3> route print detail

0 destination=::/0 state=ext-1 gateway=fe80::1200:ff:fe00:201,fe80::1200:ff:fe00:ff00
interface=ether1,ether2 cost=21 area=external

1 destination=2003::1:0:0:0:0/64 state=inter-area gateway=fe80::1200:ff:fe00:201

interface=ether1 cost=20 area=area1

2 destination=2003::2:0:0:0:0/64 state=intra-area gateway=:: interface=ether1 cost=10

area=area1

3 destination=2003::3:0:0:0:0/64 state=intra-area gateway=:: interface=ether2 cost=10

area=area1

4 destination=2003::4:0:0:0:0/64 state=inter-area gateway=fe80::1200:ff:fe00:ff00

interface=ether2 cost=20 area=area1

Ping an "Internet" address from Router C (traffic will go through ECMP route):

[admin@C] > /ping 2003::1

2003::1 64 byte ping: ttl=63 time=20 ms
2003::1 64 byte ping: ttl=63 time=12 ms
2003::1 64 byte ping: ttl=63 time=9 ms
2003::1 64 byte ping: ttl=63 time=12 ms
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 9/13.2/20 ms

[admin@C] > /tool traceroute 2003::1

Manual:OSPFv3 with Quagga 483

ADDRESS STATUS
1 2003::2:0:0:0:2 19ms 7ms 15ms
2 2003::1 13ms 13ms 12ms

Manual:Routing/BGP
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) allows setting up an interdomain dynamic routing system that automatically
updates routing tables of devices running BGP in case of network topology changes.
MikroTik RouterOS supports BGP Version 4, as defined in RFC 4271
Standards and Technologies:
• RFC 4271 Border Gateway Protocol 4
• RFC 4456 BGP Route Reflection
• RFC 5065 Autonomous System Confederations for BGP
• RFC 1997 BGP Communities Attribute
• RFC 2385 TCP MD5 Authentication for BGPv4
• RFC 5492 Capabilities Advertisement with BGP-4
• RFC 2918 Route Refresh Capability
• RFC 4760 Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4
• RFC 2545 Use of BGP-4 Multiprotocol Extensions for IPv6 Inter-Domain Routing
• RFC 4893 BGP Support for Four-octet AS Number Space

Instance
Sub-menu: /routing bgp instance

Property Description

as (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: ) 32-bit BGP autonomous system number. Value can be entered in AS-Plain and AS-Dot formats.

client-to-client-reflection (yes | In case this instance is a route reflector: whether to redistribute routes learned from one routing
no; Default: yes) reflection client to other clients.

cluster-id (IP address; Default: ) In case this instance is a route reflector: cluster ID of the router reflector cluster this instance
belongs to. This attribute helps to recognize routing updates that comes from another route
reflector in this cluster and avoid routing information looping. Note that normally there is only
one route reflector in a cluster; this case 'cluster-id' does not need to be configured and BGP
router ID is used instead

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the instance.

confederation (integer [0..4294967295]; In case of BGP confederations: autonomous system number that identifies the [local]
Default: ) confederation as a whole.

confederation-peers (list/range of In case of BGP confederations: list of AS numbers internal to the [local] confederation. Range of
integer[0..4294967295]; Default: ) as numbers are also supported. For example 10,20,30-50.
Manual:Routing/BGP 484

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether instance is disabled.

ignore-as-path-len (yes | no; Default: Whether to ignore AS_PATH attribute in BGP route selection algorithm
no)

name (string; Default: ) BGP instance name

out-filter (string; Default: ) Output routing filter chain used by all BGP peers belonging to this instance

redistribute-connected (yes | no; If enabled, this BGP instance will redistribute the information about connected routes, i.e., routes
Default: no) to the networks that can be directly reached.

redistribute-ospf (yes | no; Default: no) If enabled, this BGP instance will redistribute the information about routes learned by OSPF

redistribute-other-bgp (yes | no; If enabled, this BGP instance will redistribute the information about routes learned by other BGP
Default: no) instances

redistribute-rip (yes | no; Default: no) If enabled, this BGP instance will redistribute the information about routes learned by RIP

redistribute-static (yes | no; Default: If enabled, the router will redistribute the information about static routes added to its routing
no) database, i.e., routes that have been created using the '/ip route add' command on the router

router-id (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) BGP Router ID (for this instance). If set to 0.0.0.0, BGP will use one of router's IP addresses.

routing-table (string; Default: ) Name of routing table this BGP instance operates on. Non-default routing-table and list of VRFs
cannot be configured for the same instance at the same time.
Available starting from v4.3

VRF
Sub-menu: /routing bgp instance vrf
Instance related VRF configuration

Property Description

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the VRF.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

in-filter (string; Default: ) Name of the routing filter chain that is applied to the incoming routing information

instance (string; Default: ) Name of the instance this configuration applies to.

out-filter (string; Default: ) Name of the routing filter chain that is applied to the outgoing routing information

redistribute-connected (yes | no; Default: no) Redistribute connected routes that belongs to VRF.

redistribute-ospf (yes | no; Default: no) Redistribute OSPF routes that belongs to VRF.

redistribute-other-bgp (yes | no; Default: no) Redistribute BGP routes that belongs to VRF received from other BGP instance.

redistribute-rip (yes | no; Default: no) Redistribute RIP routes that belongs to VRF.

redistribute-static (yes | no; Default: no) Redistribute static routes that belongs to VRF.

routing-mark (string; Default: ) Name of the routing-mark used by VRF configured in /ip route vrf'menu.

Peer
Sub-menu: /routing bgp peer
Manual:Routing/BGP 485

Property Description

address-families (ip | ipv6 | l2vpn | List of address families about which this peer will exchange routing information. The remote peer
l2vpn-cisco | vpnv4; Default: ip) must support (they usually do) BGP capabilities optional parameter to negotiate any other families
than IP.

allow-as-in (integer [0..10]; Default: ) How many times to allow own AS number in AS-PATH, before discarding a prefix.

as-override (yes | no; Default: no) If set, then all instances of remote peer's AS number in BGP AS PATH attribute are replaced with
local AS number before sending route update to that peer. Happens before routing filters and
prepending.

cisco-vpls-nlri-len-fmt VPLS NLRI length format type. Used for compatibility with Cisco VPLS. Read more>>.
(auto-bits | auto-bytes | bits | bytes; Default:
)

comment (string; Default: ) Description of the peer.

default-originate (always | Specifies how to distribute default route

if-installed | never; Default: never)

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether peer is disabled.

hold-time (time[3s..1h] | infinity; Specifies the BGP Hold Time value to use when negotiating with peers. According to the BGP
Default: 3m) specification, if router does not receive successive KEEPALIVE and/or UPDATE and/or
NOTIFICATION messages within the period specified in the Hold Time field of the OPEN
message, then the BGP connection to the peer will be closed.
The minimal hold-time value of both peers will be actually used (note that the special value 0 or
'infinity' is lower than any other values)
• infinity - never expire the connection and never send keepalive messages.

in-filter (string; Default: ) Name of the routing filter chain that is applied to the incoming routing information

instance (string; Default: default) Name of the instance this peer belongs to.

keepalive-time (time [1s..30m];

Default: )

max-prefix-limit (integer Maximum number of prefixes to accept from a specific peer. When this limit is exceeded, TCP
[0..4294967295]; Default: ) connection between peers is closed.

max-prefix-restart-time (time Minimum time interval after which peers can reestablish BGP session.
[1m..1w3d] | infinity; Default: ) • infinity - session is not reestablished until administrator's intervention.

multihop (yes | no; Default: no) Specifies whether the remote peer is more than one hop away.
This option affects outgoing nexthop selection as described in RFC 4271 (for EBGP only, excluding
EBGP peers local to the confederation).
It also affects:
• whether to accept connections from peers that are not in the same network (the remote address of
the connection is used for this check);
• whether to accept incoming routes with NEXT_HOP attribute that is not in the same network as
the address used to establish the connection;
• the target-scope of the routes installed from this peer; routes from multi-hop or IBGP peers
resolve their nexthops through IGP routes by default.

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the peer

nexthop-choice (default | force-self | Affects the outgoing NEXT_HOP attribute selection. Note that nexthops set in filters always takes
propagate; Default: default) precedence. Also note that nexthop is not changed on route reflection, expect when it's set in filter.
• default - select the nexthop as described in RFC 4271
• force-self - always use a local address of the interface that used to connect to the peer as the
nexthop;
• propagate - try to propagate further the nexthop received; i.e. if the route has BGP
NEXT_HOP attribute, then use it as the nexthop, otherwise fall back to the default case
Manual:Routing/BGP 486

out-filter (string; Default: ) Name of the routing filter chain that is applied to the outgoing routing information. If instance has
also configured out-filter, then instance filters are applied firs and only then peer's filters.

passive (yes | no; Default: no) If set to yes, then connection attempts to remote peer are not made. The remote peer must initialize
connection in this case. Available starting from v4.3

remote-address (IP/IPv6 address; Address of the remote peer. If remote address is IPv6 link-local address then interface must be
Default: ) specified after '%', for example, fe80::21a:4dff:fe5d:8e56%ether1

remote-as (integer [0..4294967295]; 32-bit AS number of the remote peer. AS number can be specified in AS-Plain and AS-Dot formats.
Default: )

remote-port (integer [0..65535]; Remote peers port to establish tcp session. If not set, then default 179 port will be used.
Default: )

remove-private-as (yes | no; Default: If set, then BGP AS-PATH attribute is removed before sending out route update if attribute contains
no) only private AS numbers. removal process happens before routing filters are applied and before local
AS number is prepended to the AS path. Option is available starting from v4.3.

route-reflect (yes | no; Default: no) Specifies whether this peer is route reflection client.

tcp-md5-key (string; Default: ) Key used to authenticate the connection with TCP MD5 signature as described in RFC 2385. If not
specified, authentication is not used.

ttl (integer [1..255] | default; Default: Time To Live, the hop limit for TCP connection. For example, if 'ttl=1' then only single hop
default) neighbors will be able to establish the connection. This property only affects EBGP peers.
• default - system's default TTL value is used

update-source (IPv4 | IPv6 | Interface | If address is specified, this address is used as the source address of the outgoing TCP connection.
none; Default: ) If interface name is specified, an address belonging to the interface is used as described.
This property is ignored, if the value specified is not a valid address of the router or name an interface
with active addresses. Do not specify name of interface that is added as a bridge port here!

use-bfd (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to use BFD protocol for fast state detection.

Read only status properties:

Property Description

as4-capability (yes | no) Shows whether peer has 4-byte AS support

established (yes | no) Set to yes if BGP peering is established.

local-address (IP | IPv6) Address that is used as source address of BGP packets.

prefix-count (integer) Number of routing prefixes received from this peer currently in routing
table.

refresh-capability (yes | no) Whether route refresh is supported by the peer

remote-hold-time (time) Hold time set on remote peer.

remote-id (IP) Remote peer's instance ID.

state (idle | connect | active | opensent | openconfirm | BGP protocol state.

established)

updates-received (integer) Total number of reachable routing prefixes received

updates-sent (integer) Total number of reachable routing prefixes sent

uptime (time) Shows how long BGP has established state.

used-hold-time (time) Negotiated and used hold time on both peers

used-keepalive-time (time) Negotiated and used keepalive time on both peers (used-hold-time / 3)

withdraws-received (integer) Total number of withdrawn routing prefixes received.

withdraws-sent (integer) Total number of withdrawn routing prefixes advertised

Manual:Routing/BGP 487

Advertisements
Sub-menu: /routing bgp advertisements
Read only information about outgoing routing information currently advertised.
This information is calculated dynamically after 'print' command is issued. As a result, it may not correspond to the
information that at the exact moment has been sent out. Especially if in case of slow connection, routing information
prepared for output will spend long time in buffers. 'advertisements print' will show as things should be, not as they
are!
Note: At the moment AS-PATH attribute for advertised routes is shown without prepends.

Property Description

aggregator (IP) Advertised AGGREGATOR attribute value

as-path (string) Advertised AS_PATH attribute value

atomic-aggregate (yes | no) Advertised ATOMIC_AGGREGATE attribute value

bgp-ext-communities ()

cluster-list (string) Advertised CLUSTER_LIST attribute value

communities ()

local-pref (integer) Advertised LOCAL_PREF attribute value

med (integer) Advertised MULTI_EXIT_DISC attribute value

nexthop (IP | IPv6) Advertised NEXT_HOP attribute value

origin (igp | egp | incomplete) Advertised ORIGIN attribute value

originator-id (IP) Advertised ORIGINATOR_ID attribute value

peer (string) Name of the peer this information is advertised to

prefix (IPv4 | IPv6 prefix) Advertised NLRI prefix

Network
Sub-menu: /routing bgp network
BGP network configuration. BGP Networks is a list of IP prefixes to be advertised.
Manual:Routing/BGP 488

Property Description

network (IP prefix;) the aggregate prefix

synchronize (yes | no; Default: no) install a route for this network only when there is an active IGP route matching this network

Aggregate
Sub-menu: /routing bgp aggregate
BGP allows the aggregation of specific routes into one route with. This menu ('/routing bgp aggregate') allows to
specify which routes you want to aggregate, and what attributes to use for the route created by aggregation.

Property Description

advertise-filter (string;) name of the filter chain used to select the routes from which to inherit attributes

attribute-filter (string;) name of the filter chain used to set the attributes of the aggregate route

include-igp (yes | no; Default: ) By default, BGP aggregate takes into account only BGP routes. Use this option to take IGP and
connected routes into consideration.

inherit-attributes (yes | no; whether to inherit BGP attributes from aggregated routes
Default: yes)

instance (string;) the instance this network belongs to

prefix (IP prefix;) the aggregate prefix

summary-only (yes | no; Default: yes) whether to suppress advertisements of all routes that fall within the range of this aggregate

suppress-filter (string;) name of the filter chain used to select the routes to be suppressed

Read only status property:

routes-used (integer) aggregated route statistics.

• in console- list of route console IDs used;
• in winbox- number of routes used.

Terminology
• aggregated routes - all routes, that fall within the range of this aggregate; they possibly are suppressed;
• aggregate route - route created by aggregation.
Note: Each aggregate will only affect routes coming from peers that belong to it's instance. suppress-filter is
useful only if summary-only=no; advertise-filter is useful only if inherit-attributes=yes.
If result attribute-filter match reject or discard, the aggregate route is not created.
Manual:Routing/BGP 489

Vpnv4 route
Sub-menu: /routing bgp vpnv4-route
Read only information about vpnv4 routing information currently advertised.

Property Description

bgp-as-path (string;) the AS_PATH attribute value

bgp-atomic-aggregate (string;) the ATOMIC_AGGREGATE attribute value

bgp-communities (;)

bgp-ext-communities (string;)

bgp-local-pref (string;) the LOCAL_PREF attribute value

bgp-med (string;) the MULTI_EXIT_DISC attribute value

bgp-origin (igp|egp|incomplete;) the ORIGIN attribute value

bgp-prepend (string;)

bgp-weight (string;)

dst-address (string;)

gateway (string;)

in-label (integer;) assigned MPLS in label

interface (string;)

out-label (integer;) assigned MPLS out label

route-distinguisher (string;)

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ 490

Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ

Problem: BGP session is not established
BGP uses TCP, so to discover the cause of the problem, you can start with testing TCP connectivity. One way to do
that is as simple as /system telnet <remote-ip> 179 and check if the TCP connection can be established, and BGP
port 179 is open and reachable.
If this is eBGP, make sure you have configured multihop=yes and TTL settings as needed. Use /routing bgp peer
print status to see the current state of BGP connection.
Also note that if the remote peer is not supporting BGP Capabilities Advertisement (RFC 2842), some extra time
will be needed for session establishment. The establishment will fail at the first time in this case, because of
unknown options in BGP OPEN message. It should succeed at second attempt (i.e. after about a minute) and in any
further attempts, because RouterOS will remember the offending options for that peer and not include them in BGP
OPEN messages anymore.

Problem: BGP session has been established, but routing updates are ignored
NLRI (Network Layer Reachability Information) is ignored if path attributes are invalid. Turn on BGP debug logs to
see the exact cause of the problem. (/system logging add topics=bgp,!raw).
One frequent case is unacceptable BGP next-hop. (Read here more about RouterOS and BGP next-hops.) In this case
you must fix the next-hop on the sending side. In case the sender also is MT, you can use nexthop-choice peer
setting to modify default next-hop selection preferences. If that fails, specify next-hop manually using
set-out-nexthop routing filter.

Question: How to check if a specific route exists in IP routing table?

Finding a route by prefix is pretty fast:

/ip route print where dst-address = 193.23.33.0/24

To find all routes with prefixes falling in a range:

/ip route print where dst-address in 193.23.0.0/16

You can also search routes by other attributes, but it will be much slower and can take some time on a router having
full BGP feed.
For example, since RouterOS 3.23 you can use this syntax to match routes having originated from a specific AS
30621:

[atis@SM_BGP] > /ip route print detail where bgp-as-path ~ "30621\$"

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 ADb dst-address=12.151.74.0/23
gateway=x.x.x.x recursive via y.y.y.y ether1 distance=20
scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path="2588,42979,702,701,7018,30621"
bgp-origin=igp received-from=x.x.x.x

1 ADb dst-address=12.151.76.0/22
gateway=x.x.x.x recursive via y.y.y.y ether1 distance=20
scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path="2588,42979,702,701,7018,30621"
Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ 491

bgp-atomic-aggregate=yes bgp-origin=igp received-from=x.x.x.x

Problem: Routes are exchanged and installed in IP route table, but they stay inactive
Routes must be resolved to become active; it's possible that you need to change scope or target-scope attributes for
some routes.

Question: How to filter out something?

Use routing filters. For example, to filter out routes with a specific BGP community, add this rule:

/routing filter add bgp-communities=111:222 chain=bgp-in action=discard

Then tell BGP peer to use that filter chain:

/routing bgp peer set peer in-filter=bgp-in

There is also an out-filter BGP peer parameter for filtering outgoing BGP updates.
In recent RouterOS versions bgp-as-path filter accepts regular expressions. Community filtering by regular
expressions is not yet possible.

Question: How to quickly check how many routes there are in route table?
For all routes use:

ip route print count-only

To see route count from a particular peer look at prefix-count property in:

route bgp peer print status

Question: How to seen routes advertised to, and routes received from a particular peer?
To see routes advertised to a particular peer (similar to Cisco command show ip bgp neighbor x.x.x.x
advertised-routes) use:

routing bgp advertisements print

Or

routing bgp advertisements print <peer_name>

Note: At the moment AS-PATH attribute is displayed without prepends!

To see routes received from a particular peer (similar to Cisco command show ip bgp neighbor
x.x.x.x received-routes) use:

ip route print where received-from=<peer_name>

Note: Routes that were discarded (with action discard) in incoming filters, or ignored because of invalid
attributes (e.g. not directly reachable next-hop for EBGP) will not be displayed!

Question: Is load balancing possible with MT BGP?

Yes. Even though BGP itself cannot propagate multiple next-hops for a single route through the
network, there are ways how to have routes with multiple next-hops on a router.
Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ 492

One way is to set multiple next-hops with routing filter.

routing filter add chain=bgp-in set-in-nexthop=10.0.1.1,10.0.2.1

Another way is to resolve BGP next-hop (if it is not directly reachable) through a static or OSPF route with multiple
next-hops.

ip route add dst-address=x.x.x.x/y gateway=10.0.1.1,10.0.2.1

See also: BGP Load Balancing with two interfaces.

Question: How to announce routes?

If your don't have many routes to announce and want the best control over them, use BGP networks or aggregates.
Note that both maximal BGP network and aggregate count is limited to 200.
Otherwise use route redistribution options, configurable under BGP instance settings.

Question: What does BGP network synchronize option exactly mean?

Since version 3.30 routing-test it means "do not announce this network, unless there is a matching active IGP or
connected route in IP route table". "Matching" in this case means: with exactly the same prefix.

Question: How to control advertised routing information?

Use routing filters.
To advertise the same information (e.g. some BGP attribute value) to all peers, use BGP instance out-filter:

/routing filter add set-bgp-communities=111:222 chain=bgp-out

/routing bgp instance set default out-filter=bgp-out

To send routing information to different peers, use peer specific filters. For example, if you want to advertise a lower
preference value (higher path cost) to one of the peers, you can prepend your AS number multiple times to the BGP
AS_PATH attribute:

/routing filter add set-bgp-prepend=4 chain=bgp-out-peer1

/routing bgp peer set peer1 out-filter=bgp-out-peer1

Use /routing bgp advertisements print to see what routing information exactly is advertised to peers.

Problem: Looks like my routing filter isn't working

Most likely prefix matcher is configured incorrectly. For example, say that you want to configure filter that will
discard all routes falling under prefix 1.1.1.0/24.
The correct way to do this is with specifying prefix-length matcher:

add prefix=1.1.1.0/24 prefix-length=24-32 action=discard chain=bgp-in

This rule is incorrect (default netmask is /32, so it will match only prefix 1.1.1.0/32):

add prefix=1.1.1.0 prefix-length=24-32 action=discard chain=bgp-in

This is incorrect too (because it will match only route with netmask 255.255.255.0)

add prefix=1.1.1.0/24 action=discard chain=bgp-in

Use filter action log to see which routes are matched by a routing filter.
Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ 493

Question: How to announce just a single large IP prefix instead of many smaller (i.e. more specific) prefixes?
Use BGP aggregates if you need to aggregate multiple routes in a single one. An aggregate will be announced one if
there are some active routes with more specific netmasks falling under it. When an aggregate becomes active, a
corresponding blackhole route is a automatically created.
By default, BGP aggregates take in account only BGP routes. To also include IGP and connected routes in
consideration, use include-igp configuration option.

Question: How to aggregate IGP routes?

Since 3.30 you can specify include-igp in BGP aggregate configuration. Example:

ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.0/25 gateway=10.0.0.1

ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.128/25 gateway=10.0.0.2
routing bgp aggregate add instance=default prefix=10.9.9.0/24 include-igp=yes

Results:
[admin@MikroTik] > routing bgp advertisements print

PEER PREFIX NEXTHOP AS-PATH ORIGIN LOCAL-PREF

peer1 10.9.9.0/24 10.0.0.131 incomplete

Use routing filters to control which routes are aggregated. For example, if you don't want to aggregate connected
routes:

routing filter add chain=aggregate-out protocol=connect action=discard

routing bgp aggregate set [find] advertise-filter=aggregate-out

Question: How to advertise the default route?

To send default route to a particular peer, set default-originate=always or if-installed for that peer.

Problem: Routes are announced, but with attributes not from IP routing table
There exists a limitation in MT BGP operation: if a BGP network with synchronization turned off, or default route
generated by default-originate=always configuration statement is announced, the attributes of that route will not be
taken from routing table.
If synchronize=yes or default-originate=if-installed is used, the attributes of the announced route will be taken
from routing table.

Question: Can MT propagate BGP route updates without installing them in IP route table (i.e. serve as a pure
route reflector)?
No, it's not possible.

Question: Does MT BGP support 4-octet AS numbers?

Yes. For input, both ASPLAIN (i.e. xxxxxx) and ASDOT (i.e. xxx.xxx) formats are supported; for output,
ASPLAIN only.

Question: What are the specifics of MT BGP route selection algorithm?

The algorithm is described here. The algorithm follows BGP RFC closely, with a few differences:
• Cisco-style weight is used as the first and most important selection criteria;
• AS path length comparison can be turned off by a configuration parameter;
• locally originated BGP routes are preferred in case of same AS path length, weight, and local-preference values;
Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ 494

• interior cost calculation and comparison step is skipped.

The algorithm is used only to compare BGP routes from the same BGP instance. For different instances, only
"distance" attributes are compared.

Question: How much memory is required to keep the global BGP route table?
Our recommendations are at least 256 MB RAM for a single copy of the table and at least 512 MB RAM for two or
three copies.
Assuming the Internet route table size ~300 000 routes, for the first copy of the table, with routes resolved and
active, about 155 MB extra memory is needed. This is only for the first copy specifically, the amount of RAM
needed for each additional copy of the table is significantly less than that number.
RAM usage on RB1000 (BGP feed size 301 480 routes, no redistribution):
• No BGP routes: 26 MB
• Single copy: 181 MB
• Two copies: 241 MB
• Three copies: 299 MB
Memory requirements will increase if incoming routing filters that change route attributes are used. That happens
because unchanged copy of the route attributes received also will be stored in RAM, to be used in case of later
routing filter change.
The requirements will also increase depending on count of peers to which routes are advertised.
It is not recommended to turn on SNMP on routers with full BGP feed!

Question: How to hide my own AS?

To hide your own AS you need to set up routing filter in output chain and set set-bgp-prepend. If value is set to 0
then peer's own AS is removed from AS_PATH.
Manual:BGP soft reconfiguration alternatives in RouterOS 495

Manual:BGP soft reconfiguration alternatives in

RouterOS
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

What is soft reconfiguration?

When a route is received from a dynamic routing protocol, it is passed through routing filters. These filters may
change some attributes of the route or discard it altogether.
When the routing filters change, they must be reapplied to routes from BGP (and other protocols, but we are
focusing on BGP here). One way to do is reset BGP session, that is, tear down the connection with peer and
re-establish it again. The disadvantage of this approach are obvious.
Soft reconfiguration means that filtering policy can be reapplied after a change without session reset. For RouterOS,
both dynamic and static variants are possible.

Static soft-reconfiguration
What could be the effect of routing filters to a route? There are two possible cases.
CASE 1: Filters only change some attributes of the route. The orginal received attributes always are stored with the
route. They are use to calculate new routing table attributes if filters changes. This process is trigerred automatically.
CASE 2: The route is discarded by filters. If the route is discarded, original attributes are not saved and information
about it is lost. To avoid that, use action=reject in filters instead of action=discard. Now the route is saved, but is
not eligible to become active (that is, it will not be installed in kernel routing table or redistributed to protocols).
• + Router does not lose routing information, because session is not reset.
• - Memory overhead for storing rejected routes.
Example:
Original configuration (routes are rejected):
[admin@A] > routing filter add chain=bgp-in action=reject prefix=4.0.0.0/8 prefix-length=8-32
[admin@A] > routing bgp peer set peer1 in-filter=bgp-in
[admin@A] > ip route print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 10.0.0.1 1 ether1
1 ADb 3.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
2 Db 4.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 20 ether1
3 Db 4.21.104.0/24 192.65.184.3 20 ether1
4 Db 4.21.112.0/23 192.65.184.3 20 ether1
5 Db 4.21.130.0/23 192.65.184.3 20 ether1

Change filters to less restrictive:

Manual:BGP soft reconfiguration alternatives in RouterOS 496

[admin@A] > routing filter disable 0

[admin@A] > ip route pr
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 10.0.0.1 1 ether1
1 ADb 3.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
2 ADb 4.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
3 ADb 4.21.104.0/24 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
4 ADb 4.21.112.0/23 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
5 ADb 4.21.130.0/23 192.65.184.3 200 ether1

Dynamic soft-reconfiguration
In this case, your BGP routing peer must support route refresh capability. Enter /routing bgp peer print status in
CLI to check this.
• + No additional memory is used
• - Peer must support this capability.
• - It's not done automatically. You must issue /routing bgp peer refresh command after changes in filters are
finished.
Example:
Original configuration (routes are discarded):
[admin@A] > routing filter add chain=bgp-in action=reject prefix=4.0.0.0/8 prefix-length=8-32
[admin@A] > ip route pr
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 10.0.0.1 1 ether1
1 ADb 3.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 200 ether1

Change filters to less restrictive and send refresh request:

[admin@A] > routing filter disable 0

[admin@A] > routing bgp peer refresh peer1
[admin@A] > ip route pr
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 10.0.0.1 1 ether1
1 ADb 3.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
2 ADb 4.0.0.0/8 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
3 ADb 4.21.104.0/24 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
4 ADb 4.21.112.0/23 192.65.184.3 200 ether1
Manual:BGP soft reconfiguration alternatives in RouterOS 497

Summary
• Do nothing unless the filter change changes discard status for some prefixes.
• Use routing bgp peer refresh comand after filter change if peer supports this capability.
• Use action=reject in filters in other cases.

Manual:BGP Load Balancing with two interfaces

Applies to RouterOS: 3, v4

NB: RouterOS version 3.13 or later with routing-test package is required for this to work
In these examples we show how to do load balancing when there are multiple equal cost links between
two BGP routers. The "multiple recursive next-hop resolution" feature is used to achieve that.
The BGP session is established between loopback interfaces; update-source configuration setting is used to bind the
BGP connection to the right interface.

Example with iBGP

Network Diagram

Configuration
On Router A:

# loopback interface
/interface bridge add name=lobridge

# addresses
/ip address add address=1.1.1.1/24 interface=ether1
/ip address add address=2.2.2.1/24 interface=ether2
/ip address add address=9.9.9.1/32 interface=lobridge

# ECMP route to peer's loopback

/ip route add dst-address=9.9.9.2/32 gateway=1.1.1.2,2.2.2.2

# BGP
Manual:BGP Load Balancing with two interfaces 498

/routing bgp instance set default as=65000

/routing bgp add name=peer1 remote-address=9.9.9.2 remote-as=65000 update-source=lobridge

On Router B:

# loopback interface
/interface bridge add name=lobridge

# addresses
/ip address add address=1.1.1.2/24 interface=ether1
/ip address add address=2.2.2.2/24 interface=ether2
/ip address add address=9.9.9.2/32 interface=lobridge

# ECMP route to peer's loopback

/ip route add dst-address=9.9.9.1/32 gateway=1.1.1.1,2.2.2.1

# BGP
/routing bgp instance set default as=65000
/routing bgp add name=peer1 remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65000 update-source=lobridge

# a route to advertise
/routing bgp network add network=4.4.4.0/24

Results
Check that BGP connection is established:

[admin@B] > /routing bgp peer print status

Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65000
tcp-md5-key="" nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=no hold-time=3m
ttl=255 in-filter="" out-filter="" address-families=ip
update-source=lobridge default-originate=no remote-id=1.1.1.1
local-address=9.9.9.2 uptime=28s prefix-count=0 updates-sent=1
updates-received=0 withdrawn-sent=0 withdrawn-received=0 remote-hold-time=3m
used-hold-time=3m used-keepalive-time=1m refresh-capability=yes
as4-capability=yes state=established

Route table on Router A:

[admin@A] > /ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTER...
0 ADC 1.1.1.0/24 1.1.1.1 0 ether1
1 ADC 2.2.2.0/24 2.2.2.1 0 ether2
2 ADb 4.4.4.0/24 r 9.9.9.2 200 ether1
ether2
3 ADC 9.9.9.1/32 9.9.9.1 0 lobridge
4 A S 9.9.9.2/32 r 1.1.1.2 1 ether1
Manual:BGP Load Balancing with two interfaces 499

r 2.2.2.2 ether2

[admin@A] > /ip route print detail

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 ADC dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 pref-src=1.1.1.1 interface=ether1 distance=0 scope=10

1 ADC dst-address=2.2.2.0/24 pref-src=2.2.2.1 interface=ether2 distance=0 scope=10

2 ADb dst-address=4.4.4.0/24 gateway=9.9.9.2 interface=ether1,ether2

gateway-state=recursive distance=200 scope=40 target-scope=30
bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=igp received-from=9.9.9.2

3 ADC dst-address=9.9.9.1/32 pref-src=9.9.9.1 interface=lobridge distance=0 scope=10

4 A S dst-address=9.9.9.2/32 gateway=1.1.1.2,2.2.2.2 interface=ether1,ether2

gateway-state=reachable,reachable distance=1 scope=30 target-scope=10

The route 4.4.4.0./24 is installed in Linux kernel now with two nexthops: 1.1.1.2 (on ether1) and 2.2.2.2 (on ether2).

Example with eBGP

Network Diagram

Configuration
Here the example given above is further developed for eBGP case. By default, eBGP peers are required to be directly
reachable. If we are using loopback interfaces, they technically are not, so multihop=yes configuration setting must
be specified.
On Router A:
/routing bgp instance set default as=65000
/routing bgp set peer1 remote-address=9.9.9.2 remote-as=65001 update-source=lobridge multihop=yes

On Router B:
/routing bgp instance set default as=65001
/routing bgp set peer1 remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65000 update-source=lobridge multihop=yes
Manual:BGP Load Balancing with two interfaces 500

Results
If we now print the route table on Router A, we see that the route from Router B is there, but it's not active:

...
2 Db dst-address=4.4.4.0/24 gateway=9.9.9.2 interface="" gateway-state=unreachable
distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path="65001" bgp-origin=igp
received-from=9.9.9.2
...

This is because eBGP routes are installed with lesser target-scope by default. To solve this, setup routing filter that
sets larger target-scope:

/routing filter add chain=bgp-in set-target-scope=30

/routing bgp set peer1 in-filter=bgp-in

Or else, modify scope attribute of the static route:

/ip route set [find dst-address=9.9.9.2/32] scope=10

Either way, the route to 4.4.4.0/24 should be active now:

2 ADb dst-address=4.4.4.0/24 gateway=9.9.9.2 interface=ether1,ether2

gateway-state=recursive distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10
bgp-as-path="65001" bgp-origin=igp received-from=9.9.9.2

Notes
• BGP itself as protocol does not supports ECMP routes. When a recursively resolved BGP route is propagated
further in the network, only one nexthop can be selected (as described here) and included in the BGP UPDATE
message.
• Corresponding Cisco syntax can be found here: Load Sharing with BGP in Single and Multihomed Environments:
Sample Configurations [1]

References
[1] http:/ / www. cisco. com/ en/ US/ tech/ tk365/ technologies_configuration_example09186a00800945bf. shtml
Manual:Simple BGP Multihoming 501

Manual:Simple BGP Multihoming

Applies to RouterOS: all

Setup
Ilustration below shows simple multihomed BGP setup. This setup can be used for load sharing
between ISPs or one ISP as main and other ISP as backup link.

Lets say that local Internet registry assigned to us two /24 networks: 10.1.1.0/24 and 10.1.2.0/24 and our AS is 30
(Private AS cannot be used in such setups). First network entirely is used for workstations in our corporate network.
Part of the other network is also used for workstation and another part is reserved for server. At this point our
company has only one server with address 10.1.2.130
The goal is advertise our assigned networks to BGP peers and use only one provider as main link, ISP2 link is for
backup only.
Note: This example does not show how to provide connectivity between core router, local networks and
servers

BGP Peering
Consider that IP connectivity between ISPs edge routers and Our Core router is already set up and
working properly. So we can start to establish BGP peering to both ISPs.

#set our AS number

/routing bgp instance
set default as=30
Manual:Simple BGP Multihoming 502

#add BGP peers

/routing bgp peer
add name=toISP1 remote-address=192.168.1.1 remote-as=10
add name=toISP2 remote-address=192.168.2.1 remote-as=20

If everything is set up properly, peer should have E (established) flag and router should receive bunch of BGP routes
from both ISPs

[admin@RB1100test] /routing bgp peer> print

Flags: X - disabled, E - established
# INSTANCE REMOTE-ADDRESS REMOTE-AS
0 E default 192.168.1.1 10
1 E default 192.168.1.2 20

Network Advertisements and Routing Filters

Now we can start to advertise our networks and filter out all other unnecessary advertisements.
First step is to advertise our networks

/routing bgp network

add network=10.1.1.0/24 synchronize=no
add network=10.1.2.0/24 synchronize=no

Next step is to specify which routing filter chains will be used

/routing bgp peer

set isp1 in-filter=isp1-in out-filter=isp1-out
set isp2 in-filter=isp2-in out-filter=isp2-out

in-filter is for incoming (received) prefixes, out-filter is for advertised prefixes.

Main/Backup link setup

After chains are specified we can accept our networks and drop everything else as we are not transit provider. As
you know one of the BGP attributes that influence best path selection is AS Path length (shorter AS Path is more
preferred). So as we want ISP2 to be backup only, we will use BGP AS prepend (increase length of AS path) to force
incoming traffic through ISP1.
Outgoing filters to ISP1:

/routing filter
#accept our networks
add chain=isp1-out prefix=10.1.1.0/24 action=accept
add chain=isp1-out prefix=10.1.2.0/24 action=accept
#discard the rest
add chain=isp1-out action=discard

Outgoing filters to ISP2:

/routing filter
#accept our networks and prepend AS path three times
add chain=isp2-out prefix=10.1.1.0/24 action=accept set-bgp-prepend=3
add chain=isp2-out prefix=10.1.2.0/24 action=accept set-bgp-prepend=3
#discard the rest
Manual:Simple BGP Multihoming 503

add chain=isp2-out action=discard

We also do not need any routes from both ISPs, because default route is used to force outgoing traffic through ISP1
and leave ISP2 as backup.

/routing filter
add chain=isp1-in action=discard
add chain=isp2-in action=discard

/ip route
add gateway=192.168.1.1 check-gateway=ping
add gateway=192.168.2.1 distance=30 check-gateway=ping

Load sharing setup

Using previous setup we are kind of wasting one link. So it is possible to redesign our setup as illustrated below to
utilize both links.

The same as in previous setup BGP AS prepend will be used to achieve our goal. This time we will advertise one of
the netowrks to ISP1 without prepend and another network prepended three times. The opposite for ISP2.
Outgoing filters to ISP1:

/routing filter
#accept our networks and prepend second network
add chain=isp1-out prefix=10.1.1.0/24 action=accept
add chain=isp1-out prefix=10.1.2.0/24 action=accept set-bgp-prepend=3
#discard the rest
add chain=isp1-out action=discard

Outgoing filters to ISP2:

Manual:Simple BGP Multihoming 504

/routing filter
#accept our networks and prepend first network
add chain=isp2-out prefix=10.1.1.0/24 action=accept set-bgp-prepend=3
add chain=isp2-out prefix=10.1.2.0/24 action=accept
#discard the rest
add chain=isp2-out action=discard

Configuration above is only for packets going to our network. There are several options how to deal with packets
going from our network:
• leave gateways as in main/backup configuration - this will result in only one link utilized and asymmetric routing
• use policy routing to force outgoing packets over the same link as incoming
• use BGP to receive full routing tables from both peers and using BGP attributes make part of the routes available
through one link and other part through another link. For example, traffic local to your country is sent over ISP1
the rest is sent over ISP2.
All those methods are covered in other articles and will not be shown here.
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Using scope and target-scope attributes

The problem
Not all routes that are in routing table are active. Main condition for route to be active is state of its nexthop. It
should be resolvable. Inactive routes are not used for packet forwarding. Dynamic routing protocols will only
redistribute active routes.
Route scope and target scope attributes can be used to change nexthop resolving. Normally nexthops can be resolved
only through routes that are on link. On the other hand, routes in BGP updates frequently has nexthops from
networks that are not directly connected. By default, these routes will be installed in routing table but will not be
active:

[admin@A] > ip route pr detail

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 Db dst-address=3.0.0.0/8 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=""
gateway-state=unreachable distance=20 scope=255 target-scope=30
bgp-as-path="513,8220,7018,701,703,80" bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=igp
received-from=10.0.0.128

1 Db dst-address=4.0.0.0/8 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=""

gateway-state=unreachable distance=20 scope=255 target-scope=30
bgp-as-path="513,8220,3356" bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-atomic-aggregate=yes
bgp-origin=igp received-from=10.0.0.128

2 Db dst-address=4.21.104.0/24 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=""

gateway-state=unreachable distance=20 scope=255 target-scope=30
bgp-as-path="513,8220,7018,26207,26207,26207,26207" bgp-local-pref=100
bgp-origin=igp received-from=10.0.0.128
Manual:Using scope and target-scope attributes 505

3 Db dst-address=4.21.112.0/23 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=""

gateway-state=unreachable distance=20 scope=255 target-scope=30
bgp-as-path="513,8220,7018,26207,26207,26207,26207" bgp-local-pref=100
bgp-origin=igp received-from=10.0.0.128

Solution using scope attribute

One way to make all routes active is to allow to resolve nexthops through default route. To do that, you can make
use of recursive nexthop resolving. Add default route with scope < target-scope of BGP routes:

[admin@A] > ip route add gateway=10.0.0.1 scope=10

[admin@A] > ip route pr detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 A S dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.0.0.1 interface=ether1
gateway-state=reachable distance=1 scope=10 target-scope=10

1 ADb dst-address=3.0.0.0/8 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=ether1

gateway-state=recursive distance=20 scope=255 target-scope=30
bgp-as-path="513,8220,7018,701,703,80" bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=igp
received-from=10.0.0.128

2 ADb dst-address=4.0.0.0/8 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=ether1

gateway-state=recursive distance=20 scope=255 target-scope=30
bgp-as-path="513,8220,3356" bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-atomic-aggregate=yes
bgp-origin=igp received-from=10.0.0.128

Solution using target-scope attribute

When there is need to change target-scope? Possible problems with previously described approach are that all routes
in the table always will be active. This may be not what you want.
An example: router with two interfaces, ethernet and wireless. All BGP routes are resolved through ethernet;
wireless interface has some additional static routes. You want these static routes to be active only when wireless
interface is in running state. Normally this is the case. However, when there is a default route with low enough
scope, all routes will be switched to ethernet interface after wireless interface loses it's running bit.
One possible solution is to leave the scope of default route intact and modify the target-scope of BGP routes.

[admin@A] > ip route set 0 scope=255

[admin@A] > routing filter add chain=bgp-in set-target-scope=255
[admin@A] > routing bgp peer set peer1 in-filter=bgp-in
[admin@A] > ip route pr detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
0 A S dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=10.0.0.1 interface=ether1
gateway-state=reachable distance=1 scope=255 target-scope=10
Manual:Using scope and target-scope attributes 506

1 ADb dst-address=3.0.0.0/8 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=ether1

gateway-state=recursive distance=200 scope=255 target-scope=255
bgp-as-path="513,8220,7018,701,703,80" bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=igp
received-from=10.0.0.128

2 ADb dst-address=4.0.0.0/8 gateway=192.65.184.3 interface=ether1

gateway-state=recursive distance=200 scope=255 target-scope=255
bgp-as-path="513,8220,3356" bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-atomic-aggregate=yes
bgp-origin=igp received-from=10.0.0.128

How not to use them

Possibility to set both scope and target scope of nexthops is a powerful feature and as such can be easily abused. It is
possible to create nexthop resolving loops. If there will be a logical loop in the routing table, RouterOS will not
freeze, it will simply stop nexthop resolving at some point.
Simple loop example (three routes, each one wanting to resolve through another):

[admin@A] > /ip route add dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 gateway=2.2.2.2 scope=10 target-scope=10

[admin@A] > /ip route add dst-address=2.2.2.0/24 gateway=3.3.3.3 scope=10 target-scope=10
[admin@A] > /ip route add dst-address=3.3.3.0/24 gateway=1.1.1.1 scope=10 target-scope=10
[admin@A] > /ip route pr
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 S 1.1.1.0/24 2.2.2.2 1
1 S 2.2.2.0/24 3.3.3.3 1
2 S 3.3.3.0/24 1.1.1.1 1
3 ADC 10.0.0.0/24 10.0.0.133 0 ether1

Change the gateway of any of the first three routes to 10.0.0.x and they all will become active.
More complex loop example:
[admin@A] > ip route add dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 gateway=3.3.3.3 scope=10 target-scope=10

[admin@A] > ip route add dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 gateway=10.0.0.1 scope=10 target-scope=10 distance=3

[admin@A] > ip route add dst-address=3.3.3.0/24 gateway=1.1.1.1 scope=10 target-scope=10

[admin@A] > ip route pr detail

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,

C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf,

B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

0 S dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 gateway=3.3.3.3 interface=ether1

gateway-state=recursive distance=1 scope=10 target-scope=10

1 A S dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 gateway=10.0.0.1 interface=ether1

gateway-state=reachable distance=3 scope=10 target-scope=10

2 A S dst-address=3.3.3.0/24 gateway=1.1.1.1 interface=ether1

gateway-state=recursive distance=1 scope=10 target-scope=10

Manual:Using scope and target-scope attributes 507

3 ADC dst-address=10.0.0.0/24 pref-src=10.0.0.133 interface=ether1 distance=0

scope=10 target-scope=0

Note that now the active route has larger (i.e. worse) distance.

Interface routes, unreachable routes and nexhops

Nexthops cannot be resolved through interface routes (i.e. routes that have interface index instead of gateway address
as nexthop). Nexthops also cannot be resolved through unreachable routes (with type B, U, or P) even when they are
active. They also do not have nexthops themselves.

Manual:Routing/RIP
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

Summary
MikroTik RouterOS implements RIP Version 1 (RFC 1058) and Version 2 (RFC 2453). RIP enables routers in an
autonomous system to exchange routing information. It always uses the best path (the path with the fewest number
of hops (i.e. routers)) available.

General
Sub-menu: /routing rip

Property Description

distribute-default (always | if-installed | never; Default: specifies how to distribute default route.
never)

redistribute-static (yes | no; Default: no) if enabled, redistribute static routes to neighbor routers

redistribute-connected (yes | no; Default: no) if enabled, redistribute connected routes to neighbor routers

redistribute-ospf (yes | no; Default: no) if enabled, redistribute OSPF routes to neighbor routers

redistribute-bgp (yes | no; Default: no) if enabled, redistribute BGP routes to neighbor routers

metric-default (integer; Default: 1) specifies metric for default route

metric-static (integer; Default: 1) specifies metric for static routes

metric-connected (integer; Default: 1) specifies metric for connected routes

metric-ospf (integer; Default: 1) specifies metric (the number of hops) for the routes learned via OSPF protocol

metric-bgp (integer; Default: 1) specifies metric (the number of hops) for the routes learned via BGP protocol

update-timer (time; Default: 30s) specifies frequency of RIP updates

timeout-timer (time; Default: 3m) specifies time interval after which the route is considered invalid

garbage-timer (time; Default: 2m) specifies time interval after which the invalid route will be dropped from
neighbor router table
Manual:Routing/RIP 508

Note: The maximum metric of RIP route is 15. Metric higher than 15 is considered 'infinity' and routes with
such metric are considered unreachable. Thus RIP cannot be used on networks with more than 15 hops
between any two routers, and using redistribute metrics larger that 1 further reduces this maximum hop count.

Interface
Sub-menu: /routing rip interface

Property Description

interface (string | all; Default: all) interface on which RIP runs. If set to 'all' settings will be applied to all interfaces

send (v1 | v1-2 | v2; Default: v2) specifies RIP protocol update versions to distribute

receive (v1 | v1-2 | v2; Default: v1-2) specifies RIP protocol update versions the router will be able to receive

passive (yes | no; Default: no) if enabled, do not send routing packets via this interface, only receive

authentication (none | simple | md5; Default: none) specifies authentication method to use on RIP messages

authentication-key (string; Default: "") specifies authentication key

key-chain (string; Default: "") chain name for MD5 authentication passwords

in-prefix-list (string; Default: "") name of the filtering prefix list for received routes

out-prefix-list (string; Default: "") name of the filtering prefix list for advertised routes

Keys
Sub-menu: /routing rip keys
MD5 authentication key chains.

Property Description

chain (string; Default: "") chain name to place this key in. If a chain with the specified name does not exist it will be automatically
created

key (string; Default: "") authentication key. Maximal length 16 characters

key-id (integer:0..255; Default: ) key identifier. This number is included in MD5 authenticated RIP messages, and determines witch key to
use to check authentication for a specific message.

from-date (date; Default: tomorrow key is valid from this date

system date)

from-time (time; Default: 00:00:00) key is valid until this time in the specified date
Manual:Routing/RIP 509

Network
Sub-menu: /routing rip network
To start the RIP protocol, you have to define the networks on which RIP will run.

Property Description

network (IP the network prefix. RIP will be enabled on all interfaces that has at least one address falling within this range. Note that the
prefix; Default: ) network prefix of the address is used for this check (i.e. not the local address). For PtP interfaces this means the address of the
remote endpoint.

Neighbor
Sub-menu: /routing rip neighbor
This submenu is used to define a neighboring routers to exchange routing information with. Normally there is no
need to add the neighbors, if multicasting is working properly within the network. If there are problems with
exchanging routing information, neighbor routers can be added to the list. It will force the router to exchange the
routing information with the neighbor using regular unicast packets.

Property Description

address (IP address; Default: 0.0.0.0) IP address of neighboring router

Route
Sub-menu: /routing rip route
Read only properties:

Property Description

dst-address (IP destination network

prefix)

gateway (IP address) last gateway on the route to destination

metric (integer) distance vector length to the destination network

from (IP address) specifies the IP address of the router from which the route was received

timeout (time) for valid RIP routes (metric < 16): time until the route will expire. For routes with metric 16: time until advertising of
the route will be stopped

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Routing/Prefix list 510

Manual:Routing/Prefix list
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

Sub-menu: /routing prefix-list

Filtering by prefix list involves matching the prefixes of routes with those listed in the prefix list. When
there is a match, the rule is used. The prefix lists can be used to filter out RIP routes, and are used if
specified under /routing rip interface.

Property Description

action (accept | discard; Default: action to perform on route matching the rule
accept)

chain (string; Default: "") chain name to place this rule in. If a chain with the specified name does not exist it will be automatically
created

invert-math (yes | no; Default: invert this match, i.e. apply the rule to routes that would fail to match it and vice versa
no)

prefix (IP prefix; Default: network prefix to match. If prefix-length is not set, only exact match is done. For example, 0.0.0.0/0 then
0.0.0.0/0) matches only the default route and nothing else

prefix-length (integer; network prefix mask length to match. If prefix-length is set, for a route to match the prefix and prefix-length
Default: 0-32) of a rule, the following should hold:
• the network prefix of the route falls within the range of the prefix of the rule, (i.e.
• the network mask of the route is greater of equal than the network mask of the prefix;
• the network address of the route masked out by the network mask of the prefix is equal to the
network address of the prefix;)
• the length of the network mask of the route falls within the range of the prefix-length

set-metric (integer; Default: ) Set metric

Manual:Routing/MME 511

Manual:Routing/MME
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /routing mme
Packages required: routing
MME (Mesh Made Easy) is a MikroTik routing protocol suited for IP level routing in wireless mesh networks. It is
based on ideas from B.A.T.M.A.N. (Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) routing protocol.
This is MME configuration reference only; for description of the protocol and configuration examples see
Manual:MME wireless routing protocol.

General Setup
Property Description

origination-interval (time; Default: 5s) Interval between originator messages. Obviously, this value should be less than timeout
value.

timeout (time; Default: 1m) Node timeout. If no messages at all are received from an originator node during this interval,
that node is purged from protocol tables, and so are all routes it has announced.

bidirectional-timeout (integer; Default: 2) How many originator messages from a node can be lost in sequence, while still considering
it a bidirectional neighbor. We are assuming that every node originates messages with the
same rate as this router (i.e. the value from origination-interval).

ttl (integer; Default: 50) How many times to forward originator messages.

gateway-class (none | 56-KBit | 64-KBit | Announce internet gateway capability in the originator messages sent by this node.
128-KBit | 256-KBit | 512-KBit | 1-MBit | 2-MBit |
3-MBit | 5-MBit | 6-MBit | >6-MBit | integer;
Default: none)

gateway-selection (no-gateway | This node is a MME gateway protocol client.

best-adjusted | best-statistic; Default: no-gateway) • no-gateway - don't install default route via MME.
• best-adjusted - select best gateway node based on received message statistics and
announced gateway class;
• best-statistic - select best gateway node based only on received message statistics;

gateway-keepalive (time; Default: 1m) The time interval between successive gateway keepalive messages. For gateway client, this
specifies how often to send out keepalive messages. For gateway server, as client hold time
is used 3 * gateway-keepalive seconds. If the server does not receive keepalive messages
from a client during this time interval, the client is considered dead. All state information
associated with it are deleted, including the dynamic IPIP tunnel.

preferred-gateway (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Always prefer this node as internet gateway to any others, if it is present in originator tables.
Manual:Routing/MME 512

Note: The node running MME with gateway-class option is supposed to have a link to Internet and a default
route to that.

The symbolic values of gateway-class are compatible with B.A.T.M.A.N. This table
describes the mapping from integers to symbolic values:
• 0 no gateway
• 1 modem
• 2 ISDN
• 3 Double ISDN
• 4 256 KBit
• 5 UMTS/ 0.5 MBit
• 6 1 MBit
• 7 2 MBit
• 8 3 MBit
• 9 5 MBit
• 10 6 MBit
• 11 >6 MBit
Entering integer value > 11 means even better gateway class.

Interfaces
Sub-menu: /routing mme interface
List of interfaces on which to run the MME protocol.

Property Description

interface (string; Interface on which MME will run

Default: all) • all - is used for the interfaces not having any specific settings

passive (yes | no ; If true, do not send originator messages via this interface, only receive.
Default: no)

primary (yes | no ; Include routing information (i.e. network announcements) in self-originated packets send via this interface. (For forwared
Default: no) packets the information is always included.) Only one interface can be primary. If no interfaces are configured as primary,
one is selected automatically in a random fashion.

Command /routing mme interface print status allows to view status of interfaces.

Property Description

messages-tx (integer) Originator messages transmitted via this interface. For all interface: cumulative statistics

messages-rx (integer) Originator messages received via this interface. For all interface: cumulative statistics.
Manual:Routing/MME 513

Networks
Sub-menu: /routing mme network
MME Networks is a list of networks to be advertised.

Property Description

network (IP prefix; Default: ) Network to advertise

Note: The usage of MME networks is similar to BGP networks, and different from IGP (i.e. RIP and OSPF)
networks. They determine which networks to announce via MME, not on which networks to run the protocol.

Originators
Sub-menu: /routing mme originators
This submenu contains information about active neighbor nodes.

Property Description

originator (IP) IP address of the node.

gateway (IP) The nexthop for this node.

gateway-class (none | 56-KBit | 64-KBit | 128-KBit | 256-KBit | 512-KBit | If none, then this node is not a gateway server. Otherwise this
1-MBit | 2-MBit | 3-MBit | 5-MBit | 6-MBit | >6-MBit | integer) node is a gateway server with specified gateway bandwidth.

last-packet-before (time) Seconds elapsed since last received packet.

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:MME wireless routing protocol

See also MME command reference
Note that MME is not a replacement for OSPF or RIP. It is meant to be used in mesh networks, and is best suited for
wireless nodes with one logical interface. When used in traditional networks, the protocol overhead will be greater
than even that of RIP.

Overview
MME (Mesh Made Easy) is a MikroTik routing protocol suited for IP level routing in wireless mesh networks. It is
based on ideas from B.A.T.M.A.N. (Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) routing protocol. See https:/ /
www.open-mesh.net for more information about B.A.T.M.A.N.
MME works by periodically broadcasting so called originator messages. Routing information contained in a message
consists of IP address of it's originator and optional list of IP prefixes - network announcements. If a node receives
an originator message it hasn't seen before, it rebroadcasts that message. (There also are some other cases when the
message can be rebroadcasted - see below.)
Unlike OLSR or other "traditional" proactive routing protocols, MME does not maintain network topology
information. Consequently, MME is not able to calculate routing table, and does not need to. Instead, it keeps tracks
of packets received and their sequence numbers - to tell how many packets were lost. This way, from message loss
statistics for all combinations of originators and single-hop neighbors, MME is able to find the best gateway to a
particular destination.
The main ideas behind MME are based on these observations made in mobile mesh networks:
Manual:MME wireless routing protocol 514

• it can be impossible to know the exact topology of all network, because it is rapidly changing;
• if topology changes trigger routing table recalulation for all nodes in the network; and for embedded systems, the
routing table calculation CPU overhead can be significant.
To avoid these problems, a MME node:
• cares only about the best single-hop neighbor in path to a particular destination;
• avoids routing table calculations.
Secondary functions of the MME protocol are: to carry information about gateways to the Internet, and to
dynamically setup default routes. The part of MME responsible for that is dubbed "the gateway protocol".
MME protocol is using UDP port 1966 for originator message traffic. The gateway protocol is using TCP port 1968.
It is assumed in a normal operation of the protocol, a large number of these messages will get lost due to bad link
quality. This assumption is important if we are talking about protocol overhead. Theoretically protocol's own traffic
consumption is at least as big as for RIP, and obvioulsy worse than that of link state routing protocols (OSPF,
OLSR) unless the topology is constantly changing.

Technical side
Basic principles of the main protocol
The main functions of the MME protocol are:
• automatic neighbor MME router (so called "originator") discovery (including multihop neighbors);
• originator message origination and flooding on each interface in every origination-interval seconds;
• originator message rebroadcasting based on a few simple rules;
• best gateway selection for each originator and the routes it has advertised.
Originator message rebroadcasting rules:
• do not rebroadcast self originated messages;
• do not rebroadcast messages that has unidirectional flag set;
• rebroadcast messages from single-hop neighbors; rebroadcast with unidirectional flag set if and only if:
• the neighbor relation is not bidirectional;
• OR the neighbor is not the best gateway to himself (i.e. there exists a better multihop path towards this node).
• rebroadcast messages that are not duplicate; a message is considered duplicate if message with this sequence
number already was received before;
• rebroadcast duplicate messages if and only if:
• they came from a neighbor that is the gateway for the originator;
• the TTL in the packet is equal to last TTL for this neighbor and originator combination.
MME makes routing decisions based no more than last 64 messages received, but this number can be significantly
less in case of packet loss. The node can tell that some packets were lost based on their sequence numbers. The more
originator messages are received from a node, the better the statistics of that node is.
The MME protocol does not incorporate best route selection logic. If the same network information is configured in
two different nodes, there currently is no way how to tell which one to prefer. Both routes will be installed in routing
table and one of the selected in a random fashion. Obviously, such configuration is not recommended.
Manual:MME wireless routing protocol 515

Basic principles of the gateway protocol

Second part of the MME is a default gateway selection protocol. Here two roles for a router are possible. A gateway
server is node that is willing to serve as internet gateway for other routers. Usually it means it has an ethernet
connection or some other way "out of the mesh".
A gateway client is a node that is willing to use this dynamic information to about gateways out of the mesh cloud. If
there are multiple gateways reachable, client selects the best one based on packet statistics, advertised gateway class,
and gateway-selection and preferred-gateway configuration values. After selecting the best gateway server the
client makes a TCP connection to the server. This connection is used for periodic keep-alive message sending. After
the connection is established, both the client and the server add dynamic IPIP tunnel interface. The client also adds
default route through this interface.
If the server stops announcing it's gateway capability, or becomes unreachable, the TCP connection and all tunnel
state is teared down on both sides. Client also removes the default route.
Note that it's not recommended to have a default route (i.e. prefix 0.0.0.0/0) in MME network announcement
configuration.

Packet format
The one and only packet type used in MME is originator message. The message contains:
• originator IP;
• current ttl value;
• sequence number;
• gateway class;
• protocol version;
• host and network announcements (0..n IP prefixes).
Gateway protocol clients and servers also exchange keep-alive messages, but they contain no information and have
undefined format. At the moment, however, a keep-alive message is considered invalid, it if contains fewer than 1 or
more than 6 octets.

Configuration examples
Starting the protocol on a single interface:

[admin@I] > /routing mme interface add interface=wlan1

To change some attributes for routes learned via MME you can use the mme-in routing filter. Example:

[admin@MikroTik] > routing filter add chain=mme-in set-routing-mark=mark1

If you want to redistribute some routes via MME, add them to MME networks. Example:

[admin@MikroTik] /routing mme> network add network=1.2.3.0/24

[admin@MikroTik] /routing mme> network p
Flags: X - disabled
# NETWORK
0 1.2.3.0/24
Manual:MME wireless routing protocol 516

Using the gateway protocol

Setup gateway server:

[admin@I] /routing mme> set gateway-class=11

Setup gateway client:

[admin@MikroTik] /routing mme> set gateway-selection=best-statistic

Observe the results (on client). Dynamic IPIP interface should be added automatically:

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running
# NAME TYPE MTU
0 R ether1 ether 1500
1 R ether2 ether 1500
2 DR ipip1 ipip 1480

Default route that goes through this tunnel should be added added automatically:

[admin@MikroTik] > /ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 ADm 0.0.0.0/0 r ipip1 130 ipip1

Manual:Routing/Multicast
Applies to RouterOS: v3.x, v4.x

Summary
Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM or PIM) enables RouterOS to support multicast streaming
over network area where routers have PIM set up. Several configured PIM routers together will make multicast
cloud where client devices can use IGMP to manage subscriptions to streams. PIM should be used when network
topology is complex or stream sources are connected to multicast cloud. Continuous cloud must have configured
unique rendezvous point for multicast group or groups used in it and other participants should know how to reach
rendezvous point. In simple case when in part of cloud reside only potential clients and no stream sources
IGMP proxy can be used instead to conserve resources.
Manual:Routing/Multicast 517

Requirements
Multicast is available on all architectures supported by RouterOS. Packages required:
• system
• multicast
Note: v3.x routing-test and multicast packages are incompatible. In case when both are present one of them
will be disabled

Note: To get the package you have to download all-packages archive and upload/install multicast package
separately on the router

Protocol independent multicast (PIM)

Menu: /routing pim
General PIM protcol settings.

Property Desciption

switch-to-spt (yes|no, whether to switch to Shortest Path Tree (SPT) phase if multicast data bandwidth threshold is reached. For routers
default: yes) upstream from RP, if this option is disabled, it means that the router will not proceed from protocol phase one
(register encapsulation) to native multicast traffic flow. It is recommended to enable this option.

switch-to-spt-bytes (integer, multicast data bandwidth threshold. If this threshold is reached in the specified time interval, switching to Shortest
default: 0) Path Tree (SPT) happens. If value 0 is configured, switching will happen immediately.

switch-to-spt-interval (time, time interval in which to account multicast data bandwidth, used in conjunction with switch-to-spt-bytes to
default: 100s) determine if switching threshold is reached.

Interfaces
Menu: /routing pim interface
Since RouterOS v4.6 it is possible to specify source address interface will use to participate in multicast cloud.
Previously one of interface addresses was chosen without any particular order.
Configuration of interface of the router that will participate in multicast network. Interfaces that are not configured
here (or in IGMP-Proxy) will discard multicast packets.
When deploying multicast configuration over wireless links one should be cautious how and what works. For details
about multicast and wireless links.
Note: There is no interface count limitation in this menu other than how much hardware can handle
Manual:Routing/Multicast 518

Property Desciption

alternative-subnets (IP address/mask if router can receive multicast streams over groups that are not in standard Class-D section then you
Default: nil) : have to set up this field, so these groups are recognised as multicast groups and will not be discarded.

assert-override-interval (time Default: time that is subtracted by assert winner from assert-time field, to ensure, that assert winner will always
3s) send its assert messages before everyone else.

assert-time (time Default: 3m) Time interval when assert-winner will send out repeated assert.

comment (text) text information for the entry

copy-from (number) use other, already configured entry as stencil for this new one

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) state of the entry

dr-priority (integer Default: 1) if for stream source more than one router with multicast support is available, then one with highest
priority will become Designated router of that multicast stream and will handle stream delivery to RP.
Higher value means higher priority.

hello-holdtime (time Default: 1m45s) how long consider sender of hello packet received on interface in neighbour list. (usually 3.5 times of
hello-period)

hello-period (time Default: 30s) how often hello packet will be sent over this interface.

hello-trigerred-delay (time Default: 5s) when interface starts to participate in multicast cloud then this value is max time interface will wait
before sending hello packet. That period of waiting is random from 0 to value set in this field.

igmp-version (IGMPv1 | IGMPv2 | what IGMP protocol version to support on the interface.
IGMPv3 Default: IGMPv2)

interface (interface name) interface name that will participate in multicast cloud with these settings.

join-prune-holdtime (time Default: how long save join or prune status before discard it
3m30s)

join-prune-period (time Default: 1m) time interval between sending out join or prune messages

preferred-source-address (IP address address that should be used to send out IGMP/PIM packets. Address used should be already assigned to
Default: 0.0.0.0) interface. (introduced in 4.6)

propagation-delay (integer in expected propagation delay between PIM routers on this network or link.
milliseconds Default: 50)

protocols (pim, igmp; Default: what protocols to support on the interface

pim,igmp)

require-hello (yes|no Default:yes) if sending PIM router have to be neighbour to receiving (this) router to work with those packets.

tracking-support (yes | no Default: yes) if propagation-delay is not negotiated or is not set then that value will be suppressed, if one of PIM
neighbours has set false in this field, then propagation-delay will be suppressed.

override-interval (integer in will override propagation-delay negotiated value if set delay time is smaller than this.
milliseconds Default: 250)
Manual:Routing/Multicast 519

Rendezvous point
Menu: /routing pim rp
Rendezvous point configuration. Rendezvous point (RP) is a distribution point for multicast group, source provides
its data to it, and if there are any subscribers, then RP will provide data to client. Note, that RP will always receive
data stream if that exists.

Property Desciption

comment (text) add comment to static RP entry

copy-from (number) creates another RP just like one you pointed to with number you used.

disabled (yes, no) used to change status of RP entry effectively disabling or enabling it.

group (multicas group address sets what group this RP will be assigned to. Values accepted are class D ip addresses with mask, thus effectively
Default: 224.0.0.0/4) marking multiple groups to this RP entry e.g. 224.10.10.0/24 will add 256 groups starting with 224.10.10.0 till
224.10.10.255.

hash-mask-length (number when multicast group have multiple RPs, and they are same scope and same priority, then this value is compared.
4..32 Default: 30) and so you can load balance this way.

priority (number Default: 192) if several RPs are available for multicast group, and they are both with same scope, then RP with highest priority
is chosen. Smaller non-negative value is considered of higher priority. Example: priority of 100 is higher than
priority of 101.

address (IP address) at what address you have to look for RP for multicast group specified in group field. If group is set to one of
routers interfaces, it should be reachable through whole multicast network, if it not, you will have to set up rules
in MRIB (multicast routing information base).

Rendezvous point candidates

Menu: /routing pim rp-candidates
Rendezvous point candidate configuration, when RP is elected for multicast group

Property Desciption

comment (text) additional textual information about entry

copy-from (number) create this entry using other entry as a stencil

disabled (yes | no Default: no) state of entry

group (multicast group address routes with will be chosen to be a group RP if no other RP will not participate with higher priority
Default: 224.0.0.0/4)

holdtime (time Default: 2m30s) after what time next election will be initiated

is-scope-zone (yes|no Default: no) if set to yes, scope-zone setting is obeyed, if set to no, then scope-zone just represents range of
groups that it will function as RP

priority (number Default: 192) value is used when RP is elected, lower value mean higher priority

interface (interface) to what interface to bind to if this router is elected as multicast groups RP
Manual:Routing/Multicast 520

Bootstrap router candidates

Menu: /routing pim bsr-candidates
bootstrap router candidate configuration

Property Desciption

comment (text) set text describing bsr-candidate list entry

disabled (yes|no Default: no) set state of the list entry

hash-mask-length (number 4..32 to how much first bits of multicast group should be hashed to reduce protocol overhead
Default: 30)

is-scope-zone (yes|no Default: no) if set to yes, scope-zone setting is obeyed, if set to no, then scope-zone just represents range of groups
that it will function as BSR

priority (number Default: 1) priority of the router in bsr election

scope-zone (IP address/mask multicast group range that this router will function as BSR
Default: 224.0.0.0/4)

interface (interface) interface of the router that bsr-candidate will be attached to and if elected BSR

Multicast route information base

Menu: /routing pim mrib
MRIB routes are used for reverse path forwarding check. In a way, they perform opposite function that FIB
(Forwarding Information Base) routes: FIB is used to find the right By default, MRIB is populated by FIB routes.
Use "multicast" routing filter chanin to control that or set specific parameters for imported FIB routes (e.g. you can
change the distance of the route). In addition, you can specify static MRIB routes. This is useful only if you are using
multihoming and multicast packet flow will be different from unicast packet flow.
Active MRIB entries that are imported from FIB are shown with "dynamic" flag.

Property Desciption

comment (text) textual note to entry can be added to static entries only.

copy-from (number) use other entry as a template to create new one.

destination (IP address/mask Default: 0.0.0.0/0) hosts that will be reachable through gateway

disabled (yes|no Default: no) status of entry

metric (integer Default: 1) value of cost of the route. Route with least weight will be used if available.

gateway (IP address) address through where hosts listed in destination field will be reachable.

IGMP group status

Menu: /routing pim igmp-group
Manual:Routing/Multicast 521

Property Desciption

interface (interface) group join request received/sent on this interface

group (IP address) IGMP group of interest

source (IP address) source of IGMP request

state (exclude | forward | don't forward) state of IGMP group membership

version (IGMPv1|IGMPv2|IGMPv3) version of IGMP protocol used

timeout (time) time when entry will expire if not refreshed

Multicast neighbors
Menu: /routing pim neighbors
This menu only allows to see information about multicast routers that are reachable within one Ethernet from all
interfaces participating in multicast routing. This list is created and updated automatically according to state of
multicast network.

Property Desciption

address (ip address) IP address of neighbour multicast router that router have received hello packet.

interface (text) on what interface hello packet was received

priority (number priority of the neighbour router

1..255)

holdtime (time) how long entry will be held in neighbour list (configured in interface menu hello-holdtime)

timeout (time) how much time left when entry will be dropped from list if no hello packets are received. Every time hello packet is
received this entry will be refreshed.

Bootstrap router status

Menu: /routing pim bsr

Property Desciption

zone-type (active | expiring | configured ) type of the zone

valign="top"|bsr-address (IP address) address of BSR router

scope-zone (IP address/mask) multicast group range this router is a BSR

bsr-priority (integer) priority of BSR router

local-address (IP address) local BSR candidate address in scope zone

local-priority (integer) local BSR candidate priority in scope zone

state (init | candidate | pending | elected | no-info | accept-any | accept-preferred) state of BSR router

timeout (time | -1) time-out when this entry will be removed

• -1 : never expire
• time value : time remaining to expiry

sz-timeout (time | -1) in what time when sope zone will time out.
• -1 : never expire
• time value : time remaining to expiry
Manual:Routing/Multicast 522

Multicast forwarding cache status

Menu: /routing pim mfc
Multicast forwarding cache - this section only provides information about current state of multicast cloud at given
router, showing states of joins for multicast groups.

Property Desciption

group (IP address) name of multicast group

source (IP address) source of multicast group data

rp (IP address) address of RP for that multicast group

incoming-interface (interface) interface that is used to receive multicast data stream

outgoing-interface (interface) interface that is used to transmit multicast data stream

Multicast group joins status

Menu: /routing pim join
Group join list of all the group joins that are registered by PIM-SM Multicast forwarding cache - this section only
provides information about current state of multicast cloud at given router, showing states of joins for multicast
groups.

Property Desciption

group (IP address) multicast group that has at least one registered join request

source (IP address) data provider for that group

rp (IP address) rendezvous point for multicast group

upstream-interface-source (interface) router interface receives data stream of the multicast group

upstream-interface-rp (interface) router interface that is toward the rendezvous point

upstream-mrib-nexthop (IP address) address of the next router towards RP

upstream-pim-nexthop (IP address) address of next router towards RP according to PIM RP tree

join-state (joined | not-joined | rpt-not-joined | rpt-pruned | state of this entry towards RP

rpt-not-pruned)

join-register-state (joined | pruned | join-pending | unknown) join status on register interface

timeout (time) time-out when entry will be removed from the list.

keepalive-timer (yes|no) how long entry will be kept in the list

i-am-designated-router (interface list) interface name list on which router is chosen as designated router

local-receivers (interface list) interfaces where are clients registered with (*.G) join

joined-rp (interface list) list of interfaces that have clients that originated (*,*,RP) join

joined-wc (interface list) list of interfaces that have clients that originated (*.G) join

joined (interface list) list of interfaces that are in joined state

pruned (interface list) list of interfaces that are in prune state

prune-pending () list of interfaces that are in prune-pending state

assert-winner (interface list) list of interfaces that are in assert-winner state

assert-looser (interface list) list of interfaces that are assert-lost state

assert-winner-wc (interface list) list of interfaces that have (*,G) join and have assert-winner state
Manual:Routing/Multicast 523

assert-looser-wc (interface list) list of interfaces that have (*,G) join and have assert-lost state

assert-tracking-wc (interface list) list of interfaces that have (*,G) join and will track assert

could-assert-wc (interface list) list of interfaces that have (*,G) join and could trigger assert

immediate-rp (interface list) list of interfaces that are included in the immediate outgoing interfaces for the
corresponding (*,*,RP) entry.

immediate-wc (interface list) list of interfaces that are included in the immediate outgoing interfaces for the
corresponding (*,RP) entry.

immediate-sg (interface list) list of interfaces that are included in the immediate outgoing interfaces for the
corresponding (S,G) entry.

immediate-sg-rpt (interface list) list of interfaces that are included in the immediate outgoing interfaces for the
corresponding (S,G,rpt) entry.

include-wc (interface list) list of interfaces to which traffic might be forwarded because of hosts that are local
members on that interface.

Manual:Queue
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

Summary
Queues are used to limit and prioritize traffic:
• limit data rate for certain IP addresses, subnets, protocols, ports, and other parameters
• limit peer-to-peer traffic
• prioritize some packet flows over others
• configure traffic bursts for faster web browsing
• apply different limits based on time
• share available traffic among users equally, or depending on the load of the channel
Queue implementation in MikroTik RouterOS is based on Hierarchical Token Bucket (HTB). HTB allows to create
hierarchical queue structure and determine relations between queues.
In RouterOS, these hierarchical structures can be attached at 4 different places:
• global-in: represents all the input interfaces in general (INGRESS queue). Queues attached to global-in apply to
traffic that is received by the router before the packet filtering
• global-out: represents all the output interfaces in general (EGRESS queue).
• global-total: represents all input and output interfaces together (in other words it is aggregation of global-in and
global-out). Used in case when customers have single limit for both, upload and download.
• <interface name>: - represents one particular outgoing interface. Only traffic that is designated to go out via this
interface will pass this HTB queue.
There are two different ways how to configure queues in RouterOS:
Manual:Queue 524

• /queue simple menu - designed to ease configuration of simple, everyday queuing tasks (such as single client
upload/download limitation, p2p traffic limitation, etc.).
• /queue tree menu - for implementing advanced queuing tasks (such as global prioritization policy, user group
limitations). Requires marked packet flows from /ip firewall mangle facility.

Rate limitation principles

Rate limiting is used to control the rate of traffic flow sent or received on a network interface. Traffic which rate that
is less than or equal to the specified rate is sent, whereas traffic that exceeds the rate is dropped or delayed.
Rate limiting can be performed in two ways:
1. discard all packets that exceed rate limit – rate limiting (dropper or shaper) (100% rate limiter when
queue-size=0)
2. delay packets that exceed specific rate limit in queue and transmit its when it is possible – rate equalizing
(scheduler) '''(100% rate equalizing when queue-size=unlimited)
Next figure explains difference between rate limiting and rate equalizing:

As you can see in first case all traffic exceeds specific rate and is dropped. In other case traffic exceeds specific rate
and is delayed in queue and transmitted later when it is possible, but note that packet can be delayed only until queue
is not full. If there is not more space in queue buffer, packets are dropped.
For each queue we can define two rate limits:
• CIR (Committed Information Rate) – (limit-at in RouterOS) worst case scenario, flow will get this amount of
traffic rate regardless of other traffic flows. At any given time, the bandwidth should not fall below this
committed rate.
• MIR (Maximum Information Rate) – (max-limit in RouterOS) best case scenario, maximum available data rate
for flow, if there is free any part of bandwidth.
Manual:Queue 525

Simple Queues
Sub-menu: /queue simple
The simplest way to limit data rate for specific IP addresses and/or subnets, is to use simple queues.
You can also use simple queues to build advanced QoS applications. They have useful integrated features:
• Peer-to-peer traffic queuing
• Applying queue rules on chosen time intervals
• Priorities
• Using multiple packet marks from /ip firewall mangle
• Shaping (scheduling) of bidirectional traffic (one limit for the total of upload + download)
One configuration item in /queue simle' can create from 0 to 3 separate queues - one queue in global-in, one queue in
global-out and one queue in global-total. If all properties of a queue have default values (no set limits, queue type is
default), and queue has no children, then it is not actually created. This way, for exanple, creation of global-total
queues can be avoided if only upload/download limitation is used.
Simple queues have strict order - each packet must go through every queue until it will meet conditions. (In case of
1000 queues, packet for last queue will need to proceed through 999 queues before it will reach the destination)

Configuration Example
Assume we have network topology like Figure 8.6 and we want to limited download and upload for private network
(upload - 256kbps, and download – 512kbps).

Add a simple queue rule, which will limit the download traffic to 512kbps and upload to 256kbps for the network
10.1.1.0/24, served by the interface Ether2:
[admin@MikroTik] /queue simple> add name=private target-addresses=10.1.1.0/24 max-limit=256K/512K \
interface=ether2

In this case statement works right also if we indicate only one of parameters: "target-addresses=" or "interface=", because
both of these define where and for which traffic this queue will be implemented.

Check your configuration:

[admin@Augsha] /queue simple> print

Manual:Queue 526

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic

0 name="private" target-addresses=10.1.1.0/24 dst-address=0.0.0.0/0
interface=ether2 parent=none direction=both priority=8
queue=default-small/default-small limit-at=0/0 max-limit=256k/512k
burst-limit=0/0 burst-threshold=0/0 burst-time=0s/0s
total-queue=default-small

The max-limit parameter cuts down the maximum available bandwidth. The value max-limit=256k/512k means
that clients from private network will get maximum of 512kbps for download and 256kbps for upload. The
target-addresses allows to define the source IP addresses to which the queue rule will be applied.
Probably, you want to exclude the server from being limited, if so, add a queue for it without any limitation
(max-limit=0/0 which means no limitation). Move this rule to the beginning of the list, because items in /queue
simple are executed in order one by one if router finds rule that satisfy certain packet next rules aren’t compared:
[admin@MikroTik] /queue simple> add name=server target-addresses=10.1.1.1/32 max-limit=0/0 \
interface=ether2

Flow Identifiers
• target-addresses (multiple choice: IP address/netmask) : list of IP address ranges that will be limited by this
queue.
• interface (Name of the interface, or all) : identifies interface the target is connected to. Useful when it is not
possible to specify targets addresses.
Note: Since RouterOS v6 these settings are combined in the option target where you can specify either of the
above. Target is to be viewed from perspective of the target. If you want to limit your users's upload
capability, set "target upload".

Each of these two properties can be used to determine which direction is target upload and which
is download.

Be careful to configure both of these options for the same queue - in case they will point to opposite directions queue
will not work.
If neither value of target-addresses nor of interface is specified, the queue will not be able to make difference
between upload and download, and will limit all traffic twice.

Other properties
• name (Text) : Unique queue identifier that can be used as parent option value for other queues
• direction (One of both, upload, download, none; default: both) : allow to enable one-directional limitation for
simple queues (disable other direction)
• both - limit both download and upload traffic
• upload - limit only traffic to the target
• download - limit only traffic from the target
• time (TIME-TIME,sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat - TIME is local time, all day names are optional; default: not set) :
allow to specify time when particular queue will be active. Router must have correct time settings.
• dst-address (IP address/netmask) : allows to select only specific stream (from target address to this destination
address) for limitation explain what is target and what is dst and what is upload and what not
• p2p (one of all-p2p, bit-torrent, blubster, direct-connect, edonkey, fasttrack, gnutella, soulseek, winmx; default:
not set) : allow to select unencrypted packets of particular p2p for limitation
Manual:Queue 527

• packet-marks (Comma separated list of packet mark names) : allows to use marked packets from /ip firewall
mangle. Take look at the RouterOS packet flow diagram. It is necessary to mark packets before the simple queues
(before global-in HTB queue) or else target's download limitation will not work. The only mangle chain before
global-in is prerouting.
Note: The above options Direction and P2P are removed in RouterOS v6, you can use Mangle to substitute
them. dst-address is merged into the new Target option

HTB Properties
• parent (Name of parent simple queue, or none) : assigns this queue as a child queue for
selected target {{{...}}}. Target queue can be HTB queue or any other previously created simple queue. In order
for traffic to reach child queues, parent queues must capture all necessary traffic.
• priority (1..8) : Prioritize one child queue over other child queue. Does not work on parent queues (if queue has
at least one child). One is the highest, eight is the lowest priority. Child queue with higher priority will have
chance to reach its limit-at before child with lower priority and after that child queue with higher priority will
have chance to reach its max-limit before child with lower priority. Priority have nothing to do with bursts.
• queue (SOMETHING/SOMETHING) : Choose the type of the upload/download queue. Queue types can be
created in /queue type.
• limit-at (NUMBER/NUMBER) : normal upload/download data rate that is guaranteed to a target
• max-limit (NUMBER/NUMBER) : maximal upload/download data rate that is allowed for a target to reach to
reach what
• burst-limit (NUMBER/NUMBER) : maximal upload/download data rate which can be reached while the burst is
active
• burst-time (TIME/TIME) : period of time, in seconds, over which the average upload/download data rate is
calculated. (This is NOT the time of actual burst)
• burst-threshold (NUMBER/NUMBER) : when average data rate is below this value - burst is allowed, as soon as
average data rate reach this value - burst is denied. (basically this is burst on/off switch). For optimal burst
behavior this value should above limit-at value and below max-limit value
And corresponding options for global-total HTB queue:
• total-queue (SOMETHING/SOMETHING): corresponds to queue
• total-limit-at (NUMBER/NUMBER): corresponds to limit-at
• total-max-limit (NUMBER/NUMBER): corresponds to max-limit
• total-burst-limit (NUMBER/NUMBER): corresponds to burst-limit
• total-burst-time (TIME/TIME): corresponds to burst-time
• total-burst-threshold (NUMBER/NUMBER): corresponds to burst-threshold
Good practice suggests that:
Sum of children's limit-at values must be less or equal to max-limit of the parent.
Every child's max-limit must be less than max-limit of the parent. This way you will leave some traffic for
the other child queues, and they will be able to get traffic without fighting for it with other child queues.
Manual:Queue 528

Statistics
• rate (read-only/read-only) : average queue passing data rate in bytes per second
• packet-rate (read-only/read-only) : average queue passing data rate in packets per second
• bytes (read-only/read-only) : number of bytes processed by this queue
• packets (read-only/read-only) : number of packets processed by this queue
• queued-bytes (read-only/read-only) : number of bytes waiting in the queue
• queued-packets (read-only/read-only) : number of packets waiting in the queue
• dropped (read-only/read-only) : number of dropped packets
• borrows (read-only/read-only) : packets that passed queue over its "limit-at" value (and was unused and taken
away from other queues)
• lends (read-only/read-only) : packets that passed queue below its "limit-at" value OR if queue is a parent - sum of
all child borrowed packets
• pcq-queues (read-only/read-only) : number of PCQ substreams, if queue type is PCQ
And corresponding options for global-total HTB queue:
• total-rate (read-only): corresponds to rate
• total-packet-rate (read-only): corresponds to packet-rate
• total-bytes (read-only): corresponds to bytes
• total-packets (read-only): corresponds to packets
• total-queued-bytes (read-only): corresponds to queued-bytes
• total-queued-packets (read-only): corresponds to queued-packets
• total-dropped (read-only): corresponds to dropped
• total-lends (read-only): corresponds to lends
• total-borrows (read-only): corresponds to borrows
• total-pcq-queues (read-only): corresponds to pcq-queues

Queue Tree
Sub-menu: /queue tree
Queue tree creates only one directional queue in one of the HTBs. It is also the only way how to add queue on the
separate interface. This way it is possible to ease mangle configuration - you don't need separate marks for download
and upload - only upload will get to Public interface and only download will get to Private interface.
Also it is possible to have double queuing (example:prioritization of traffic in global-in or global-out, limitation per
client on the outgoing interface) If you have simple queues and queue tree in the same HTB - simple queues will get
traffic first.
Queue tree is not ordered - all traffic pass it together.
Read more about HTB and see configuration examples.
Manual:Queue 529

Flow Identifiers
• name (Text) : Unique queue identifier that can be used as parent option value for other queues
• packet-marks (Comma separated list of) : allows to use marked packets from /ip firewall mangle. Take look at
this packet flow diagram. You need to make sure that packets are marked before the simple queues (before
global-in HTB queue)

HTB Properties
• parent (Name of , or none) : assigns this queue as a child queue for selected target. Target queue can be HTB
queue or any other previously created queue
• priority (1..8) : Prioritize one child queue over other child queue. Does not work on parent queues (if queue has
at least one child). One is the highest, eight is the lowest priority. Child queue with higher priority will have
chance to reach its nax-limit before child with lower priority. Priority have nothing to do with bursts.
• queue (SOMETHING) : Choose the type of the queue. Queue types can be created here
• limit-at (NUMBER) : normal data rate that is guaranteed to a target
• max-limit (NUMBER) : maximal data rate that is allowed for a target to reach
• burst-limit (NUMBER) : maximal data rate which can be reached while the burst is active
• burst-time (TIME) : period of time, in seconds, over which the average data rate is calculated. (This is NOT the
time of actual burst)
• burst-threshold (NUMBER) : when average data rate is below this value - burst is allowed, as soon as average
data rate reach this value - burst is denied. (basically this is burst on/off switch). For optimal burst behavior this
value should above limit-at value and below max-limit value

Statistics
Command: /queue tree print stats
• rate (read-only) : average queue passing data rate in bytes per second
• packet-rate (read-only) : average queue passing data rate in packets per second
• bytes (read-only) : number of bytes processed by this queue
• packets (read-only) : number of packets processed by this queue
• queued-bytes (read-only) : number of bytes waiting in the queue
• queued-packets (read-only) : number of packets waiting in the queue
• dropped (read-only) : number of dropped packets
• borrows (read-only) : packets that passed queue over its "limit-at" value (and was unused and taken away from
other queues)
• lends (read-only) : packets that passed queue below its "limit-at" value OR if queue is a parent - sum of all child
borrowed packets
• pcq-queues (read-only) : number of PCQ substreams, if queue type is PCQ
Manual:Queue 530

Queue Types
Sub-menu: /queue type
This sub-menu lists by default created queue types and allows to add new user specific ones.
By default RouterOS creates following pre-defined queue types:
[admin@MikroTik] /queue type> print

0 name="default" kind=pfifo pfifo-limit=50

1 name="ethernet-default" kind=pfifo pfifo-limit=50

2 name="wireless-default" kind=sfq sfq-perturb=5 sfq-allot=1514

3 name="synchronous-default" kind=red red-limit=60 red-min-threshold=10 red-max-threshold=50 red-burst=20

red-avg-packet=1000

4 name="hotspot-default" kind=sfq sfq-perturb=5 sfq-allot=1514

5 name="only-hardware-queue" kind=none

6 name="multi-queue-ethernet-default" kind=mq-pfifo mq-pfifo-limit=50

7 name="default-small" kind=pfifo pfifo-limit=10

Note: Starting from v5.8 there is new kind none and new default queue only-hardware-queue. All
RouterBOARDS will have this new queue type set as default interface queue

only-hardware-queue leaves interface with only hw transmit descriptor ring buffer which acts as
a queue in itself. Usually at least 100 packets can be queued for transmit in transmit descriptor ring
buffer. Transmit descriptor ring buffer size and the amount of packets that can be queued in it
varies for different types of ethernet MACs.
Having no software queue is especially beneficial on SMP systems because it removes the requirement to
synchronize access to it from different cpus/cores which is expensive.
multi-queue-ethernet-default can be beneficial on SMP systems with ethernet interfaces that have support for
multiple transmit queues and have a linux driver support for multiple transmit queues. By having one software queue
for each hardware queue there might be less time spent for synchronizing access to them.
Note: having possibility to set only-hardware-queue requires support in ethernet driver so it is available only
for some ethernet interfaces mostly found on RBs.

Note: improvement from only-hardware-queue and multi-queue-ethernet-default is present only when there is
no "/queue tree" entry with paticular interface as a parent.

Kinds
Queue kinds or Queuing (scheduling) algorithms describe which packet will be transmitted next in
line. RouterOS supports several queuing algorithms:
Manual:Queue 531

• BFIFO, PFIFO, MQ PFIFO

• RED
• SFQ
• PCQ

PFIFO, BFIFO and MQ PFIFO

These queuing disciplines are based on the FIFO algorithm (First-In First-Out). The difference between PFIFO and
BFIFO is that one is measured in packets and the other one in bytes.
Every packet that cannot be enqueued (if the queue is full), is dropped. Large queue sizes can increase latency, but
utilize channel better.
These queues uses pfifo-limit and bfifo-limit parameters.
mq-pfifo is pfifo with support for multiple transmit queues. This queue is beneficial on SMP systems with ethernet
interfaces that have support for multiple transmit queues and have a linux driver support for multiple transmit
queues.
mq-pfifo uses mq-pfifo-limit parameter.

RED
Random Early Drop is a queuing mechanism which tries to avoid network congestion by controlling the average
queue size. The average queue size is compared to two thresholds: a minimum (minth) and maximum (maxth)
threshold. If average queue size (avgq) is less than the minimum threshold, no packets are dropped. When average
queue size is greater than the maximum threshold, all incoming packets are dropped. But if the average queue size is
between the minimum and maximum thresholds packets are randomly dropped with probability Pd where probability
is exact a function of the average queue size: Pd = Pmax(avgq – minth)/ (maxth - minth). If average queue grows, the
probability for dropping incoming packets grows too. Pmax - ratio, which can adjust the packet discarding probability
abruptness, (the simplest case Pmax can be equal to one. The diagram in Figure 8.2. shows the packet drop
probability in RED algorithm.

SFQ
Stochastic Fairness Queuing (SFQ) is ensured by hashing and round-robin algorithms. A traffic flow may be
uniquely identified by a 4 options(src-address, dst-address, src-port and dst-port), so these parameters are used by
SFQ hashing algorithm to classify packets into one of 1024 possible sub-streams. Then round-robin algorithm will
start to distribute available bandwidth to all sub-streams, on each round giving sfq-allot bytes of traffic. The whole
SFQ queue can contain 128 packets and there are 1024 sub-streams available.
Manual:Queue 532

SFQ is called "Stochastic" because it does not really allocate a queue for each flow, it has an algorithm which
divides traffic over a limited number of queues (1024) using a hashing algorithm.

PCQ
Per Connection Queuing (PCQ) is a similar to SFQ, but it has additional features.
It is possible to choose flow identifiers (from dst-address | dst-port | src-address | src-port). For example if you
classify flows by src-address on local interface (interface with your clients), each PCQ sub-stream will be one
particular client's upload.
It is possible to assign speed limitation to sub-streams with pcq-rate option. If pcq-rate=0 sub-streams will
divide available traffic equally.
More information and examples of PCQ are available here.

Properties
Properties that start with particular queue kind name, is applied only to particular kind. For example all properties
starting with pcq applies only to queue kind=pcq.

Property Description

bfifo-limit (integer [1000..4294967295]; Default: 15000) Maximum number of bytes that the BFIFO queue can hold. Applies if kind is
bfifo.

kind (bfifo | mq-pfifo | none | pcq | pfifo | red | sfq; Default: ) Kind of particular queue type. Read more >>

mq-pfifo-limit (integer [1..4294967295]; Default: 50) Multi-queue PFIFO limit.

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of queue type

pcq-burst-rate (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Maximal upload/download data rate which can be reached while the burst for
substream is allowed

pcq-burst-threshold (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) This is value of burst on/off switch

pcq-burst-time (time; Default: 10s) Period of time, in seconds, over which the average data rate is calculated.
(This is NOT the time of actual burst)

pcq-classifier (list of Selection of sub-stream identifiers

src-address|dst-address|src-port|dst-port; Default: "")

pcq-dst-address-mask (integer [0..32] | IPNetmask; Default: size of IPv4 network that will be used as dst-address sub-stream identifier
32)

pcq-dst-address6-mask (integer [0..128]; Default: 128) size of IPV6 network that will be used as dst-address sub-stream identifier
Manual:Queue 533

pcq-limit (integer [1..4294967295]; Default: 50) Queue size of single sub-stream (in KB)

pcq-rate (integer [ 0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Maximal available data rate of each sub-steam

pcq-src-address-mask (integer [0..32] | IPNetmask; Default: size of IPv4 network that will be used as src-address sub-stream identifier
32)

pcq-src-address6-mask (integer [0..128]; Default: 128) size of IPV6 network that will be used as src-address sub-stream identifier

pcq-total-limit (integer [1..4294967295]; Default: 2000) Queue size of single sub-stream (in KB)

pfifo-limit (integer [ 1..4294967295]; Default: 50) Maximum number of packets that the PFIFO queue can hold. Applies if kind
is pfifo.

red-avg-packet (integer [ 1..65535]; Default: 1000) Used by RED for average queue size calculations (for packet to byte
translation)

red-burst (integer [0..4294967295 ]; Default: 20) Number of packets allowed for bursts of packets when there are no packets in
the queue

red-limit (integer [0..4294967295 ]; Default: 60) RED queue limit in packets

red-max-threshold (integer [0..4294967295 ]; Default: 50) The average queue size at which packet marking probability is the highest.

red-min-threshold (integer [0..4294967295 ]; Default: 10) Average queue size in bytes.

sfq-allot (integer [0..32767]; Default: 1514) Amount of data in bytes that can be sent in one round-robin round

sfq-perturb (integer [0..4294967295 ]; Default: 5) How often hash function must be refreshed

Interface Queue
Sub-menu: /queue interface
Before sending data over an interface, it is processed by the queue. This sub menu list all available interfaces in
RouterOS and allows to change queue type for particular interface.
Note: You cannot add new interfaces to this menu. List is generated automatically.

Properties

Property Description

interface (string) Interface name to which queue is applied. Read-only parameter.

queue (string; Default: ) Queue type assigned to particular interface.

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Manual:HTB 534

Manual:HTB
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Theory

Structure
HTB (Hierarchical Token Bucket) is a classful queuing method that is useful for handling different kind of traffic.
We have to follow three basic steps to create HTB:
• Match and mark traffic – classify traffic for further use. Consists of one or more matching parameters to select
packets for the specific class.
• Create rules (policy) to mark traffic – put specific traffic class into specific queue and to define the actions that
are taken for each class.
• Attach policy for specific interface(-s) – append policy for all interfaces (global-in, global-out or global-total),
for specific interface or for specific parent queue.
HTB allows to create a hierarchical queue structure and determine relations between queues, like "parent-child" or
"child-child".
As soon as queue has at least one child it becomes a inner queue, all queues without children - leaf queues. Leaf
queues make actual traffic consumption, Inner queues are responsible only for traffic distribution. All leaf queues
are treated on equal basis.
In RouterOS it is necessary to specify parent option to assign queue as a child to other queue

Dual Limitation
Each queue in HTB has two rate limits:
• CIR (Committed Information Rate) – (limit-at in RouterOS) worst case scenario, flow will get this amount of
traffic no matter what (assuming we can actually send so much data)
• MIR (Maximal Information Rate) – (max-limit in RouterOS) best case scenario, rate that flow can get up to, if
there queue's parent has spare bandwidth
In other words, at first limit-at (CIR) of the all queues will be satisfied, only then child queues will try to borrow the
necessary data rate from their parents in order to reach their max-limit (MIR).
Note: CIR will be assigned to the corresponding queue no matter what. (even if max-limit of the parent is exceeded)
That is why, to ensure optimal (as designed) usage of dual limitation feature, we suggest to stick to these rules:
• Sum of committed rates of all children must be less or equal to amount of traffic that is available to parent.
CIR(parent)* ≥ CIR(child1) +...+ CIR(childN)
*in case if parent is main parent CIR(parent)=MIR(parent)
• Maximal rate of any child must be less or equal to maximal rate of the parent
MIR (parent) ≥ MIR(child1) & MIR (parent) ≥ MIR(child2) & ... & MIR (parent) ≥ MIR(childN)
Queue colors in Winbox:
• 0% - 50% available traffic used - green
Manual:HTB 535

• 51% - 75% available traffic used - yellow

• 76% - 100% available traffic used - red

Priority
We already know that limit-at (CIR) to all queues will be given out no matter what.
Priority is responsible for distribution of remaining parent queues traffic to child queues so that they are able to reach
max-limit
Queue with higher priority will reach its max-limit before the queue with lower priority. 8 is the lowest priority, 1 is
the highest.
Make a note that priority only works:
• for leaf queues - priority in inner queue have no meaning.
• if max-limit is specified (not 0)

Examples
In this section we will analyze HTB in action. To do that we will take one HTB structure and will try to cover all the
possible situations and features, by changing the amount of incoming traffic that HTB have to recycle. and changing
some options.

Structure
Our HTB structure will consist of 5 queues:
• Queue01 inner queue with two children - Queue02 and Queue03
• Queue02 inner queue with two children - Queue04 and Queue05
• Queue03 leaf queue
• Queue04 leaf queue
• Queue05 leaf queue
Queue03, Queue04 and Queue05 are clients who require 10Mbps all the time Outgoing interface is able to handle
10Mbps of traffic.
Manual:HTB 536

Example 1 : Usual case

• Queue01 limit-at=0Mbps max-limit=10Mbps

• Queue02 limit-at=4Mbps max-limit=10Mbps
• Queue03 limit-at=6Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=1
• Queue04 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=3
• Queue05 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=5

Result of Example 1
• Queue03 will receive 6Mbps
• Queue04 will receive 2Mbps
• Queue05 will receive 2Mbps
• Clarification: HTB was build in a way, that, by satisfying all limit-ats, main queue no longer have throughput to
distribute
Manual:HTB 537

Example 2 : Usual case with max-limit

• Queue01 limit-at=0Mbps max-limit=10Mbps

• Queue02 limit-at=4Mbps max-limit=10Mbps
• Queue03 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=3
• Queue04 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=1
• Queue05 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=5
Manual:HTB 538

Result of Example 2
• Queue03 will receive 2Mbps
• Queue04 will receive 6Mbps
• Queue05 will receive 2Mbps
• Clarification: After satisfying all limit-ats HTB will give throughput to queue with highest priority.

Example 3 : Inner queue limit-at

• Queue01 limit-at=0Mbps max-limit=10Mbps

• Queue02 limit-at=8Mbps max-limit=10Mbps
• Queue03 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=1
• Queue04 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=3
• Queue05 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=5

Result of Example 3
• Queue03 will receive 2Mbps
• Queue04 will receive 6Mbps
• Queue05 will receive 2Mbps
• Clarification: After satisfying all limit-ats HTB will give throughput to queue with highest priority. But in this
case inner queue Queue02 had limit-at specified, by doing so, it reserved 8Mbps of throughput for queues
Queue04 and Queue05. From these two Queue04 have highest priority, that is why it gets additional throughput.
Manual:HTB 539

Example 4 : Leaf queue limit-at

• Queue01 limit-at=0Mbps max-limit=10Mbps

• Queue02 limit-at=4Mbps max-limit=10Mbps
• Queue03 limit-at=6Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=1
• Queue04 limit-at=2Mbps max-limit=10Mbps priority=3
• Queue05 limit-at=12Mbps max-limit=15Mbps priority=5

Result of Example 4
• Queue03 will receive ~3Mbps
• Queue04 will receive ~1Mbps
• Queue05 will receive ~6Mbps
• Clarification: Only by satisfying all limit-ats HTB was forced to allocate 20Mbps - 6Mbps to Queue03, 2Mbps
to Queue04, 12Mbps to Queue05, but our output interface is able to handle 10Mbps. As output interface queue is
usually FIFO throughput allocation will keep ratio 6:2:12 or 3:1:6
Manual:HTB 540

HTB configuration example

Assume that we want to limit maximum download speed for subnet 10.1.1.0/24 to 2Mbps and distribute this amount
of traffic between the server and workstations using HTB (limit upload to 2Mbps). Since HTB works in one
direction and is implemented on outbound interface, HTB for download will be on ether2 and HTB for upload will
be on ether1.
Manual:HTB 541

The first, we need to classify traffic.

Mark traffic form/to server. The first rule we will mark the outgoing connection from server and with the second
one, all packets, which belong to this connection (download and upload packets for this connection):
/ip firewall mangle> add chain=prerouting src-address=10.1.1.1/32 action=mark-connection \
new-connection-mark=server_con

/ip firewall mangle> add chain=forward connection-mark=server_con action=mark-packet \

new-packet-mark=server

Do the same for workstation too. Match all workstation connections, mark it with the same mark
(new-connection-mark=workstation_con) and after that mark all packets which belong to these workstation.
/ip firewall mangle> add chain=prerouting src-address=10.1.1.2
action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=workstation_con
/ip firewall mangle> add chain=prerouting src-address=10.1.1.3
action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=workstation_con
/ip firewall mangle> add chain=prerouting src-address=10.1.1.4
action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=workstation_con

/ip firewall mangle> add chain='''forward''' connection-mark=workstation_con action=mark-packet \

new-packet-mark=workstations

At the end create /queue tree for upload and download based on figure 8.8 and figure 8.9.
Queue tree for upload limitation is implemented on ether1 interface.
;;; Queue_A1 creation
/queue tree> add name=Queue_A1 parent='''ether1''' max-limit=2048k
Manual:HTB 542

;;; Queue_B1 creation

/queue tree> add name=Queue_B1 parent=Queue_A1 max-limit=2048k limit-at=1024k

;;; Queue_C1 creation

/queue tree> add name=Queue_C1 parent=Queue_A1 max-limit=2048k limit-at=1024k priority=7 \
packet-mark=server

;;; Queue_D1, Queue_E1 and Queue_F1 creation

/queue tree> add name=Queue_D1 parent=Queue_B1 max-limit=2048k limit-at=340k priority=8 \
packet-mark=workstations
/queue tree> add name=Queue_E1 parent=Queue_B1 max-limit=2048k limit-at=340k priority=8 \
packet-mark=workstations
/queue tree> add name=Queue_F1 parent=Queue_B1 max-limit=2048k limit-at=340k priority=8 \
packet-mark=workstations

Priority value by default is 8 so it is not specified here.

Queue tree for download limitation is implemented on ether2 interface.

;;; Queue_A2 creation
/queue tree> add name=Queue_A2 parent='''ether1''' max-limit=2048k

;;; Queue_B2 creation

/queue tree> add name=Queue_B2 parent=Queue_A2 max-limit=2048k limit-at=1536k

;;; Queue_C creation

/queue tree> add name=Queue_C2 parent=Queue_A2 max-limit=2048k limit-at=512k priority=7 \
packet-mark=server

;;; Queue_D2, Queue_E2 and Queue_F2 creation

/queue tree> add name=Queue_D2 parent=Queue_B2 max-limit=2048k limit-at=512k priority=8 \
packet-mark=workstations
/queue tree> add name=Queue_E2 parent=Queue_B2 max-limit=2048k limit-at=512k priority=8 \
packet-mark=workstations
/queue tree> add name=Queue_F2 parent=Queue_B2 max-limit=2048k limit-at=512k priority=8 \
packet-mark=workstations

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Queue Size 543

Manual:Queue Size
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Queue Size Example

This example was created to highlight queue size impact on traffic that was queued by specific queue.
In Mikrotik RouterOS queue size can be specified in the "/queue type" menu. Each queue type have a different
option for specifying queue size (pfifo-limit, bfifo-limit, pcq-limit, pcq-total-limit, red-limit), but all principles are
the same - queue size is main option that decide should the package be dropped or scheduled for later time.
In real time environment this process is happening continuously without any stops, steps or other interruptions, but in
order to show it as an example we will divide it into steps, where it is possible to know exactly how many packets
will be received/transited in every step.
We will not go into specific details of TCP and dropped packet retransmission - consider these packets as simple
UDP stream.

As you can see in the picture above there are 25 steps and there are total of 1610 incoming packets over this time
frame.
Manual:Queue Size 544

100% Shaper
Queue is 100% shaper when every packet that is over allowed limits will be dropped immediately. This way all
packages that are not dropped will be sent out without any delay.
Lets apply max-limit=100 packets per step limitation to our example:

With this type of limitation only 1250 out of 1610 packets were able to pass the queue (22,4% packet drop), but all
packets arrive without delay.

100% Scheduler
Queue is 100% Scheduler when there is no packet drops at all, all packets are queued and will be sent out at the first
possible moment.
In each step queue must send out queued packets from previous steps first and only then sent out packets from this
step, this way it is possible to keep right sequence of packets.
We will again use same limit (100 packets per step)

There was no packet loss, but 630 (39,1%) packets had 1 step delay, and other 170 (10,6%) packets had 2 step
delay. (delay = latency)
Manual:Queue Size 545

Default-small queue type

It is also possible to choose the middle way, when queue use both of these queuing aspects (shaping and scheduling)
By default most of the queues in RouterOS have queue size of 10.

There were 320 (19,9%) packets dropped and 80 (5,0%) packets had 1 step delay.

Default queue type

Other popular queue size in RouterOS is 50

There were 190 (11,8%) packets dropped and 400 (24,8%) packets had 1 step delay.
Manual:Queues - Burst 546

Manual:Queues - Burst
Applies to RouterOS: v2.9 and newer

Theory
Burst is a feature that allows to satisfy queue requirement for additional bandwidth even if required rate is bigger that
MIR (max-limit) for a limited period of time.
Burst can occur only if average-rate of the queue for the last burst-time seconds is smaller that burst-threshold.
Burst will stop if average-rate of the queue for the last burst-time seconds is bigger or equal to burst-threshold
Burst mechanism is simple - if burst is allowed max-limit value is replaced by burst-limit value. When burst is
disallowed max-limit value remains unchanged.
1. burst-limit (NUMBER) : maximal upload/download data rate which can be reached while the burst is allowed
2. burst-time (TIME) : period of time, in seconds, over which the average data rate is calculated. (This is NOT the
time of actual burst)
3. burst-threshold (NUMBER) : this is value of burst on/off switch
4. average-rate (read-only) : Every 1/16 part of the burst-time, the router calculates the average data rate of each
class over the last burst-time seconds
5. actual-rate (read-only) : actual traffic transfer rate of the queue
Manual:Queues - Burst 547

Example
Values: limit-at=1M , max-limit=2M , burst-threshold=1500k , burst-limit=4M
Client will try to download two 4MB (32Mb) blocks of data, first download will start at zero seconds, second
download will start at 17th second. Traffic was unused for last minute.

Burst-time=16s

As we can see as soon as client requested bandwidth it was able to get 4Mpbs burst for 6 seconds. This is longest
possible burst with given values (longest-burst-time = burst-threshold * burst-time / burst-limit). As soon as burst
runs out rest of the data will be downloaded with 2Mbps. This way block of data was downloaded in 9 seconds -
without burst it would take 16 seconds. Burst have 7 seconds to recharge before next download will start.
Note that burst is still disallowed when download started and it kicks in only afterwards - in the middle of download.
So with this example we proved that burst may happen in the middle of download. Burst was ~4 seconds long and
second block of was downloaded 4 seconds faster then without burst.
Average rate is calculated every 1/16 of burst time, so in this case 1s

Time average-rate burst actual-rate

0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0)/16=0Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

1 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4)/16=250Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

2 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4)/16=500Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

3 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4)/16=750Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

4 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4)/16=1000Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4)/16=1250Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

6 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4)/16=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

7 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2)/16=1625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

8 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2)/16=1750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

9 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2)/16=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

10 (0+0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

Manual:Queues - Burst 548

11 (0+0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

12 (0+0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

13 (0+0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

14 (0+0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

15 (0+4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

16 (4+4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0)/16=2Mbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

17 (4+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0)/16=1750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

18 (4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2)/16=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

19 (4+4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2)/16=1375Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

20 (4+4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4)/16=1375Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

21 (4+2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4)/16=1375Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

22 (2+2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4)/16=1375Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps

23 (2+2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4)/16=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

24 (2+2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2)/16=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

25 (2+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2)/16=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

26 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2+2)/16=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

27 (0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2)/16=1625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

28 (0+0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+2)/16=1750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps

29 (0+0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+2+2)/16=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

30 (0+0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+2+2+0)/16=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

31 (0+0+2+2+4+4+4+4+2+2+2+2+2+2+0+0)/16=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps

Burst-time=8s
Manual:Queues - Burst 549

If we decrease burst-time to 8 seconds - we are able to see that in this case bursts are only at the beginning of
downloads
Average rate is calculated every 1/16th of burst time, so in this case every 0.5 seconds.

Time average-rate burst actual-rate

0.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0)/8=0Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

0.5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2)/8=250Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

1.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2)/8=500Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

1.5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2)/8=750Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

2.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2)/8=1000Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

2.5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2)/8=1250Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

3.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2)/8=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

3.5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1)/8=1625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

4.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1)/8=1750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

4.5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1)/8=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

5.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

5.5 (0+0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2125Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

6.0 (0+0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2250Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

6.5 (0+0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2375Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

7.0 (0+0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2500Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

7.5 (0+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

8.0 (2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

8.5 (2+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

9.0 (2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2500Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

9.5 (2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2375Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

10.0 (2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2250Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

10.5 (2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2125Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

11.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

11.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

12.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

12.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

13.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

13.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0)/8=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

14.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0)/8=1750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

14.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0)/8=1625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

15.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0)/8=1500Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

15.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0)/8=1375Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

16.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0)/8=1250Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

16.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0)/8=1125Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

17.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0)/8=1000Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)
Manual:Queues - Burst 550

17.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1)/8=1000Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

18.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2)/8=1125Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

18.5 (1+1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2)/8=1250Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

19.0 (1+1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2)/8=1375Kbps average-rate < burst-threshold → Burst is allowed 4Mbps (2Mb per 0,5sek)

19.5 (1+1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2)/8=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

20.0 (1+1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1)/8=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

20.5 (1+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1)/8=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

21.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1)/8=1500Kbps average-rate = burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

21.5 (0+0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1)/8=1625Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

22.0 (0+0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1)/8=1750Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

22.5 (0+0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

23.0 (0+0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

23.5 (0+0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2125Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

24.0 (0+0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2250Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

24.5 (0+1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2375Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

25.0 (1+2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2500Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

25.5 (2+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2500Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

26.0 (2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2375Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

26.5 (2+2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2250Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

27.0 (2+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2125Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

27.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

28.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

28.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

29.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

29.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

30.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 2Mbps (1Mb per 0,5sek)

30.5 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)/8=2000Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)

31.0 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0)/8=1875Kbps average-rate > burst-threshold → Burst not allowed 0Mbps (0Mb per 0,5sek)
Manual:Queues - PCQ 551

Manual:Queues - PCQ
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Usage
PCQ was introduced to optimize massive QoS systems, where most of the queues are exactly the same for different
sub-streams. For example a sub-stream can be download or upload for one particular client (IP) or connection to
server.
PCQ algorithm is very simple - at first it uses selected classifiers to distinguish one sub-stream from another, then
applies individual FIFO queue size and limitation on every sub-stream, then groups all sub-streams together and
applies global FIFO queue size and limitation.
PCQ parameters:
• pcq-classifier (dst-address | dst-port | src-address | src-port; default: "") : selection of sub-stream identifiers
• pcq-rate (number) : maximal available data rate of each sub-steam
• pcq-limit (number) : queue size of single sub-stream (in KB)
• pcq-total-limit (number) : queue size of global FIFO queue (in KB)

So instead of having 100 queues with 1000kbps limitation for download we can have one PCQ queue with 100
sub-streams
Manual:Queues - PCQ 552

Classification Examples
To better understand classification we will take a list of 18 packet streams from specific address and port, to a
specific address and port. Then we will choose a classifier and divide all 18 packet streams into PCQ sub-streams
Manual:Queues - PCQ 553

PCQ Rate Examples

Here it is possible to see what happens if PCQ-rate is, or isn't specified. I must noted that if both limits (pcq-rate and
max-limit) are unspecified, queue behavior can be imprecise. So it is strongly suggested to have at least one of these
options set.

New PCQ implementation (v5.0RC5)

PCQ was rewritten in v5.0RC4 to optimize it high throughput both in Mbps and pps. This implementation properly
utilize all new Linux Kernel features, this makes PCQ faster and less resource demanding.
Now as soon as new stream activates it will get 1/4th of rate with highest priority. If rate is "0" sub-stream will not
have this feature (as 1/4th of "0" is "0")
This is necessary to know for one good reason: Lets assume that sub-stream's rate is 10Mbps, so in the moment when
new sub-stream will request traffic it will get first 2500k of traffic without limitation. This may result in higher that
expected results in such programs as Speedtest.net. To avoid that make sure that Speedtest.net is not the first
program that utilize bandwidth that you run on PC.
Also starting from v5.0RC5 PCQ have new features
Manual:Queues - PCQ 554

PCQ Burst for sub-streams. PCQ will have burst implementation identical to Simple Queues and Queue Tree
PCQ parameters:
• pcq-burst-rate (number) : maximal upload/download data rate which can be reached while the burst for
substream is allowed
• pcq-burst-threshold (number) : this is value of burst on/off switch
• pcq-burst-time (time) : period of time, in seconds, over which the average data rate is calculated. (This is NOT
the time of actual burst)
For detailed burst explanation refer to:
• Burst
PCQ also allows to use different size IPv4 and IPv6 networks as sub-stream identifiers . Before it was locked to
single IP address. This is done mainly for IPv6 as customers from ISP point of view will be represented by /64
network, but devices in customers network will be /128. PCQ can be used for both of these scenarios and more.
PCQ parameters:
• pcq-dst-address-mask (number) : size of IPv4 network that will be used as dst-address sub-stream identifier
• pcq-src-address-mask (number) : size of IPv4 network that will be used as src-address sub-stream identifier
• pcq-dst-address6-mask (number) : size of IPV6 network that will be used as dst-address sub-stream identifier
• pcq-src-address6-mask (number) : size of IPV6 network that will be used as src-address sub-stream identifier

See Also
• PCQ Examples

Manual:Queues - PCQ Examples

Per Connection Queue (PCQ) is a queuing discipline that can be used to dynamically equalize or shape traffic for
multiple users, using little administration. It is possible to divide PCQ scenarios into three major groups: equal
bandwidth for a number of users, certain bandwidth equal distribution between users, unknown bandwidth equal
distribution between users.

Equal Bandwidth for a Number of Users

Use PCQ type queue when you need to equalize the bandwidth [and set max limit] for a number of users. We will set
the 64kbps download and 32kbps upload limits.
Manual:Queues - PCQ Examples 555

There are two ways how to make this: using mangle and queue trees, or, using simple queues.
1. Mark all packets with packet-marks upload/download: (lets constider that ether1-LAN is public interface to the
Internet and ether2-LAN is local interface where clients are connected

/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting action=mark-packet \

in-interface=ether1-LAN new-packet-mark=client_upload
/ip firewall mangle add chain=prerouting action=mark-packet \
in-interface=ether2-WAN new-packet-mark=client_download

2. Setup two PCQ queue types - one for download and one for upload. dst-address is classifier for user's download
traffic, src-address for upload traffic:

/queue type add name="PCQ_download" kind=pcq pcq-rate=64000 pcq-classifier=dst-address

/queue type add name="PCQ_upload" kind=pcq pcq-rate=32000 pcq-classifier=src-address

3. Finally, two queue rules are required, one for download and one for upload:

/queue tree add parent=global-in queue=PCQ_download packet-mark=client_download

/queue tree add parent=global-out queue=PCQ_upload packet-mark=client_upload

If you don't like using mangle and queue trees, you can skip step 1, do step 2, and step 3 would be to create one
simple queue as shown here:

/queue simple add target-addresses=192.168.0.0/24 queue=PCQ_upload/PCQ_download \

packet-marks=client_download,client_upload
Manual:Queues - PCQ Examples 556

Note: More information about certain and unknown Distribution between routers can be found in PCQ
manual.

See Also
• PCQ

Manual:Packet Flow
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Overview
MikroTik RouterOS is designed to be easy to operate in various aspects of network configuration. Therefore creating
limitation for individual IP or natting internal clients to a public address or Hotspot configuration can be done
without the knowledge about how the packets are processed in the router - you just go to corresponding menu and
create necessary configuration.
However more complicated tasks, such as traffic prioritization, routing policies, where it is necessary to utilize more
than one RouterOS facility, requires knowledge: How these facilities work together? What happens when and why?
To address these questions we created a packet flow diagram.

Diagram
As it was impossible to get everything in one diagram, Packet flow diagram for Mikrotik RouterOS v3.x was
created in 2 parts:
• Bridging or Layer-2 (MAC) where Routing part is simplified to one "Layer-3" box
• Routing or Layer-3 (IP) where Bridging part is simplified to one "Bridging" box
The packet flow diagram is also available as a PDF [1].
Manual:Packet Flow 557
Manual:Packet Flow 558

Changes in RouterOS v6
The following changes have been made to the Packet Flow in RouterOS v6, see red cirdled elements in the image:

MPLS Packet Flow

Manual:Packet Flow 559

Analysis

Basic Concepts

- starting point in packets way through the router facilities. It does not matter what interface
(physical or virtual) packet is received it will start its way from here.

- last point in packets way through the router facilities. Just before the packet is actually sent out.

- last point in packets way to router itself, after this packet is discarded

- starting point for packets generated by router itself

Configurable Facilities
Each and every facilities in this section corresponds with one particular menu in RouterOS. Users are able to access
those menu and configure these facilities directly

- /ip firewall connection tracking

- /ip firewall filter

- /ip firewall nat

- /ip firewall mangle

- /queue simple and /queue tree

- /ip ipsec policy

- /ip accounting

- /interface bridge settings - available only for traffic that go through the bridge. For all other
traffic default value is Yes

- /interface bridge filter

- /interface bridge nat

Manual:Packet Flow 560

Automated processes and decisions

- check if the actual input interface is a port for bridge OR checks if input interface is bridge

- allow to capture traffic witch otherwise would be discarded by connection tracking - this way our
Hotspot feature are able to provide connectivity even if networks settings are in complete mess

- bridge goes through the MAC address table in order to find a match to destination MAC address of
packet. When match is found - packet will be send out via corresponding bridge port. In case of no match - multiple
copies of packet will be created and packet will be sent out via all bridge ports

- this is a workaround, allows to use "out-bridge-port" before actual bridge decision.

- router goes through the route n order to find a match to destination IP address of packet. When
match is found - packet will be send out via corresponding port or to the router itself . In case of no match - packet
will be discarded.

- this is a workaround that allows to set-up policy routing in mangle chain output

- indicates exact place where Time To Live (TTL) of the routed packet is reduced by 1. If it become
0 packet will be discarded

- self explainatory

- check if the actual output interface is a port for bridge OR checks if output interface is bridge

- undo all that was done by hotspot-in for the packets that is going back to client.

Examples

Bridging with use-ip-firewall=yes

Manual:Packet Flow 561

Routing - from Ethernet to Ethernet interface

Routing from one Bridge interface to different Bridge interface

Manual:Packet Flow 562

IPsec encryption

IPsec decryption

References
[1] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ images/ 1/ 1b/ Traffic_Flow_Diagram_RouterOS_3. x. pdf
Manual:Packet Flow v6 563

Manual:Packet Flow v6
Applies to RouterOS: v6+

Diagram
Manual:Packet Flow v6 564
Manual:Packet Flow v6 565

Examples
Manual:Packet Flow v6 566

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:TE Tunnels 567

Manual:TE Tunnels
Overview
For MPLS overview and RouterOS supported MPLS features see MPLS Overview.
MPLS RSVP TE tunnels are a way to establish unidirectional label switching paths. In general RSVP TE serves
similar purpose as label distribution using LDP protocol - establishing label switched path that ensures frame
delivery from ingress to egress router, but with additional features:
• possibility to establish label switching path using either full or partial explicit route;
• constraint based LSP establishment - label switching path is established over links that fulfill requirements, such
as bandwidth and link properties.
MPLS RSVP TE is based on RSVP protocol with extensions introduced by RFC 3209 that adds support for explicit
route and label exchange.
Note that constraints for path establishment are purely controlled by administrator - for example, bandwidth of link
participating in RSVP TE network is set by administrator and does not necessarily reflect real bandwidth of the link.
The same way bandwidth reserved for tunnel is set by administrator and does not automatically imply any limits on
traffic sent over tunnel. Therefore at any moment in time, bandwidth available on TE link is bandwidth configured
for link minus sum of all reservations made on link, not physically available bandwidth which can be either less (in
case data is forwarded over tunnels with rate that exceeds bandwidth reserved for tunnel or if non-RSVP tunnel data
is forwarded over link as well) or more (in case data is forwarded over tunnels with rate smaller than allocated for
tunnel) than bandwidth available for reservations.
RSVP TE tunnels are initiated by head-end (ingress router) of tunnel. Head-end router sends RSVP Path message
containing necessary parameters towards tail-end of the tunnel. Routers along the path ensure that they can forward
Path message towards next hop, taking into acount path constraints. Once Path message reaches tail-end of the
tunnel, tail-end router sends RSVP Resv message in the opposite direction. Resv message hop by hop traverses
exactly the same path that Path message, only in the opposite direction. Each router forwarding Resv message
allocates necessary bandwith on appropriate downstream link if possible. Once head-end router succesfully receives
Resv message that matches sent Path message, tunnel can be considered established. Tunnel is maintained by
periodically refreshing its state using Path and Resv messages.
RSVP TE tunnels can be established with number of path options:
• along path that data from head-end of tunnel is routed to tail-end - in this case each router along tunnel path
figures out next hop of tunnel based on routing table. If at some point usable route is not found or downstream
interface does not meet constraints (for example if requested bandwidth exceeds available bandwidth), tunnel can
not be established.
• along statically configured explicit path - in this case each router along tunnel path figures out next hop of tunnel
based on explicit route specified in Path message. This explicit route can be either complete (specifies all routers
along the path in the order they must be traversed) or partial (specifies only some routers that must be traversed).
To decide next hop router, each router along the path look up route to next router specified in explicit route. If no
usable route is found or downstream interface does not meet constraints, tunnel can not be established
• Constrained Shortest Path First - in this case head-end router calculates path to tail-end using its knowledge of
network state - properties of links and available bandwidth. This option needs assistance from IGP routing
protocol (such as OSPF) to distribute bandwidth information throughout the network. This is implemented in
OSPF by means of opaque LSAs. When using CSPF, head-end router calculates path that satisfies the
requirements and produces explicit path for Path message. If path that matches constraints can not be calculated,
tunnel can not be established. Dynamically calculated path can also be partially explicit - in this case CSPF seeks
Manual:TE Tunnels 568

for shortest path matching constraints between every two explicit hops. If explicit path is specified completely
and CSPF is used, CSPF just checks if this path meets the constraints taking into account knowledge about link
states in network - so instead of failure to establish tunnel while forwarding Path message in network, Path
message is not even sent as it is clear that establishing tunnel will fail.

Forwarding traffic onto TE tunnels

RSVP TE tunnel head-end appears as interface in RouterOS. Note that RSVP TE tunnels are unidirectional - it is not
necessary to have matching tunnel for reverse direction on tail-end router. When tail-end router receives data sent
over tunnel, it either receives it with TE tunnel label stripped off by penultimate hop (non-default behaviour) or with
explicit-null label, which gets stripped and packet is further inspected (if tunnel label is last label in stack, packet
gets routed, otherwise it is processed based on next label in stack, for example, as VPLS packet). Bidirectional
tunnel can be simulated by creating one tunnel in one direction and other in other direction between the same
endpoints. Still no data will be accounted as received over TE tunnel, as in reality both tunnels are unrelated.
One way to forward traffic onto tunnel is to use routing, but this limits TE tunnel to be used only for routing IP
packets.
Additionally, several types of traffic can be forwarded onto TE tunnel automatically, if it is known to be destined to
the endpoint of tunnel and if tunnel is active:
• traffic that is routed using route route learned from BGP, if BGP NextHop is tunnel endpoint (this default
behaviour can be changed by setting route porperty "use-te-nexthop" to "no"), both - regular IP and VPNv4
(MP-BGP IP VPN) routes fit in this category;
• traffic for VPLS interfaces, if remote endpoint of VPLS pseudowire is the same as TE tunnel endpoint.
For example, for IP BGP route having BGP NextHop x.x.x.x, forwarding method will be chosen according to the
following rules:
• if TE tunnel with endpoint x.x.x.x is active, use it;
• otherwise if LDP label mapping from next hop towards x.x.x.x is received, use it;
• otherwise use regular routing (no MPLS encapsulation).
In similar way, if remote address of VPLS pseudowire is x.x.x.x, forwarding method will be chosen in the following
order:
• if TE tunnel with endpoint x.x.x.x is active, use it;
• otherwise if LDP label mapping from next hop towards x.x.x.x is received, use it;
• otherwise VPLS tunnel can not be active.
Note that RSVP TE tunnels as a way to establish LSPs can be used together with LDP. Using RSVP TE does not
replace or disable LDP, but LSP established by TE is usually preferred over one established using LDP.
Manual:TE Tunnels 569

Example network
Consider the same network as used for LDP signaled VPLS example in MPLSVPLS:

Customer A wants to establish IP VPN between his 3 sites and Customer B wants to transparent connection for
ethernet segments at his sites.

Prerequisites for MPLS TE

In general, prerequisites for using MPLS TE are the same as mentioned in MPLSVPLS, but there are a few details:
• by default TE tunnel tail-end router advertises explicit null label, therefore penultimate hop popping does not
happen (the purpose of using explicit null label is to communicate QoS information in MPLS label Exp field), so
main purpose of having "loopback" IP address for every router is to have tunnel endpoints unaffected by link state
changes;
• in order to use CSPF path selection for tunnels, OSPF must be configured and running in network.

Enabling TE support
In order for OSPF to distribute TE information, TE related OSPF parameters must be set:

[admin@R1] > /routing ospf set mpls-te-area=backbone mpls-te-router-id=lobridge

This instructs OSPF to distribute TE information in "backbone" area using IP address of "lobridge" as router ID.
In order for router to be able to participate in TE tunnel (either as head-end, tail-end or forwarding router), TE
support must be enabled. TE support must be enabled on all interfaces that will receive and send RSVP TE protocol
packets. On R1 it is done by commands (interface ether3 is facing network 1.1.1.0/24):

[admin@R1] > /mpls traffic-eng interface add interface=ether3 bandwidth=100000

Manual:TE Tunnels 570

This configures ether3 interface with TE support, having bandwidth 100000 Bps. Other routers are configured in
similar way.
As soon as TE support is enabled on interface, appropriate opaque LSAs are distributed into OSPF area. For
example, on R1 it can be seen, that there is total 15 opaque LSAs in LSA database:
[admin@R1] > /routing ospf lsa print
...
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.0 1.1.1.2 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.0 2.2.2.3 0x80000004 1039
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.0 3.3.3.4 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.0 4.4.4.5 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.0 11.11.11.1 0x80000004 1037
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.1 1.1.1.2 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.1 2.2.2.3 0x80000004 1039
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.1 3.3.3.4 0x80000004 1037
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.1 4.4.4.5 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.2 1.1.1.2 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.2 2.2.2.3 0x80000004 1039
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.2 3.3.3.4 0x80000004 1037
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.2 4.4.4.5 0x80000004 1038
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.3 2.2.2.3 0x80000004 1039
backbone opaque-area 1.0.0.3 11.11.11.1 0x80000004 1037
...

Creating basic TE tunnel

Assume that we want to create TE tunnel from R1 to R5. In order to do this, tunnel path specification must be
created:

[admin@R1] > /mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path add use-cspf=yes name=dyn

This creates path template for purely dynamic path that will use CSPF.
Next, TE tunnel itself must be created:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> add name=te1 bandwidth=1000 primary-path=dyn \

from-address=9.9.9.1 to-address=9.9.9.5 disabled=no record-route=yes

We can monitor tunnel to see its state:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 0
tunnel-id: 7
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: dyn
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: dyn
active-lspid: 1
active-label: 29
explicit-route: "S:1.1.1.2/32,S:2.2.2.2/32,S:2.2.2.3/32,S:4.4.4.3/32,S:4.4.4.5/32"
recorded-route: "1.1.1.2[30],2.2.2.3[29],4.4.4.5[0]"
Manual:TE Tunnels 571

Notice, that CSPF has created explicit route that traverses R2, R3 and R5 (tail-end). TE tunnel was requested to
record route it is traversing (by "record-route=yes" setting), recorded route is displayed in status along with labels
that particular router has allocated for this tunnel.
Once TE tunnel is established, VPLS interface from R1 to R5 automatically switches to use this TE tunnel:

[admin@R1] /interface vpls> monitor 0

remote-label: 24
local-label: 25
remote-status:
transport: te1
transport-nexthop: 1.1.1.2
imposed-labels: 30,24

On routers in between R1 and R5, RSVP path and reservation state can be monitored, for example on R2:
[admin@R2] > /mpls traffic-eng path-state print
Flags: L - locally-originated, E - egress, F - forwarding, P - sending-path, R - sending-resv
# SRC DST BANDWIDTH OUT-INTERFACE OUT-NEXT-HOP
0 FPR 9.9.9.1:1 9.9.9.5:2 1000 ether2 2.2.2.3
[admin@R2] > /mpls traffic-eng resv-state print
Flags: E - egress, A - active, N - non-output, S - shared
# SRC DST BANDWIDTH LABEL INTERFACE NEXT-HOP
0 AS 9.9.9.1:1 9.9.9.5:7 1000 30 ether2 2.2.2.3

Note, that available bandwidth on ether2 interface (connected to R3) on R2 has changed:

[admin@R2] > /mpls traffic-eng interface print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# INTERFACE BANDWIDTH TE-METRIC REMAINING-BW
0 ether1 100000 1 100000
1 ether2 100000 1 99000
Manual:TE tunnel auto bandwidth 572

Manual:TE tunnel auto bandwidth

Overview
By default MPLS TE tunnels do not apply any rate limitation on traffic that gets sent over tunnel. That way
"bandwidth" settings for MPLS TE enabled interfaces and TE tunnels are only used for reservation accounting.
There are also no means to adjust bandwidth that gets reserved for tunnel other than changing tunnel configuration
no matter what is actual amount of traffic sent over tunnel. To make TE tunnels more flexible and easy to use, the
following features have been introduced:
• Bandwidth limitation
• Automatic bandwidth adjustment
These features operate on tunnel head end (ingress) router. These features can either be used alone or in combination.

Bandwidth limitation
TE tunnel can be configured to limit the rate at which traffic is allowed to enter the tunnel. Limit is specified on
ingress router in percent of tunnel bandwidth. E.g. creating the following tunnel:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> add name=te1 from-address=9.9.9.1 to-address=9.9.9.5 \

bandwidth=100000 bandwidth-limit=120 primary-path=stat

means that tunnel will reserve bandwidth of 100 kilobits per second across MPLS backbone from 9.9.9.1 to 9.9.9.5
and that ingress router will limit the rate of traffic entering the tunnel to 120 kilobits per second (120% of 100
kilobits per second bandwidth). This can be confirmed by monitoring tunnel interface:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor te1

tunnel-id: 3
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: stat
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: stat
active-lspid: 1
active-label: 20
reserved-bandwidth: 100.0kbps
rate-limit: 120.0kbps
rate-measured-last: 0bps
rate-measured-highest: 0bps

Note that by default any limiting is disabled. By specifying limit as percentage of tunnel bandwidth, TE tunnel
bandwith limits can be configured in rather flexible ways - some tunnels can be configured to hard limit while others
can be configured with reasonable reserve, achieving different classes of service.
Manual:TE tunnel auto bandwidth 573

Automatic bandwidth adjustment

Auto bandwidth adjustment feature enables MPLS TE network to follow the changes of amount of data transmitted
over tunnel. Bandwidth adjustment feature works as follows:
• Actual amount of data entering tunnel during averaging interval (auto-bandwidth-avg-interval) is measured,
producing average rate.
• Tunnel keeps track of highest average rate seen during update interval (auto-bandwidth-update-interval)
• When update interval expires, TE tunnel bandwidth is updated to highest observed average rate, taking into
account specified range over which bandwidth is allowed to change (auto-bandwidth-range)
Auto bandwidth adjustment feature gets enabled by specifying auto-bandwidth-range. For example, adding the
following tunnel:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> add name=te1 from-address=9.9.9.1 to-address=9.9.9.5 \

bandwidth=100000 primary-path=stat auto-bandwidth-range=10000-500000 \
auto-bandwidth-avg-interval=10s auto-bandwidth-update-interval=1m

means that tunnel will measure average rate over 10 second periods and once per minute will update bandwidth in
range from 10 to 500 kilobits per second. Tunnel bandwidth setting specifies the initial bandwidth of tunnel. The
above tunnel in complete absence of data over it after 1 minute will change its bandwidth to specified minimum 10
kbps:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor te1

tunnel-id: 3
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: stat
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: stat
active-lspid: 2
active-label: 21
reserved-bandwidth: 10.0kbps
rate-limit: 12.0kbps
rate-measured-last: 0bps
rate-measured-highest: 0bps

Additionally, tunnel can be configured to reserve more bandwidth than measured. This can be achieved with
auto-bandwidth-reserve setting which specifies percentage of additional bandwidth to reserve - so setting
auto-bandwith-reserve to 10 means that tunnel will reserve 10% more bandwidth than measured (but will still obey
the auto-bandwidth-range). For example changing above tunnel and running constant stream of 50kbps through it
will yield the following results:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> set te1 auto-bandwidth-reserve=30

In the beginning tunnel reserves its initially specified bandwidth:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor te1

tunnel-id: 6
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: stat
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: stat
active-lspid: 1
Manual:TE tunnel auto bandwidth 574

active-label: 27
reserved-bandwidth: 100.0kbps
rate-limit: 120.0kbps
rate-measured-last: 48.8kbps
rate-measured-highest: 48.8kbps

After update period and after previous reservations are torn down notice how reserved bandwidth exceeds average
rate by 30%. Also notice that rate-limit correctly changes to 120% of reserved-bandwidth:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor te1

tunnel-id: 6
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: stat
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: stat
active-lspid: 2
active-label: 28
reserved-bandwidth: 64.4kbps
rate-limit: 77.3kbps
rate-measured-last: 48.8kbps
rate-measured-highest: 48.8kbps

Note that in case reservation must be updated to lower value, brief period after update period reserved-bandwidth
will still display previous reservation value. The reason for this is that new reservation is made without disrupting the
previous tunnel and therefore shares its reservation until old reservation is torn down. rate-limit on turn is correctly
updated to intended value. In the above example, after stopping the 50kbps stream and after update period will pass
with tunnel being idle, for a brief period after update tunnel info can be:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor te1

tunnel-id: 6
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: stat
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: stat
active-lspid: 2
active-label: 34
reserved-bandwidth: 63.4kbps
rate-limit: 12.0kbps
rate-measured-last: 0bps
rate-measured-highest: 0bps

After previous reservation (63.4kbps) is torn down, reserved-bandwidth correctly changes to 10kbps:

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 1

tunnel-id: 6
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: stat
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: stat
active-lspid: 2
Manual:TE tunnel auto bandwidth 575

active-label: 34
reserved-bandwidth: 10.0kbps
rate-limit: 12.0kbps
rate-measured-last: 0bps
rate-measured-highest: 0bps

Note that auto-bandwidth-reserve is applied to actual measured bandwidth, before range checking according to
auto-bandwidth-range - therefore 10kbps gets reserved, instead of 13kbps.

Combining bandwidth limitation with automatic bandwidth adjustment

Auto bandwidth adjustment can be used in combination with bandwidth limit feature - bandwidth-limit setting will
apply to bandwidth actually reserved for tunnel. In order to successfully cobine both features, actual bandwidth must
be allowed to fluctuate to some extent - e.g. if bandwidth-limit will be configured to 100% (this effectively means
that rate will be limited to the bandwidth reserved for tunnel), tunnel will not have any chance to increase its
reservation. Therefore either bandwidth-limit should be configured to more than 100%, or
auto-bandwidth-reserve should be configured to more than 0%.
Manual:Simple TE 576

Manual:Simple TE
Summary
This article shows how to simply create traffic engineering tunnels using both dynamic and static tunnel paths.It also
shows how to steer traffic over the tunnel.

Network Layout
We will create a network consisting of four routers connected in diamond shape as illustrated in diagram below.

Each router is connected to neighboring router using /30 network and each of them have unique loopback address
form 10.255.0.x network. Loopback addresses will be used as tunnel source and destination.
The goal is to interconnect two LAN segments (Lan1, Lan2) using TE tunnels in the way that:
• traffic in direction from LAN1 to LAN2 goes over path through R2
• traffic in direction from LAN2 to LAN1 goes over path through R4

Router Configurations

Connectivity between routers and Loopback addresses

R1

/system identity set name=R1

/interface bridge add name=Loopback

/ip address
Manual:Simple TE 577

add address=192.168.33.1/30 interface=ether1

add address=192.168.33.14/30 interface=ether2
add address=192.168.10.1/24 interface=ether3
add address=10.255.0.1/32 interface=Loopback

R2

/system identity set name=R2

/interface bridge add name=Loopback

/ip address
add address=192.168.33.2/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.33.5/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.0.2/32 interface=Loopback

R3

/system identity set name=R3

/interface bridge add name=Loopback

/ip address
add address=192.168.33.6/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.33.9/30 interface=ether2
add address=192.168.20.1/24 interface=ether3
add address=10.255.0.3/32 interface=Loopback

R4

/system identity set name=R4

/interface bridge add name=Loopback

/ip address
add address=192.168.33.10/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.33.13/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.0.4/32 interface=Loopback

Loopback address reachability and CSPF setup

In this setup we will use OSPF dynamic routing protocol to distribute routing information between routers. To
successfully complete the setup we need loopback reachability information on every router.
CSPF will also be configured (extension of OSPF) to carry TE reservation information.
R1

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.0.1 mpls-te-area=backbone mpls-te-router-id=Loopback

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.33.0/24 area=backbone
Manual:Simple TE 578

add network=10.255.0.1/32 area=backbone

R2

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.0.2 mpls-te-area=backbone mpls-te-router-id=Loopback

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.33.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.0.2/32 area=backbone

R3

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.0.3 mpls-te-area=backbone mpls-te-router-id=Loopback

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.33.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.0.3/32 area=backbone

R4

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.0.4 mpls-te-area=backbone mpls-te-router-id=Loopback

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.33.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.0.4/32 area=backbone

After OSPF is set up verify that we have correct routing information in routing table of each router:

[admin@R1] /ip route> print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADS 0.0.0.0/0 10.5.101.1 1
1 ADC 10.255.0.1/32 10.255.0.1 lo 0
2 ADo 10.255.0.2/32 192.168.33.2 110
3 ADo 10.255.0.3/32 192.168.33.2 110
192.168.33.13
4 ADo 10.255.0.4/32 192.168.33.13 110
5 ADC 192.168.10.0/30 192.168.10.1 ether3 0
6 ADC 192.168.33.0/30 192.168.33.1 ether1 0
7 ADo 192.168.33.4/30 192.168.33.2 110
8 ADo 192.168.33.8/30 192.168.33.13 110
9 ADC 192.168.33.12/30 192.168.33.14 ether2 0
Manual:Simple TE 579

Setting Resource Reservation

Next step is to set up TE resource for every interface on which we might want to run TE tunnel.
Configuration on all the routers are the same:

/mpls traffic-eng interface

add interface=ether1 bandwidth=10Mbps
add interface=ether2 bandwidth=10Mbps

Since we are not using real bandwidth limitation on the tunnels in this example, bandwidth parameter is only used
for administrative purposes and can be any value (it does not represent how much bandwidth will actually flow
through the interface).

TE tunnel setup
Since our primary goal is to strictly forward traffic over specific path we will use static path configuration as
primary, and dynamic (CSPF) as secondary path if primary fails.
R1

/mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path

add name=dyn use-cspf=yes
add name=tun-first-link use-cspf=no \
hops=192.168.33.2:strict,192.168.33.5:strict,192.168.33.6:strict

/interface traffic-eng
add bandwidth=5Mbps name=TE-to-R3 to-address=10.255.0.3 primary-path=tun-first-link \
secondary-paths=dyn record-route=yes from-address=10.255.0.1

R3

/mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path

add name=dyn use-cspf=yes
add name=tun-second-link use-cspf=no \
hops=192.168.33.10:strict,192.168.33.13:strict,192.168.33.14:strict

/interface traffic-eng
add bandwidth=5Mbps name=TE-to-R1 to-address=10.255.0.1 primary-path=tun-second-link \
secondary-paths=dyn record-route=yes from-address=10.255.0.3

Verify that TE tunnels are working

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 0

tunnel-id: 14
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: tun-first-link
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: tun-first-link
active-lspid: 1
active-label: 39
explicit-route: S:192.168.33.2/32,S:192.168.33.5/32,S:192.168.33.6/32
reserved-bandwidth: 5.0Mbps
Manual:Simple TE 580

Notice that running router will show assigned MPLS lables, whole tunnel path and reserved bandwidth. Reserved
resources also can be monitored on each router:

[admin@R1] /mpls traffic-eng> path-state print

Flags: L - locally-originated, E - egress, F - forwarding, P - sending-path,
R - sending-resv
# SRC DST BANDWIDTH OUT.. OUT-NEXT-HOP
0 LFP 10.255.0.1:1 10.255.0.3:15 5.0Mbps eth.. 192.168.33.2
1 E R 10.255.0.3:1 10.255.0.1:8 5.0Mbps
[admin@R1] /mpls traffic-eng> resv-state print
Flags: E - egress, A - active, N - non-output, S - shared
# SRC DST BANDWIDTH LABEL INT...
0 AS 10.255.0.1:1 10.255.0.3:15 5.0Mbps 41 ether1
[admin@R1] /mpls traffic-eng>
[admin@R1] /mpls traffic-eng> interface print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# INTERFACE BANDWIDTH TE-METRIC REMAINING-BW
0 ether1 10Mbps 1 5.0Mbps
1 ether2 10Mbps 1 10.0Mbp

Notice that remaining bandwidth on interface decreased. It means that if multiple tunnels are created and whole
bandwidth on that particular interface is used, then tunnel will try to look for different path.
Note: TE tunnels are unidirectional, meaning that tunnel may be running in one direction but fail in another
direction if whole resources are reserved

Route Traffic over TE

To route LAN traffic over TE tunnel we will assign address 10.99.99.1/30 and 10.99.99.2/30 to
each tunnel end.
R1

/ip address add address=10.99.99.1/30 interface=TE-to-R3

/ip route add dst-address=192.168.20.0/24 gateway=10.99.99.2

R3

/ip address add address=10.99.99.2/30 interface=TE-to-R1

/ip route add dst-address=192.168.10.0/24 gateway=10.99.99.1

To verify if traffic is actually going over TE tunnel and is label switched we can run traceroute:

[admin@R1] /ip address> /tool traceroute 10.99.99.1

# ADDRESS RT1 RT2 RT3 STATUS
1 192.168.33.2 2ms 1ms 1ms <MPLS:L=41,E=0>
2 10.99.99.1 3ms 1ms 1ms

As you can see traceroute recorded MPLS label in the path.

Congratulations our setup works.
Manual:Simple TE 581

Failover Testing
Lets consider that router R4 went down, and whole traffic needs to be switched over R2.

Traffic engineering does not switch paths automatically. If we use dynamic path then path relies on OSPF routing
information and is recalculated whenever one of the link fails. In case of static primary paths as in our case, we need
to re-optimize the tunnel. It can be done in two ways:
• manually - which is not what we need
• automatically - at specific interval
To set up path re-optimization we need to specify interval.
R1

/interface trafic-eng set TE-to-R3 reoptimize-interval=5s

R3

/interface trafic-eng set TE-to-R1 reoptimize-interval=5s

After a while tunnel will switch paths do secondary

[admin@R3] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 0

tunnel-id: 10
primary-path-state: trying-to-establish
primary-path: tun-second-link
secondary-path-state: established
secondary-path: dyn
active-path: dyn
active-lspid: 3
active-label: 45
explicit-route: S:192.168.33.5/32,S:192.168.33.2/32,S:192.168.33.1/32
Manual:Simple TE 582

reserved-bandwidth: 5.0Mbps

By default tunnel will try to switch back to primary path every minute. This setting can be changed with
primary-retry-interval parameter.
Note: Switching from primary to secondary path may not be as fast as expected. It depends on OSPF dead
timeouts, routing table updates and timeout settings in TE tunnel configuration.

Extended Tunnel for VoIP

Lets consider that in network that we made previously, path through R4 has lower latency which is
good for VoIP traffic. Since VOIP server is on LAN2 we will create another TE tunnel from R1 to R3 explicitly for
VoIP traffic.

Assuming that previous configuration is up and running, we will start with path definition for VOIP tunnel.
R1

/mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path

add name=tun-second-link use-cspf=no \
hops=192.168.33.13:strict,192.168.33.10:strict,192.168.33.9:strict

/interface traffic-eng
add name=TE-to-R3-VOIP to-address=10.255.0.3 bandwidth=5Mbps record-route=yes \
primary-path=tun-second-link secondary-paths=dyn reoptimize-interval=5s

Verify that tunnel is up and running

[admin@R1] /interface traffic-eng> monitor TE-to-R3-VOIP

tunnel-id: 19
primary-path-state: established
Manual:Simple TE 583

primary-path: tun-second-link
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: tun-second-link
active-lspid: 1
active-label: 20
explicit-route: S:192.168.33.13/32,S:192.168.33.10/32,S:192.168.33.9/32
recorded-route: 192.168.33.10[20],192.168.33.9[0]
reserved-bandwidth: 5.0Mbps

Notice that we are doing configuration only in one direction, since traffic coming back form the server will use the
same tunnel as regular data.
Now it is time to set up routing.
Let's consider that VoIP server's IP address is 192.168.20.250. We will also need to set up IP addresses on tunnel
ends.
R1

/ip address add address=10.100.100.1/30 interface=TE-to-R3-VOIP

/ip route add dst-address=192.168.20.250/32 gateway=10.100.100.2

R3

/ip address add address=10.100.100.2/30 interface=TE-to-R1

See More
• TE Tunnel Auto Bandwidth
• TE Tunnels
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:TE Tunnels Example 584

Manual:TE Tunnels Example

Application example
Consider following setup:

IP Connectivity and LDP

R1
ether1 connects to R2, ether2 connects to R5

/system identity set name=R1

/interface bridge add name=lo0

/ip address
add address=192.168.55.1/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.55.18/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.1.1/32 interface=lo0

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.1.1

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.55.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.1.0/24 area=backbone

/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.1.1 transport-address=10.255.1.1

/mpls ldp interface

add interface=ether1
add interface=ether2
Manual:TE Tunnels Example 585

R2
ether1 connects to R1, ether2 connects to R3

/system identity set name=R2

/interface bridge add name=lo0

/ip address
add address=192.168.55.2/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.55.5/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.1.2/32 interface=lo0

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.1.2

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.55.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.1.0/24 area=backbone

/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.1.2 transport-address=10.255.1.2

/mpls ldp interface

add interface=ether1
add interface=ether2

R3
ether1 connects to R2, ether2 connects to R4

/system identity set name=R3

/interface bridge add name=lo0

/ip address
add address=192.168.55.6/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.55.9/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.1.3/32 interface=lo0

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.1.3

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.55.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.1.0/24 area=backbone

/mpls ldp
Manual:TE Tunnels Example 586

set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.1.3 transport-address=10.255.1.3

/mpls ldp interface

add interface=ether1
add interface=ether2

R4
ether1 connects to R3, ether2 connects to R5

/system identity set name=R4

/interface bridge add name=lo0

/ip address
add address=192.168.55.10/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.55.13/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.1.4/32 interface=lo0

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.1.4

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.55.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.1.0/24 area=backbone

/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.1.4 transport-address=10.255.1.4

/mpls ldp interface

add interface=ether1
add interface=ether2

R5
ether1 connects to R4, ether2 connects to R1

/system identity set name=R5

/interface bridge add name=lo0

/ip address
add address=192.168.55.14/30 interface=ether1
add address=192.168.55.17/30 interface=ether2
add address=10.255.1.5/32 interface=lo0

/routing ospf instance

set default router-id=10.255.1.5
Manual:TE Tunnels Example 587

/routing ospf network

add network=192.168.55.0/24 area=backbone
add network=10.255.1.0/24 area=backbone

/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.1.5 transport-address=10.255.1.5

/mpls ldp interface

add interface=ether1
add interface=ether2

After OSPF and LDP setup ensure that ospf is working properly

[admin@R1] /routing ospf neighbor> print

0 instance=default router-id=10.255.1.5 address=192.168.55.17 interface=ether2
priority=1 dr-address=192.168.55.17 backup-dr-address=192.168.55.18
state="Full" state-changes=5 ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0
adjacency=32m17s

1 instance=default router-id=10.255.1.2 address=192.168.55.2 interface=ether1

priority=1 dr-address=192.168.55.2 backup-dr-address=192.168.55.1
state="Full" state-changes=5 ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0
adjacency=32m17s
[admin@R1] /routing ospf neighbor>

[admin@R1] /ip route> print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADS 0.0.0.0/0 10.1.101.1 0
1 ADC 10.1.101.0/24 10.1.101.9 ether3 0
2 ADC 10.255.1.1/32 10.255.1.1 lo0 0
3 ADo 10.255.1.2/32 192.168.55.2 110
4 ADo 10.255.1.3/32 192.168.55.2 110
5 ADo 10.255.1.4/32 192.168.55.17 110
6 ADo 10.255.1.5/32 192.168.55.17 110
7 ADC 192.168.55.0/30 192.168.55.1 ether1 0
8 ADo 192.168.55.4/30 192.168.55.2 110
9 ADo 192.168.55.8/30 192.168.55.2 110
192.168.55.17
10 ADo 192.168.55.12/30 192.168.55.17 110
11 ADC 192.168.55.16/30 192.168.55.18 ether2 0
[admin@R1] /ip route>

Also make sure MPLS forwarding-table has label bindings

[admin@R1] /mpls forwarding-table> print

Flags: L - ldp, V - vpls, T - traffic-eng
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION I NEXTHOP
Manual:TE Tunnels Example 588

0 expl-null
1 L 16 10.255.1.5/32 e 192.168.55.17
2 L 17 19 192.168.55.8/30 e 192.168.55.2
3 L 18 19 10.255.1.4/32 e 192.168.55.17
4 L 19 21 10.255.1.3/32 e 192.168.55.2
5 L 20 192.168.55.12/30 e 192.168.55.17
6 L 21 192.168.55.4/30 e 192.168.55.2
7 L 22 10.255.1.2/32 e 192.168.55.2

VPLS tunnel
ether4 goes to CE routers
R1

/interface bridge add name=vpn

/interface vpls
add remote-peer=10.255.1.3 vpls-id=3:3

/interface bridge port

add interface=ether4 bridge=vpn
add interface=vpls1 bridge=vpn

R3

/interface bridge add name=vpn

/interface vpls
add remote-peer=10.255.1.1 vpls-id=3:3

/interface bridge port

add interface=ether4 bridge=vpn
add interface=vpls1 bridge=vpn

Make sure that VPLS tunnel is established and running

[admin@R1] /interface vpls> monitor 0 once

remote-label: 23
local-label: 23
remote-status:
transport: 10.255.1.3/32
transport-nexthop: 192.168.55.2
imposed-labels: 21,23

[admin@R1] /interface vpls>

Manual:TE Tunnels Example 589

TE Support
Traffic engineering needs RSVP protocol enabled on head end, tail end and forwarding routers. And additional setup
to use CSPF.
In our example all routers have the same configuration:

# set up CSPF
/routing ospf instance
set default mpls-te-area=backbone mpls-te-router-id=lo0

# add interfaces on which to run RSVP

/mpls traffic-eng interface
add interface=ether1 bandwidth=10Mbps
add interface=ether2 bandwidth=10Mbps

TE Tunnels

Manual:Interface/Traffic Engineering
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4+

Properties
Sub-menu: /interface traffic-eng

Property Description

affinity-exclude (integer; Default: ) Do not use interface if resource-class matches any of specified bits.

affinity-include-all (integer; Default: ) Use interface only if resource-class matches all of specified bits.

affinity-include-any (integer; Default: ) Use interface if resource-class matches any of specified bits.

auto-bandwidth-avg-interval (time; Default: Interval in which actual amount of data is measured, from which average bandwidth is
5m) calculated.

auto-bandwidth-range (Disabled | Auto bandwidth adjustment range. Read more >>

Min[bps][-Max[bps]]; Default: 0bps)

auto-bandwidth-reserve (integer[%]; Default: Specifies percentage of additional bandwidth to reserve. Read more >>
0%)

auto-bandwidth-update-interval (time; Interval during which tunnel keeps track of highest average rate.
Default: 1h)

bandwidth (integer[bps]; Default: 0bps) How much bandwidth to reserve for TE tunnel. Value is in bits per second. Read
more >>

bandwidth-limit (disabled | integer[%]; Default: Defines actual bandwidth limitation of TE tunnel. Limit is configured in percent of
disabled) specified tunnel bandwidth. Read more >>

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disable-running-check (yes | no; Default: no) Specifies whether to detect if interface is running or not. If set to no interface will
always have running flag.
Manual:Interface/Traffic Engineering 590

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether item is ignored or used.

from-address (auto | IP; Default: auto) Ingress address of the tunnel. If set to auto least IP address is picked.

holding-priority (integer [0..7]; Default: ) Is used to decide whether this session can be preempted by another session. 0 sets the
highest priority.

mtu (integer; Default: )

name (string; Default: ) Name of the interface

primary-path (string; Default: ) Primary label switching paths defined in /mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path
menu.

primary-retry-interval (time; Default: 1m) Interval after which tunnel will try to use primary path.

record-route (yes | no; Default: ) If enabled, the sender node will receive information about the actual route that the LSP
tunnel traverses. Record Route is analogous to a path vector, and hence can be used for
loop detection.

reoptimize-interval (time; Default: ) Interval after which tunnel will re-optimize current path. If current path is not the best
path then after optimization best path will be used. Read more >>

secondary-path (string[,string]; Default: ) List of label switching paths used by TE tunnel if primary path fails. Paths are defined
in /mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path menu.

setup-priority (integer[0..7]; Default: ) Parameter is used to decide whether this session can preempt another session. 0 sets
the highest priority.

to-address (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Remote end of TE tunnel.

Monitoring
To verify TE tunnel's status monitor command can be used.

[admin@R3] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 0

tunnel-id: 12
primary-path-state: on-hold
secondary-path-state: established
secondary-path: static
active-path: static
active-lspid: 3
active-label: 66
explicit-route: "S:192.168.55.10/32,L:192.168.55.13/32,L:192.168.55.17/32"
recorded-route: "192.168.55.13[66],192.168.55.17[59],192.168.55.18[3]"
reserved-bandwidth: 5.0Mbps

Reoptimization
Path can be re-optimized manually by entering following command /interface traffic-eng
reoptimize [id]. It allows network administrators to reoptimize the LSPs that have been established based on
changes in bandwidth, traffic, management policy, or other factors.
Lets say TE tunnel chose another path after link failure on best path. You can verify optimization by looking at
explicit-route or recorded-route if record-route parameter is enabled.

[admin@R3] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 0

tunnel-id: 12
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: dyn
Manual:Interface/Traffic Engineering 591

secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: dyn
active-lspid: 1
active-label: 67
explicit-route: "S:192.168.55.10/32,S:192.168.55.13/32,S:192.168.55.14/32,
S:192.168.55.17/32,S:192.168.55.18/32"
recorded-route: "192.168.55.13[67],192.168.55.17[60],192.168.55.18[3]"
reserved-bandwidth: 5.0Mbps

Whenever the link comes back, TE tunnel will use the same path even it is not the best path (unless
reoptimize-interval is configured). To fix it we can manually reoptimize tunnel path.

[admin@R3] /interface traffic-eng> reoptimize 0

[admin@R3] /interface traffic-eng> monitor 0

tunnel-id: 12
primary-path-state: established
primary-path: dyn
secondary-path-state: not-necessary
active-path: dyn
active-lspid: 2
active-label: 81
explicit-route: "S:192.168.55.5/32,S:192.168.55.2/32,S:192.168.55.1/32"
recorded-route: "192.168.55.2[81],192.168.55.1[3]"
reserved-bandwidth: 5.0Mbps

Notice how explicit-route and recorded-route changed to shorter path.

See Also
• TE Tunnel Auto Bandwidth
• TE tunnels explained
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:MPLS 592

Manual:MPLS
Sub Categories
List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

• Interface General General

• vpls • MPLS Overview and RouterOS MPLS Implementation Status • MPLS over PPPoE
• traffic-eng • EXP bit behaviour Layer2 VPN
• MPLS • L2MTU
• P2P L2VPN to Juniper router
• ldp Layer2 VPN
Layer3 VPN
• traffic-eng • LDP and LDP based VPLS
• A complete Layer-3 MPLS VPN example
• BGP based VPLS
• VRF Route Leaking
• Cisco style VPLS
• Internet access from VRF
• VPLS Control Word
• Internet access from VRF with NAT
Layer3 VPN
Traffic Engineering
• Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF)
• Simple TE configuration
• OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol
• TE tunnels for VPLS
• EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol
Traffic Engineering
• TE Tunnels
• TE Tunnel Bandwidth Control

Summary
MikroTik RouterOS [1] supports MPLS. All MikroTik RouterBOARD [1] hardware products support MPLS.

General Porperties
Property Description

dynamic-label-range (range of Range of Label numbers used for dynamic allocation. First 16 labels are reserved for special
integer[16..1048575]; Default: 16-1048575) purposes (as defined in RFC). If you intend to configure labels statically then adjust dynamic
default range not to include numbers that will be used in static configuration.

propagate-ttl (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to copy TTL values from IP header to MPLS header. If this option is set to no then hops
inside MPLS cloud will be invisible from traceroutes.

Forwarding Table
Sub-menu: /mpls forwarding-table
Entries in this sub-menu shows label bindings for specific routes that will be used in MPLS label switching.
Properties in this menu are read-only
Manual:MPLS 593

Property Description

bytes (integer) Total number of packet bytes matched by this entry

destination (IP/Mask) Destination prefix for which labels are assigned

in-label (integer) Label number for incoming packet

interface (string)

ldp (yes | no) Whether labels are LDP signaled

nexthop (IP) IP address of the nexthop

out-label (integer) Label number which is added or switched to for outgoing packet.

packets (integer) Number of packets matched by this entry

traffic-eng (yes | no) Shows whether entry is signaled by RSVP-TE (Traffic Engineering)

vpls (yes | no) Shows whether entry is used for VPLS tunnels.

For example we have forwarding table as shown below.

[admin@RB493G] /mpls forwarding-table> print

Flags: L - ldp, V - vpls, T - traffic-eng
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION IN NEXTHOP
0 expl-null
1 L 105 10.255.255.36/32 lo 10.5.101.36
2 L 120 112 3.3.3.1/32 lo 10.5.101.3
3 L 121 113 3.3.3.2/32 lo 10.5.101.3
[admin@RB493G] /mpls forwarding-table>

You can see that all labels are LDP signaled. Note that for entry #1 there is no out-label, it means that MPLS label
switching will not occur, packet will be sent out as regular IP packet. In the other hand entry #2 has in-label and
out-label, which means that during packet forwarding label will be switched from 120 to 112.

Interface
Sub-menu: /mpls interface
This menu allows to configure MTUs including MPLS headers that interface can forward without fragmentation.
Note: If Ethernet card does not support Jumbo frames, then MPLS MTU for all interfaces on all devices
participating in LSP should be set to 1500

Properties
Manual:MPLS 594

Property Description

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the interface

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) If set to yes then this configuration is ignored.

interface (string | all; Default: Interface name to which apply settings. If set to all then the same config will be used for every interface if
all) there is no specific configuration for the interface.

mpls-mtu (integer [512..65535]; Option represents how big packets can be carried over the interface with added MPLS labels. Read More
Default: 1508) >>

In RouterOS by default have entry which sets MS MTU to 1508 for all interfaces.

[admin@RB493G] /mpls interface> print

Flags: X - disabled
# INTERFACE MPLS-MTU
0 all 1508

Local Bindings
Sub-menu: /mpls local-bindings
This sub-menu shows labels bound to the routes locally in the router. In this menu also static bindings can be
configured if there is no intention to use any of dynamic protocols (like LDP).
Properties

Property Description

comments (string; Default: ) Short description of the entry

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

dst-address (IP/Mask; Default: ) Destination prefix for which label is assigned

label (integer[0..1048576] | alert | expl-null | expl-null6 | impl-null | none; Default: ) Label number assigned to destination.

Read-only Properties

Property Description

adv-path ()

advertised (yes | no) Whether binding was advertised to the neigbors

dynamic (yes | no) Whether entry was dynamically added

egress (yes | no)

gateway-route (yes | no) Whether destination is reachable through the gateway.

local-route (yes | no) Whether destination is locally reachable on the router

peers (IP:label_space) IP address and label space of the peer to which this entry was advertised.
Manual:MPLS 595

Remote Bindings
Sub-menu: /mpls remote-bindings
Sub-menu shows label bindings for routes received from other routers. This table is used to build Forwarding Table
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / mikrotik. com/ software. html

Manual:MPLS/Overview
MPLS Overview
MPLS stands for MultiProtocol Label Switching. It kind of replaces IP routing - packet forwarding decision
(outgoing interface and next hop router) is no longer based on fields in IP header (usually destination address) and
routing table, but on labels that are attached to packet. This approach speeds up forwarding process because next hop
lookup becomes very simple compared to routing lookup (finding longest matching prefix).
Efficiency of forwarding process is the main benefit of MPLS, but it must be taken into account that MPLS
forwarding disables processing of network layer (e.g. IP) headers, therefore no network layer based actions like NAT
and filtering can be applied to MPLS forwarded packets. Any network layer based actions should be taken on ingress
or egress of MPLS cloud, with preferred way being ingress - this way, e.g. traffic that is going to be dropped anyway
does not travel through MPLS backbone.
In the simplest form MPLS can be thought of like improved routing - labels are distributed by means of LDP
protocol for routes that are active and labeled packet takes the same path it would take if it was not labeled. Router
that routes unlabeled packet using some route for which it has received label from next hop, imposes label on packet
and send it to next hop - it gets MPLS switched further along its path. Router that receives packet with label it has
assigned to some route changes packet label with one received from next hop of particular route and sends packet to
next hop. Label switched path ensures delivery of data to the MPLS cloud egress point. Applications of MPLS are
based on this basic MPLS concept of label switched paths.
Another way of establishing label switching path is traffic engineering tunnels (TE tunnels) by means of RSVP TE
protocol. Traffic engineering tunnels allow explicitly routed LSPs and constraint based path selection (where
constraints are interface properties and available bandwidth).
Taking into account complexity, new protocols and applications that MPLS introduces and differences of concepts
that MPLS adds to routed/bridged network, it is recommended to have in depth understanding of MPLS concepts
before implementing MPLS in production network. Some suggested reading material:
• Multiprotocol Label Switching http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiprotocol_Label_Switching
• RFC3031 Multiprotocol Label Switching Architecture http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3031.txt
• MPLS Fundamentals by Luc De Ghein http://www.amazon.com/MPLS-Fundamentals-Luc-Ghein/dp/
1587051974
Manual:MPLS/Overview 596

RouterOS MPLS features

As of version 3.8 MPLS feature development for RouterOS continues in mpls-test package that requires
routing-test package. Currently RouterOS (by means of mpls-test and routing-test packages) supports the following
MPLS related features:
• MPLS switching with penultimate hop popping support
• static local label bindings for IPv4
• static remote label bindings for IPv4
• Label Distribution Protocol (RFC 3036, RFC 5036) for IPv4
• downstream unsolicited label advertisement
• independent label distribution control
• liberal label retention
• targeted session establishment
• optional loop detection
• Virtual Private Lan Service
• VPLS LDP signaling (RFC 4762)
• VPLS pseudowire fragmentation and reassembly (RFC 4623)
• VPLS MP-BGP based autodiscovery and signaling (RFC 4761), see BGP based VPLS
• RSVP TE Tunnels
• tunnel head-end
• explicit paths
• OSPF extensions for TE tunnels
• CSPF path selection
• forwarding of VPLS and MPLS IP VPN traffic on TE tunnels
• MP-BGP based MPLS IP VPN
• OSPF extensions for MPLS TE
Features since version 3.17:
• support for OSPF as CE-PE protocol
• ping and traceroute for specified VRF
• control over network layer TTL propagation in MPLS
Features since version 3.20 (note that this version changes configuration syntax and adds new parameters!):
• Cisco style static VPLS pseudowires (RFC 4447 FEC type 0x80)
• Cisco VPLS BGP-based auto-discovery (draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08)
• support for multiple import/export route target extended communities for BGP based VPLS (both, RFC 4761 and
draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08)
Features since version 3.23
• Ingress TE tunnel rate limit and automatic reserved bandwidth adjustment, see TE Tunnel Bandwidth Control
• all tunnel bandwidth settings are specified and displayed in bits per second
• complete support for OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol (including sham links)
Features since version 3.24
• RIP as CE-PE protocol
• per-VRF BGP instance redistribution settings
MPLS features that RouterOS DOES NOT HAVE yet:
• IPv6 support
• LDP features:
Manual:MPLS/Overview 597

• downstream on demand label advertisement

• ordered label distribution control
• conservative label retention
• TE features
• fast reroute
• link/node protection
• Support for BGP as label distribution protocol
To ensure compatibility with other manufacturer equipment ensure that required features match, if uncertain, consult
with Mikrotik support. RouterOS LDP and TE implementation has been tested with Cisco IOS.

Manual:MPLS over PPPoE

Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5

This example shows how to set up MPLS network over PPPoE interfaces.

As you ca see from illustration above, router R2 is pppoe server and routers R3 and R4 are pppoe clients. Our goal is
to run MPLS on this network.
When running MPLS over PPPoE or other tunnels you have to deal with MTU issues. Tunnels add more overhead
(in our case PPPoE adds 8 more bytes). To be able to forward 1500 byte IP packet without fragmentation we will
need interface that supports
1500 (IP frame)
+ 8 (PPPoE header)
+ 4 (MPLS header)
= 1512bytes
From RouterBoard MTU table you can check if RouterBoard supports 1512 L2MTU.
Lets say that R2 is RB433 and pppoe clients are connected to ether2. From the table you can see that max supported
l2MTU for this interface is 1522.
It means that router will be able to forward packets without fragmentations.
Manual:MPLS over PPPoE 598

Note: Since v5.0 is added proper support for MPLS over PPP. Now by default MPLS is disabled, to enable it
go to
/ppp profile menu and set use-mpls=yes

/system identity set name=R1

# add loopback interface

/interface bridge
add name=loopback
/ip address
add address=10.255.255.1/32 interface=loopback
add address=172.16.0.1/30 interface=ether1

#set up ospf
/routing ospf instance
set default redistribute-connected=as-type-1
/routing ospf network
add network=172.16.0.0/30 area=backbone

# set up MPLS/LDP
/mpls interface set 0 mpls-mtu=1512
/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.255.1 transport-address=10.255.255.1
/mpls ldp interface
add interface=ether1

Note that we have to add static interface for each PPPoE clients, because later on these interfaces will be added to
LDP configuration.

/system identity set name=R2

# add loopback interface

/interface bridge
add name=loopback
/ip address
add address=10.255.255.2/32 interface=loopback
add address=172.16.0.2/30 interface=ether1

# set up pppoe
/interface pppoe-server server
add interface=ether2 service-name=mpls max-mru=1500 max-mtu=1500

/ppp secret
add name=mplsR3 service=pppoe remote-address=192.168.0.2 local-address=192.168.0.1
add name=mplsR4 service=pppoe remote-address=192.168.0.3 local-address=192.168.0.1
Manual:MPLS over PPPoE 599

/interface pppoe-server
add name="mplsR3" user="mplsR3" service="mpls"
add name="mplsR4" user="mplsR4" service="mpls"

#set up ospf
/routing ospf instance
set default redistribute-connected=as-type-1
/routing ospf network
add network=172.16.0.0/30 area=backbone
add network=192.168.0.2/32 area=backbone
add network=192.168.0.3/32 area=backbone

# set up MPLS/LDP
/mpls interface set 0 mpls-mtu=1512
/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.255.2 transport-address=10.255.255.2
/mpls ldp interface
add interface=ether1
add interface=mplsR3
add interface=mplsR4

/system identity set name=R3

# add loopback interface

/interface bridge
add name=loopback
/ip address
add address=10.255.255.3/32 interface=loopback

# set up pppoe
/interface pppoe-client
add name="mplsR3" max-mtu=1500max-mru=1500 interface=ether2 user="mplsR3" service-name=mpls

#set up ospf
/routing ospf instance
set default redistribute-connected=as-type-1
/routing ospf network
add network=192.168.0.1/32 area=backbone

# set up MPLS/LDP
/mpls interface set 0 mpls-mtu=1512
/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.255.3 transport-address=10.255.255.3
/mpls ldp interface
add interface=mplsR3

/system identity set name=R4

Manual:MPLS over PPPoE 600

# add loopback interface

/interface bridge
add name=loopback
/ip address
add address=10.255.255.4/32 interface=loopback

# set up pppoe
/interface pppoe-client
add name="mplsR4" max-mtu=1500 max-mru=1500 interface=ether2 user="mplsR4" service-name=mpls

#set up ospf
/routing ospf instance
set default redistribute-connected=as-type-1
/routing ospf network
add network=192.168.0.1/32 area=backbone

# set up MPLS/LDP
/mpls interface set 0 mpls-mtu=1512
/mpls ldp
set enabled=yes lsr-id=10.255.255.4 transport-address=10.255.255.4
/mpls ldp interface
add interface=mplsR4

At first make sure pppoe clients are connected successfully

[admin@R2] /ppp active> print

Flags: R - radius
# NAME SERVICE CALLER-ID ADDRESS UPTIME ENCODING
0 mplsR3 pppoe 00:0C:42:21:F1:EA 192.168.0.2 46m
1 mplsR4 pppoe 00:0C:42:21:F1:ED 192.168.0.3 46m55s

Check if OSPF is running properly

[admin@R2] /routing ospf neighbor> print

0 router-id=10.255.255.1 address=172.16.0.1 interface=wlan1 priority=1
dr-address=172.16.0.2 backup-dr-address=172.16.0.1 state="Full"
state-changes=5 ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0
adjacency=5m19s

1 router-id=10.255.255.3 address=192.168.0.2 interface=mplsR3 priority=1

dr-address=0.0.0.0 backup-dr-address=0.0.0.0 state="Full" state-changes=4
ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=49m33s

2 router-id=10.255.255.4 address=192.168.0.3 interface=mplsR4 priority=1

dr-address=0.0.0.0 backup-dr-address=0.0.0.0 state="Full" state-changes=4
ls-retransmits=0 ls-requests=0 db-summaries=0 adjacency=50m31s

Ensure LDP is running

Manual:MPLS over PPPoE 601

[admin@R2] /mpls ldp neighbor> print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello,
V - vpls
# TRANSPORT LOCAL-TRANSPORT PEER SEN
0 DO 10.255.255.3 10.255.255.2 10.255.255.3:0 no
1 DO 10.255.255.4 10.255.255.2 10.255.255.4:0 no
2 DO 10.255.255.1 10.255.255.2 10.255.255.1:0 no

[admin@R2] /mpls forwarding-table> print

Flags: L - ldp, V - vpls, T - traffic-eng
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION I NEXTHOP
0 expl-null
1 L 20 192.168.0.1/32 m 192.168.0.3
2 L 21 10.255.255.4/32 m 192.168.0.3
3 L 22 10.255.255.3/32 m 192.168.0.2
4 L 23 10.255.255.1/32 w 172.16.0.1
5 L 24 192.168.88.0/24 w 172.16.0.1

Now we can check if packet switching is working as expected

[admin@R4] /mpls ldp neighbor> /tool traceroute 10.255.255.1 src-address=10.255.255.4

ADDRESS STATUS
1 192.168.0.1 13ms 19ms 143ms
mpls-label=23
2 10.255.255.1 38ms 15ms 14ms

This example extends previous setup by connecting two local networks using VPLS tunnel
Manual:MPLS/EXP bit behaviour 602

Manual:MPLS/EXP bit behaviour

MPLS label EXP field overview
When MPLS label is attached to packet, it increases packet length by 32 bits (4 bytes). These 32 bits are broken
down as follows:
• label value itself (20 bits)
• EXP ("experimental") field (3 bits)
• time to live field (8 bits)
• bottom of stack field (1 bit)
Use of "experimental" bits is not specified by MPLS standards, but most common use is to carry QoS information,
similar to 802.1q priority in VLAN tag. Note that EXP field is 3 bits only therefore it can carry values from 0 to 7
only, which allows to have 8 traffic classes.

EXP field treatment in RouterOS

When RouterOS receives MPLS packet, it sets "ingress priority" value for packet to that carried inside top label.
Note that "ingress priority" is not a field inside packet headers - it can be thought of like additional mark assigned to
packet while being processed by router. When RouterOS labels MPLS packet, it sets EXP bits to "priority" (not
"ingress priority"!) assigned to packet. When RouterOS switches MPLS packet, "ingress priority" is automatically
copied to "priority", this way regular MPLS switching communicates priority info over whole label switched path.
Additional info on "ingress priority" and "priority" handling is also in WMM.
Therefore what happens to EXP field depends based on what action is taken on packet:
• if packet is MPLS switched (by popping label off packet and pushing on new one), EXP field in new label will be
the same as in received label, because:
• RouterOS sets "ingress priority" to EXP bits in received label
• Switching automatically sets "priority" to "ingress priority"
• RouterOS labels packet with new label and sets its EXP bits to value in "priority".
• if packet is MPLS switched by using penultimate-hop-popping (received label is popped off and no new one is
pushed on), EXP field of received priority stays in "priority" field of packet and may be used by some other MAC
protocol, e.g. WMM or 802.1q VLAN, for example:
• RouterOS sets "ingress priority" to EXP bits in received label
• Switching automatically sets "priority" to "ingress priority"
• RouterOS switches packet to next hop (without pushing on label) and that happens over VLAN interface
• VLAN interface sets 802.1q priority in VLAN header to "priority" value of packet.
Note that penultimate-hop-popping can therefore loose QoS information carried over label switched path at the last
hop. In cases where this is not desirable, penultimate-hop-popping behaviour should be disabled by using Explicit
NULL label instead of Implicit NULL label for last hop in label switched path. Using Explicit NULL label for last
hop is default behaviour for MPLS TE tunnels.
• if packet is supposed to be sent over label switched path (first label will get pushed on packet), EXP bits will be
set to value in "priority", which in turn can be set up properly using firewall rules or other means (e.g. from DSCP
field in IP header)
• if packet is received for local processing, "ingress priority" is set to EXP field of received packet and can
therefore be used to update DSCP field of packet or set "priority" from "ingress priority" using firewall rules
Manual:MPLS/LDP 603

Manual:MPLS/LDP
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
MikroTik RouterOS implements Label Distribution Protocol (RFC 3036, RFC 5036) for IPv4. LDP is a protocol
defined for distributing labels. It is the set of procedures and messages by which Label Switched Routers (LSRs)
establish Label Switched Paths (LSPs) through a network by mapping network-layer routing information directly to
data-link layer switched paths.

General
Sub-menu: /mpls ldp
General LDP settings.
Properties

Property Description

distribute-for-default-route (yes | no; Defines whether to distribute label for default route.
Default: no)

enabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Disable or enable LDP protocol.

hoplimit (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 255) Max hop limit used for loop detection. Works in combination with loop-detect property.

loop-detect (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether to run LSP loop detection. Will not work correctly if not enabled on all
LSRs. Should be used only on non-TTL networks such as ATM.

lsr-id (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Unique label switching router's ID. If set to 0.0.0.0 highest IP address on the router is used.

path-vector-limit (integer[0..4294967295]; Max path vector limit used for loop detection. Works in combination with loop-detect
Default: 255) property.

transport-address (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Specifies LDP session connections origin address and also advertise this address as transport
address to LDP neighbors. If set to 0.0.0.0 highest IP address on the router is used.

use-explicit-null (yes | no>; Default: no) Whether to distribute explicit-null label bindings.

Interface
Sub-menu: /mpls ldp interface
List of interfaces that connects Label Switching routers.
Properties:
Manual:MPLS/LDP 604

Property Description

accept-dynamic-neighbors (yes | no; Defines whether to discover neighbors dynamically or use only statically configured in LDP
Default: yes) neighbors menu

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used

hello-interval (time; Default: 5s) The interval between hello packets that the router sends out this interface.

hold-time (time; Default: 15s) Specifies the interval after which a neighbor is declared as not reachable.

transport-address (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) Used transport address if differs from general settings. If set to 0.0.0.0 transport address
from general settings is used.

interface (string; Default: ) Name of the interface on which to run LDP

Neighbors
Sub-menu: /mpls ldp neighbor
Properties

Property Description

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used

send-targeted (yes | no; Default: yes) Specifies whether to send targeted hellos, used for targeted (not directly connected) LDP sessions.

transport (IP; Default: ) Transport address used by remote neighbor.

Read-only properties

Property Description

addresses (IP[,IP[,...]]) List of all IP addresses on LDP neighbor

dynamic (yes | no) Shows whether item is dynamically created

local-transport (IP) Transport address used to send messages to the neighbor.

operational (yes | no) Shows whether item is running

peer (LSR-ID:integer) Shows remote neighbor's LSR ID and label space.

sending-targeted-hello (yes | no) Shows whether targeted hellos are sent to the neighbor.

vpls (yes | no) Shows whether the neighbor is used for VPLS tunnel.

Accept Filters
Sub-menu: /mpls ldp accept-filter
List of label bindings which should be accepted from LDP neighbors.
Properties:
Manual:MPLS/LDP 605

Property Description

accept (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to accept label bindings from the neighbors for specified prefix.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used

neighbor (all | IP; Default: all) Neighbor to which this filter applies.

prefix (IP/Mask; Default: 0.0.0.0/0)

Advertise Filters
Sub-menu: /mpls ldp advertise-filter
List of label bindings which should be advertised to LDP neighbors.
Properties:

Property Description

accept (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to advertise label bindings to the neighbors for specified prefix.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used

neighbor (all | IP; Default: all) Neighbor to which this filter applies.

prefix (IP/Mask; Default: 0.0.0.0/0)

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:MPLSVPLS 606

Manual:MPLSVPLS
MPLS Overview
For MPLS overview and MPLS features that RouterOS supports see MPLS Overview

Example network
Consider network service provider that is connecting 3 remote sites of Customer A (A1,A2 and A3) and 2 remote
sites of Customer B (B1 and B2) using its routed IP network core, consisting of routers (R1-R5):

Customers require transparent ethernet segment connection between sites. So far it has been implemented by means
of bridging EoIP tunnels with physical ethernet interfaces.
Note that there are no IP addresses configured on R1, R4 and R5 interfaces that face customer networks.
Enabling MPLS forwarding can speed up packet forwarding process in such network. Using one of MPLS
applications - VPLS can further increase efficency of ethernet frame forwarding by not having to encapsulate
ethernet frames in IP frames, thus removing IP header overhead.
This guide gives step by step instructions that will lead to implementation of VPLS to achieve necessary service.
Manual:MPLSVPLS 607

Prerequisites for MPLS

"Loopback" IP address
Although not a strict requirement, it is advisable to configure routers participating in MPLS network with "loopback"
IP addresses (not attached to any real network interface) to be used by LDP to establish sessions.
This serves 2 purposes:
• as there is only one LDP session between any 2 routers, no matter how many links connect them, loopback IP
address ensures that LDP session is not affected by interface state or address changes
• use of loopback address as LDP transport address ensures proper penultimate hop popping behaviour when
multiple labels are attached to packet as in case of VPLS
In RouterOS "loopback" IP address can be configured by creating dummy bridge interface without any ports and
adding address to it. For example, on R1 it is done with the following commands:

/interface bridge add name=lobridge

/ip address add address=9.9.9.1/32 interface=lobridge

The rest of routers are configured similar way.

IP connectivity
As LDP distributes labels for active routes, essential requirement is properly configured IP routing. LDP by default
distributes labels for active IGP routes (that is - connected, static, and routing protocol learned routes, except BGP).
In given example setup OSPF is used to distribute routes. For example, on R5 OSPF is configured with the following
commands:

/routing ospf set redistribute-connected=as-type-1

/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=4.4.4.0/24
/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=5.5.5.0/24

On other routers OSPF is configured in similar way.

This yields routing table on R5 like this:
[admin@R5] > ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic, C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,

B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY-STATE GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE

0 ADo 1.1.1.0/24 reachable 4.4.4.3 110 ether1

1 ADo 2.2.2.0/24 reachable 4.4.4.3 110 ether1

2 ADo 3.3.3.0/24 reachable 4.4.4.3 110 ether1

reachable 5.5.5.4 ether2

3 ADC 4.4.4.0/24 4.4.4.5 0 ether1

4 ADC 5.5.5.0/24 5.5.5.5 0 ether2

5 ADo 9.9.9.1/32 reachable 4.4.4.3 110 ether1

6 ADo 9.9.9.2/32 reachable 4.4.4.3 110 ether1

7 ADo 9.9.9.3/32 reachable 4.4.4.3 110 ether1

8 ADo 9.9.9.4/32 reachable 5.5.5.4 110 ether2

9 ADC 9.9.9.5/32 9.9.9.5 0 lobridge

and traceroute from R5 to R1 like this:

Manual:MPLSVPLS 608

[admin@R5] > /tool traceroute 9.9.9.1

ADDRESS STATUS
1 4.4.4.3 11ms 1ms 4ms
2 2.2.2.2 23ms 3ms 2ms
3 9.9.9.1 26ms 3ms 3ms

Configuring LDP
In order to distribute labels for routes, LDP should get enabled. On R1 this is done by commands (interface ether3 is
facing network 1.1.1.0/24):

/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=9.9.9.1 lsr-id=9.9.9.1

/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether3

Note that transport-address gets set to 9.9.9.1. This makes router originate LDP session connections with this address
and also advertise this address as transport address to LDP neighbors.
Other routers are configured in similar way - LDP is enabled on interfaces that connect routers and not enabled on
interfaces that connect customer networks. For example, on R5:

[admin@R5] > /ip address print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 4.4.4.5/24 4.4.4.0 4.4.4.255 ether1
1 5.5.5.5/24 5.5.5.0 5.5.5.255 ether2
2 9.9.9.5/32 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.5 lobridge
[admin@R5] > /mpls ldp interface print
Flags: I - invalid, X - disabled
# INTERFACE HELLO-INTERVAL HOLD-TIME
0 ether1 5s 15s
1 ether2 5s 15s

After LDP sessions are established, on R5 there are 2 LDP neighbors:

[admin@R5] > /mpls ldp neighbor print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello, V - vpls
# TRANSPORT LOCAL-TRANSPORT PEER SEND-TARGETED ADDRESSES
0 DO 9.9.9.4 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.4:0 no 3.3.3.4
5.5.5.4
9.9.9.4
1 DO 9.9.9.3 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.3:0 no 2.2.2.3
3.3.3.3
4.4.4.3
9.9.9.3

/mpls local-bindings shows labels that this router has assigned to routes and peers it has distributed the label to. It
shows that R5 has distributed labels for all its routes to both of its neighbors - R3 and R4
[admin@R5] > /mpls local-bindings print
Flags: X - disabled, A - advertised, D - dynamic, L - local-route, G - gateway-route, e - egress
# DST-ADDRESS LABEL PEERS
0 ADLe 4.4.4.0/24 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
Manual:MPLSVPLS 609

9.9.9.3:0
1 ADLe 9.9.9.5/32 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
2 ADG 9.9.9.4/32 17 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
3 ADLe 5.5.5.0/24 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
4 ADG 1.1.1.0/24 18 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
5 ADG 2.2.2.0/24 19 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
6 ADG 9.9.9.1/32 20 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
7 ADG 9.9.9.2/32 21 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
8 ADG 9.9.9.3/32 22 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0
9 ADG 3.3.3.0/24 23 9.9.9.4:0
9.9.9.3:0

/mpls remote-bindings shows labels that are allocated for routes by neighboring routers and advertised to this router:

[admin@R5] > /mpls remote-bindings print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
0 D 4.4.4.0/24 16 9.9.9.4:0
1 AD 3.3.3.0/24 5.5.5.4 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
2 D 9.9.9.5/32 17 9.9.9.4:0
3 AD 9.9.9.4/32 5.5.5.4 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
4 D 5.5.5.0/24 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
5 D 1.1.1.0/24 18 9.9.9.4:0
6 D 2.2.2.0/24 19 9.9.9.4:0
7 D 9.9.9.1/32 20 9.9.9.4:0
8 D 9.9.9.2/32 21 9.9.9.4:0
9 D 9.9.9.3/32 22 9.9.9.4:0
10 AD 1.1.1.0/24 4.4.4.3 16 9.9.9.3:0
11 AD 2.2.2.0/24 4.4.4.3 impl-null 9.9.9.3:0
12 D 4.4.4.0/24 impl-null 9.9.9.3:0
13 D 3.3.3.0/24 impl-null 9.9.9.3:0
14 AD 9.9.9.1/32 4.4.4.3 17 9.9.9.3:0
15 AD 9.9.9.3/32 4.4.4.3 impl-null 9.9.9.3:0
16 D 9.9.9.4/32 18 9.9.9.3:0
17 D 5.5.5.0/24 19 9.9.9.3:0
18 AD 9.9.9.2/32 4.4.4.3 20 9.9.9.3:0
19 D 9.9.9.5/32 21 9.9.9.3:0

Here we can observe that R5 has received label bindings for all routes from both its neighbors - R3 and R4, but only
the ones for whom particular neighbor is next hop are active. For example:
Manual:MPLSVPLS 610

[admin@R5] > /ip route print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
...
5 ADo 9.9.9.1/32 r 4.4.4.3 110 ether1
...

[admin@R5] > /mpls remote-bindings print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
...
7 D 9.9.9.1/32 20 9.9.9.4:0
...
14 AD 9.9.9.1/32 4.4.4.3 17 9.9.9.3:0
...

From the above we see that R3, which is next hop for network 9.9.9.1/32 from R5 perspective, has assigned label 17
for traffic going to 9.9.9.1/32. This implies that when R5 will be routing traffic to this network, will impose label 17.
Label switching rules can be seen in /mpls forwarding-table. For example, on R3 it looks like this:
[admin@R3] > /mpls forwarding-table print
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION INTERFACE NEXTHOP
...
2 17 17 9.9.9.1/32 ether1 2.2.2.2
...

This rule says that R3 receiving packet with label 17 will change it to label 17 assigned by R2 for network 9.9.9.1/32
(R2 is next hop for 9.9.9.1/32 from R3 perspective):
[admin@R2] > /mpls local-bindings print
Flags: X - disabled, A - advertised, D - dynamic, L - local-route, G - gateway-route, e - egress
# DST-ADDRESS LABEL PEERS
...
3 ADG 9.9.9.1/32 17 9.9.9.1:0
9.9.9.3:0
...

R2 MPLS forwarding table tells:

[admin@R2] > /mpls forwarding-table print
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION INTERFACE NEXTHOP
...
1 17 9.9.9.1/32 ether1 1.1.1.1
...

Notice, that forwarding rule does not have any out-labels. The reason for this is that R2 is doing penultimate hop
popping for this network. R1 does not assign any real label for 9.9.9.1/32 network, because it is known that R1 is
egress point for 9.9.9.1/32 network (router is egress point for networks that are directly connected to it, because next
hop for traffic is not MPLS router), therefore is advertises "implicit null" label for this route:
Manual:MPLSVPLS 611

[admin@R2] > /mpls remote-bindings print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
...
13 AD 9.9.9.1/32 1.1.1.1 impl-null 9.9.9.1:0
...

This tells R2 to forward traffic for 9.9.9.1/32 to R1 unlabelled, which is exactly what R2 mpls forwarding-table entry
tells. Penultimate hop popping ensures that routers do not have to do unnecessary label lookup when it is known in
advance that router will have to route packet.

Using traceroute in MPLS networks

RFC4950 introduces extensions to ICMP protocol for MPLS. The basic idea is that some ICMP messages may carry
MPLS "label stack object" (list of labels that were on packet when it caused particular ICMP message). ICMP
messages of interest for MPLS are Time Exceeded and Need Fragment.
MPLS label carries not only label value, but also TTL field. When imposing label on IP packet, MPLS TTL is set to
value in IP header, when last label is removed from IP packet, IP TTL is set to value in MPLS TTL. Therefore
MPLS switching network can be diagnosed by means of traceroute tool that supports MPLS extension.
For example, traceroute from R5 to R1 looks like this:

[admin@R5] > /tool traceroute 9.9.9.1 src-address=9.9.9.5

ADDRESS STATUS
1 4.4.4.3 15ms 5ms 5ms
mpls-label=17
2 2.2.2.2 5ms 3ms 6ms
mpls-label=17
3 9.9.9.1 6ms 3ms 3ms

Traceroute results show MPLS labels on packet when it produced ICMP Time Exceeded. The above means: when
R3 received packet with MPLS TTL 1, it had label 17 on. This matches label advertised by R3 for 9.9.9.1/32. The
same way R2 observed label 17 on packet on next traceroute iteration - R3 switched label 17 to label 17, as explaned
above. R1 received packet without labels - R2 did penultimate hop popping as explaned above.

Drawbacks of using traceroute in MPLS network

Label switching ICMP errors

One of drawbacks of using traceroute in MPLS networks is the way MPLS handles produced ICMP errors. In IP
networks ICMP errors are simply routed back to source of packet that caused the error. In MPLS network it is
possible that router that produces error message does not even have route to source of IP packet (for example in case
of assymetric label switching paths or some kind of MPLS tunneling, e.g. to transport MPLS VPN traffic).
Due to this produced ICMP errors are not routed to the source of packet that caused the error, but switched further
along label switching path, assuming that when label switching path endpoint will receive ICMP error, it will know
how to properly route it back to source.
This causes the situation, that traceroute in MPLS network can not be used the same way as in IP network - to
determine failure point in the network. If label switched path is broken anywhere in the middle, no ICMP replies will
come back, because they will not make it to the far endpoint of label switching path.
Manual:MPLSVPLS 612

Penultimate hop popping and traceroute source address

Thorough understanding of pen ultimate hop behaviour and routing is necessary to understand and avoid problems
that penultimate hop popping causes to traceroute.
In the example setup, regular traceroute from R5 to R1 would yield the following results:

[admin@R5] > /tool traceroute 9.9.9.1

ADDRESS STATUS
1 0.0.0.0 timeout timeout timeout
2 2.2.2.2 37ms 4ms 4ms
mpls-label=17
3 9.9.9.1 4ms 2ms 11ms

compared to:

[admin@R5] > /tool traceroute 9.9.9.1 src-address=9.9.9.5

ADDRESS STATUS
1 4.4.4.3 15ms 5ms 5ms
mpls-label=17
2 2.2.2.2 5ms 3ms 6ms
mpls-label=17
3 9.9.9.1 6ms 3ms 3ms

The reason why first traceroute does not get response from R3 is that by default traceroute on R5 uses source address
4.4.4.5 for its probes, because it is preferred source for route over which next hop to 9.9.9.1/32 is reachable:
[admin@R5] > /ip route print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
...
3 ADC 4.4.4.0/24 4.4.4.5 0 ether1
...
5 ADo 9.9.9.1/32 r 4.4.4.3 110 ether1
...

When first traceroute probe is transmitted (source: 4.4.4.5, destination 9.9.9.1), R3 drops it and produces ICMP error
message (source 4.4.4.3 destination 4.4.4.5) that is switched all the way to R1. R1 then sends ICMP error back - it
gets switched along label switching path to 4.4.4.5.
R2 is penultimate hop popping router for network 4.4.4.0/24, because 4.4.4.0/24 is directly connected to R3.
Therefore R2 removes last label and sends ICMP error to R3 unlabelled:
[admin@R2] > /mpls forwarding-table print
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION INTERFACE NEXTHOP
...
3 19 4.4.4.0/24 ether2 2.2.2.3
...

R3 drops received IP packet, because it receives packet with its own address as source address. ICMP errors
produced by following probes come back correctly, because R3 receives unlabelled packets with source addresses
2.2.2.2 and 9.9.9.1, which are acceptable to route.
Manual:MPLSVPLS 613

Command:

[admin@R5] > /tool traceroute 9.9.9.1 src-address=9.9.9.5

...

produces expected results, because source address of traceroute probes is 9.9.9.5. When ICMP errors are travelling
back from R1 to R5, penultimate hop popping for 9.9.9.5/32 network happens at R3, therefore it never gets to route
packet with its own address as source address.

Configuring VPLS

Configuring VPLS interfaces

VPLS interface can be considered tunnel interface just like EoIP interface. To achieve transparent ethernet segment
forwarding between customer sites the following tunnels need to be established:
• R1-R5 (customer A)
• R1-R4 (customer A)
• R4-R5 (customer A)
• R1-R5 (customer B)
Note that each tunnel setup involves creating VPLS interfaces on both endpoints of tunnel.
Negotiation of VPLS tunnels is done by LDP protocol - both endpoints of tunnel exchange labels they are going to
use for tunnel. Data forwarding in tunnel then happens by imposing 2 labels on packets: tunnel label and transport
label - label that ensures traffic delivery to the other endpoint of tunnel.
VPLS tunnels are configured in /interface vpls menu. vpls-id parameter identifies VPLS tunnel and must be unique
for every tunnel between this and remote peer.
The necessary setup:
• on R1:
/interface vpls add name=A1toA2 remote-peer=9.9.9.5 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:a1 vpls-id=10 disabled=no

/interface vpls add name=A1toA3 remote-peer=9.9.9.4 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:a1 vpls-id=10 disabled=no

/interface vpls add name=B1toB2 remote-peer=9.9.9.5 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:b1 vpls-id=11 disabled=no

• on R4:
/interface vpls add name=A3toA1 remote-peer=9.9.9.1 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:a3 vpls-id=10 disabled=no

/interface vpls add name=A3toA2 remote-peer=9.9.9.5 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:a3 vpls-id=10 disabled=no

• on R5:
/interface vpls add name=A2toA1 remote-peer=9.9.9.1 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:a2 vpls-id=10 disabled=no

/interface vpls add name=A2toA3 remote-peer=9.9.9.4 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:a2 vpls-id=10 disabled=no

/interface vpls add name=B2toB1 remote-peer=9.9.9.1 mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:b2 vpls-id=11 disabled=no

Configuring VPLS tunnel causes dynamic LDP neighbor to be created and "targeted" LDP session to be established.
Targeted LDP session is session that is established between two routers that are not direct neighbors. After this setup
R1 LDP neighbors are:
[admin@R1] > mpls ldp neighbor pr
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello, V - vpls
# TRANSPORT LOCAL-TRANSPORT PEER SEND-TARGETED ADDRESSES
0 DO 9.9.9.2 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.2:0 no 1.1.1.2
Manual:MPLSVPLS 614

2.2.2.2
9.9.9.2
1 DOTV 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.5:0 yes 4.4.4.5
5.5.5.5
9.9.9.5
2 DOTV 9.9.9.4 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.4:0 yes 3.3.3.4
5.5.5.4
9.9.9.4

Note that labels for IP routes are also exchanged between VPLS peers, although there is no chance any of them will
be used. For example, without adding additional links, R4 will not become next hop for any route on R1, so labels
learned from R4 are not likely to be ever used. Still routers maintain all labels exchanged so that they are ready for
use immediately if needed. This default behaviour can be overridden by filtering which is discussed later.
By monitoring state of VPLS interface its related information can be viewed:

[admin@R1] /interface vpls> monitor A1toA3 once

remote-label: 24
local-label: 27
remote-status:
igp-prefix: 9.9.9.4/32
igp-nexthop: 1.1.1.2
imposed-labels: 21,24

Here we can see that R1 has assigned label 27 for tunnel between R1 and R4. MPLS forwarding table shows that this
label is recognized and instead of fowarding to some next hop, received over this tunnel:
[admin@R1] > /mpls forwarding-table print
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION INTERFACE NEXTHOP
...
11 27 A1toA3
...

In turn remote endpoint (R4) has assigned label 24.

igp-prefix shows route that is used to get to remote endpoint of tunnel. This implies that when forwarding traffic to
remote endpoint of tunnel this router will impose transport label - label distributed by next hop (which is shown as
igp-nexthop) to 9.9.9.4/32 for 9.9.9.4/32 route. This can be confirmed on R2:
[admin@R2] > /mpls forwarding-table print
# IN-LABEL OUT-LABELS DESTINATION INTERFACE NEXTHOP
...
5 21 18 9.9.9.4/32 ether2 2.2.2.3
...

Tunnel label imposed on packets will be as assigned by remote router (R4) for this tunnel.
imposed-labels reflect this setup: packets produced by tunnel will have 2 labels on them: 21 and 24.
Manual:MPLSVPLS 615

Penultimate hop popping effects on VPLS tunnels

Penultimate hop popping of transport label causes packets to arrive at VPLS tunnel endpoint with just one tag -
tunnel tag. This makes VPLS tunnel endpoint do just one label lookup to find out what to do with packet. Transport
label behaviour can be observed by traceroute tool between tunnel endpoints. For example, traceroute from R1 to R4
looks like this:

[admin@R1] > /tool traceroute 9.9.9.4 src-address=9.9.9.1

ADDRESS STATUS
1 1.1.1.2 7ms 5ms 3ms
mpls-label=21
2 2.2.2.3 5ms 4ms 18ms
mpls-label=18
3 9.9.9.4 4ms 5ms 3ms

traceroute output shows, that endpoint of tunnel is receiving probe without label. The same happens with VPLS
tunnel traffic - at R3 transport label (18) is popped and packet is switched with just tunnel label on.
The requirement to deliver packet with tunnel label to endpoint of tunnel explains configuration advice to use
"loopback" IP addresses as tunnel endpoints. If in this case R4 was establishing LDP sessions with its address
3.3.3.4, penultimate hop popping would happen not at R3, but at R2, because R3 has network 3.3.3.0/24 as its
connected network (and therefore advertises implicit null label). This would cause R3 (and not R4) to receive packet
with just tunnel label on, yielding unpredicted results - either dropping frame if R3 does not recognize the packet or
forwarding it the wrong way.
Another issue is having VPLS tunnel endpoints directly connected, as in case of R4 and R5. There are no transport
labels they can use between themselves, because they both instruct other one to be penultimate hop popping router
for their tunnel endpoint address. For example on R5:

[admin@R5] > /mpls remote-bindings print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
...
3 AD 9.9.9.4/32 5.5.5.4 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
...

This causes VPLS tunnel to use only tunnel label when sending packets:

[admin@R5] > /int vpls monitor A2toA3 once

remote-label: 23
local-label: 27
remote-status:
igp-prefix: 9.9.9.4/32
igp-nexthop: 5.5.5.4
imposed-labels: 23
Manual:MPLSVPLS 616

Bridging ethernet segments with VPLS

VPLS tunnels provide virtual ethernet link between routers. To transparrently connect two physical ethernet
segments, they must be bridged with VPLS tunnel. In general it gets done the same way as with EoIP interfaces.
So to transparently bridge customer B networks connected to R1 and R5 the following commands are used on R1:

/interface bridge add name=B

/interface bridge port add bridge=B interface=ether1
/interface bridge port add bridge=B interface=B1toB2

and on R5:

/interface bridge add name=B

/interface bridge port add bridge=B interface=ether3
/interface bridge port add bridge=B interface=B2toB1

Note that there is not need to run (R)STP protocol on bridge as there are links between segments B1 and B2 except
single VPLS tunnel between R1 and R5.

Split horizon bridging

In the example setup there are 3 tunnels set up to connect segments A1, A2 and A3, establishing so called "full
mesh" of tunnels between involved segments. If bridging without (R)STP was enabled, traffic loop would occur.
There are a few solutions to this:
• enabling (R)STP to eliminate the loop. This approach has a drawback - (R)STP protocol would disable
forwarding through one of tunnels and keep it just for backup purposes. That way traffic between 2 segments
would have to go through 2 tunnels, making setup inefficent
• using bridge firewall to make sure that traffic does not get looped - involves firewall rule setup making bridging
less efficent
• using bridge horizon feature
The basic idea of split horizon bridging is to make traffic arriving over some port never be sent out some set of ports.
For VPLS purposes this would mean never sending packet that arrived over one VPLS tunnel over to other VPLS
tunnel, as it is known in advance, that sender of packet has connection to target network itself.
For example, if device in A1 sent packet to broadcast or unknown MAC address (which causes bridges to flood all
interfaces), it would get sent to both, R5 and R4 over VPLS tunnels. In regular setup e.g. R5 when receiving such
packet over VPLS tunnel would send it in A2 connected to it and also over VPLS tunnel to R4. This way R4 would
get 2 copies of the same packet and further cause traffic to loop.
Bridge horizon feature allows to configure bridge ports with horizon setting so that packet received over port with
horizon value X is not forwarded or flooded to any port with the same horizon value X. So in case of full mesh of
VPLS tunnels, each router must be configured with the same horizon value for VPLS tunnels that are bridged
together.
For example, configuration commands for R1 to enable bridging for customer A are:

/interface bridge add name=A

/interface bridge port add bridge=A interface=A1toA2 horizon=1
/interface bridge port add bridge=A interface=A1toA3 horizon=1

In similar way bridge should be configured on R4 and R5. Note that physical ethernet port is not configured with
horizon value. If it was, that would disabled bridge forwarding data at all.
Manual:MPLSVPLS 617

Note that horizon value has meaning only locally - it does not get transmitted over network, therefore it does not
matter if the same value is configured in all routers participating in bridged network.

Optimizing label distribution

Label binding filtering

During implementation of given example setup, it has become clear that not all label bindings are necessary. For
example, there is no need to exchange IP route label bindings between R1 and R5 or R1 and R4, as there is no
chance they will ever be used. Also, if given network core is providing connectivity only for mentioned customer
ethernet segments, there is no real use to distribute labels for networks that connect routers between themselves, the
only routes that matter are /32 routes to endpoints of VPLS tunnels.
Label binding filtering can be used to distribute only specified sets of labels to reduce resource usage and network
load.
There are 2 types of label binding filters:
• which label bindings should be advertised to LDP neighbors, configured in /mpls ldp advertise-filter
• which label bindings should be accepted from LDP neighbors, configured in /mpls ldp accept-filter
Filters are organized in ordered list, specifying prefix that must include the prefix that is tested against filter and
neighbor (or wildcard).
In given example setup all routers can be configured so that they advertise labels only for routes that allow to reach
endpoints of tunnels. For this 2 advertise filters need to be configured on all routers:

/mpls ldp advertise-filter add prefix=9.9.9.0/24 advertise=yes

/mpls ldp advertise-filter add prefix=0.0.0.0/0 advertise=no

This filter causes routers to advertise only bindings for routes that are included by 9.9.9.0/24 prefix which covers
tunnel endpoints (9.9.9.1/32, 9.9.9.4/32, 9.9.9.5/32). The second rule is necessary because default filter result, when
no rule matches is to allow action in question.
In given setup there is no need to set up accept filter, because by convention introduced by 2 abovementioned rules
no LDP router will distribute unnecessary bindings.
Note that filter changes do not affect existing mappings, so to take filter into effect, connections between neighbors
need to be reset. This can get done by removing them:
[admin@R1] /mpls ldp neighbor> print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello, V - vpls
# TRANSPORT LOCAL-TRANSPORT PEER SEND-TARGETED ADDRESSES
0 DO 9.9.9.2 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.2:0 no 1.1.1.2
2.2.2.2
9.9.9.2
1 DOTV 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.5:0 yes 4.4.4.5
5.5.5.5
9.9.9.5
2 DOTV 9.9.9.4 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.4:0 yes 3.3.3.4
5.5.5.4
9.9.9.4
[admin@R1] /mpls ldp neighbor> remove [find]

So on R1, for example we get:

Manual:MPLSVPLS 618

[admin@R1] > /mpls remote-bindings print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
0 D 9.9.9.1/32 30 9.9.9.5:0
1 D 9.9.9.5/32 impl-null 9.9.9.5:0
2 D 9.9.9.4/32 31 9.9.9.5:0
3 D 9.9.9.2/32 32 9.9.9.5:0
4 D 9.9.9.3/32 33 9.9.9.5:0
5 AD 9.9.9.2/32 1.1.1.2 impl-null 9.9.9.2:0
6 D 9.9.9.1/32 24 9.9.9.2:0
7 AD 9.9.9.3/32 1.1.1.2 25 9.9.9.2:0
8 AD 9.9.9.4/32 1.1.1.2 26 9.9.9.2:0
9 AD 9.9.9.5/32 1.1.1.2 27 9.9.9.2:0
10 D 9.9.9.1/32 27 9.9.9.4:0
11 D 9.9.9.5/32 28 9.9.9.4:0
12 D 9.9.9.4/32 impl-null 9.9.9.4:0
13 D 9.9.9.2/32 29 9.9.9.4:0
14 D 9.9.9.3/32 30 9.9.9.4:0

There still are unnecessary bindings, this time - the bindings distributed due to establishing targeted LDP session
with remote endpoints of VPLS tunnels (bindings from 9.9.9.5 and 9.9.9.4)
To filter out those, we configure routers to not distribute any IP bindings to any of tunnel endpoint routers. For
example on R1, filter table should look like this:

[admin@R1] /mpls ldp advertise-filter> print

Flags: X - disabled
# PREFIX NEIGHBOR ADVERTISE
0 0.0.0.0/0 9.9.9.4 no
1 0.0.0.0/0 9.9.9.5 no
2 9.9.9.0/24 all yes
3 0.0.0.0/0 all no

This causes routers to have minimal label binding tables, for example on R1:
[admin@R1] > /mpls local-bindings print
Flags: X - disabled, A - advertised, D - dynamic, L - local-route, G - gateway-route, e - egress
# DST-ADDRESS LABEL PEERS
0 ADLe 9.9.9.1/32 impl-null 9.9.9.2:0
1 ADG 9.9.9.3/32 40 9.9.9.2:0
2 ADG 9.9.9.4/32 41 9.9.9.2:0
3 ADG 9.9.9.2/32 42 9.9.9.2:0
4 ADG 9.9.9.5/32 43 9.9.9.2:0
[admin@R1] > /mpls remote-bindings print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
0 AD 9.9.9.2/32 1.1.1.2 impl-null 9.9.9.2:0
1 D 9.9.9.1/32 24 9.9.9.2:0
2 AD 9.9.9.3/32 1.1.1.2 25 9.9.9.2:0
3 AD 9.9.9.4/32 1.1.1.2 26 9.9.9.2:0
Manual:MPLSVPLS 619

4 AD 9.9.9.5/32 1.1.1.2 27 9.9.9.2:0

Note that IP binding distribution should not be disabled between R4 and R5 although they are tunnel endpoints.
Doing so would not harm regular case, because R4 and R5 does not need IP bindings to VPLS tunnel data, but in
case link between R3 and R5 would go down, all traffic to R5 from R1 would have to be rerouted through R4. In
such case R5 not distributing IP bindings to R4 would cause R4 to not be able to forward MPLS traffic to R5.

Effects of label binding filtering on data forwarding in network

Note the traceroute results after these changes. Traceroute from R1 to R5 using R1 loopback address as source
address still behaves the same - each hop reports received labels:

[admin@R1] > tool traceroute 9.9.9.5 src-address=9.9.9.1

ADDRESS STATUS
1 1.1.1.2 11ms 4ms 5ms
mpls-label=27
2 2.2.2.3 4ms 4ms 4ms
mpls-label=25
3 9.9.9.5 12ms 3ms 3ms

But in case of traceroute using R1 address that faces network:

[admin@R1] > tool traceroute 9.9.9.5 src-address=1.1.1.1

ADDRESS STATUS
1 0.0.0.0 timeout timeout timeout
2 0.0.0.0 timeout timeout timeout
3 9.9.9.5 3ms 3ms 3ms

Now all hops except the last one do not respond. The reason for this is the fact, that there is no label switching path
back from R5 to R1 (which this time uses address 1.1.1.1) because there are no label bindings distributed - so ICMP
response is routed and routers on the way back (R3 and R2) receive packets with their own source address and drop
them right away without routing.
On the other hand, traceroute from R1 to R5 using their non-loopback addresses:

[admin@R1] > tool traceroute 4.4.4.5 src-address=1.1.1.1

ADDRESS STATUS
1 1.1.1.2 13ms 1ms 1ms
2 2.2.2.3 3ms 2ms 2ms
3 4.4.4.5 3ms 3ms 23ms

There is no label switching involved doing this traceroute and it works just like in network without MPLS at all.
Manual:Cisco VPLS 620

Manual:Cisco VPLS
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Overview
Since version 3.20 RouterOS implements features that provide compatibility with Cisco VPLS features:
• Cisco style static VPLS pseudowires (RFC 4447 FEC type 0x80)* Cisco VPLS BGP-based auto-discovery
(draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08)
When signaling static VPLS tunnels (pseudowires) using LDP, Cisco does not use pseudowire endpoint
identification as specified in RFC 4762 (FEC type 0x81), but uses other method - from RFC 4447 (FEC type 0x80).
Such pseudowires can be configured in RouterOS by means of cisco-style and cisco-style-id settings.
Cisco does not implement BGP-based auto-discovery and signaling according to RFC 4671. Instead, Cisco
implements BGP based auto-discovery (draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08). This method specifies use of BGP only to
auto-discover other peers that participate in VPLS. VPLS pseudowire signaling is done by LDP.
This document focuses on RouterOS configuration that is related to Cisco compatibility features, for general
information on VPLS see MPLSVPLS, for information on RFC 4671 compatible BGP based VPLS, see BGP based
VPLS.

Example network
The example network used throughout this document is the same as in MPLSVPLS.
Manual:Cisco VPLS 621

The requirements of customers A and B are the same - ethernet segments must be transparently connected. Taking
into account simplicity of given network topology Service Provider has decided to use R5 as route reflector and to
have no backup route reflector. Consider that MPLS switching is configured and running, as discussed in
MPLSVPLS, but no any VPLS configuration has been applied yet. the rest of this document deals with specifics that
are introduced by using Cisco compatible VPLS features.
Customer's B networks are to be connected using static VPLS pseudowire, Customer's A networks are to be
connected using VPLS BGP-based autodiscovery.

Configuring Cisco style static VPLS interface

Cisco compatible static VPLS interface is created by specifying appropriate settings: cisco-style=yes specifies that
VPLS interface should use Cisco-like endpoint identification, parameter cisco-style-id specifies pseudowire ID to
use. On R1:
[admin@R1] /interface vpls> add disabled=no cisco-style=yes cisco-style-id=666 remote-peer=9.9.9.5

and on R5:
[admin@R5] /interface vpls> add disabled=no cisco-style=yes cisco-style-id=666 remote-peer=9.9.9.1

This should result in establishment of targeted LDP session between R1 and R5 and VPLS interface becoming
active:
[admin@R1] > mpls ldp neighbor print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello, V - vpls
# TRANSPORT LOCAL-TRANSPORT PEER SEND-TARGETED ADDRESSES
0 DO 9.9.9.2 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.2:0 no 1.1.1.2
2.2.2.2
9.9.9.2
1 DOTV 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.5:0 yes 4.4.4.5
5.5.5.5
9.9.9.5
[admin@R1] > /interface vpls print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running, D - dynamic, B - bgp-signaled, C - cisco-bgp-signaled
0 R name="vpls1" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:94:02:DB:60:6E arp=enabled disable-running-check=no
remote-peer=9.9.9.5 cisco-style=yes cisco-style-id=666
[admin@R1] > /interface vpls monitor vpls1 once
remote-label: 29
local-label: 31
remote-status:
transport: 9.9.9.5/32
transport-nexthop: 1.1.1.2
imposed-labels: 24,29

The rest of configuration to enable transparent bridging of Customer B networks (configuring bridging) is the same
as described in MPLSVPLS
Manual:Cisco VPLS 622

Configuring BGP for Cisco compatible VPLS

Configuring Cisco compatible BGP VPLS instance makes router advertise VPLS NLRI according to
draft-ietf-l2vpn-signaling-08. Note that this NLRI uses the same BGP AFI/SAFI values as RFC 4762 compatible
BGP VPLS. Therefore only one of those specifications (configured as BGP peer address-families) can be supported
at a time.
In order to avoid configuring full mesh of BGP sessions between routers acting as attachment points for customer A
networks (R1,R4,R5), R5 will be used as route reflector - the same as in BGP based VPLS.
On R5, make sure that client-to-client-reflection is enabled:
[admin@R5] /routing bgp instance> pr

Flags: X - disabled

0 name="default" as=65530 router-id=0.0.0.0 redistribute-connected=no redistribute-static=no redistribute-rip=no

redistribute-ospf=no redistribute-other-bgp=no out-filter="" client-to-client-reflection=yes ignore-as-path-len=no

Create BGP peers with support for l2vpn-cisco in peers address-families, on R5 configure route reflection:
[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> add remote-as=65530 update-source=lobridge instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.1

address-families=l2vpn-cisco route-reflect=yes

[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> add remote-as=65530 update-source=lobridge instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.4

address-families=l2vpn-cisco route-reflect=yes

[admin@R1] /routing bgp peer> add remote-as=65530 update-source=lobridge instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.5

address-families=l2vpn-cisco

[admin@R4] /routing bgp peer> add remote-as=65530 update-source=lobridge instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.5

address-families=l2vpn-cisco

Configuring Cisco compatible BGP VPLS instance

In order for full mesh of VPLS pseudowires to get established, appropriate Cisco compatible VPLS instance must be
created. Creating such instance makes router to inject VPLS BGP NLRI in BGP network:
[admin@R1] /interface vpls cisco-bgp-vpls> add bridge=A bridge-horizon=1 export-route-targets=1:1 import-route-targets=1:1

l2router-id=9.9.9.1 route-distinguisher=1:1 vpls-id=1:1

[admin@R4] /interface vpls cisco-bgp-vpls> add bridge=A bridge-horizon=1 export-route-targets=1:1 import-route-targets=1:1

l2router-id=9.9.9.4 route-distinguisher=1:1 vpls-id=1:1

[admin@R5] /interface vpls cisco-bgp-vpls> add bridge=A bridge-horizon=1 export-route-targets=1:1 import-route-targets=1:1

l2router-id=9.9.9.5 route-distinguisher=1:1 vpls-id=1:1

This causes full mesh of targeted LDP sessions to get established and appropriate VPLS interfaces created, e.g. on
R4:
[admin@R4] > /mpls ldp neighbor print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello, V - vpls

...

1 DOTV 9.9.9.5 9.9.9.4 9.9.9.5:0 no 4.4.4.5

5.5.5.5

9.9.9.5

2 DOTV 9.9.9.1 9.9.9.4 9.9.9.1:0 yes 1.1.1.1

9.9.9.1
Manual:Cisco VPLS 623

[admin@R4] > /interface vpls print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running, D - dynamic, B - bgp-signaled, C - cisco-bgp-signaled

0 RDC name="vpls1" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:62:65:24:4C:FD arp=enabled disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.1

vpls-id=1:1 cisco-style=no cisco-style-id=0 vpls=cisco-bgp-vpls1

1 RDC name="vpls2" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:58:9F:80:EB:94 arp=enabled disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.5

vpls-id=1:1 cisco-style=no cisco-style-id=0 vpls=cisco-bgp-vpls1

Manual:BGP based VPLS

Overview
MPLSVPLS page covers general introduction to VPLS service and configuration of LDP based VPLS tunnels. Due
to their static nature LDP based VPLS tunnels have scalability issues that arise when number of VPLSes and sites
participating in VPLSes grow. One of the problems is the requirement to maintan full mesh of LDP tunnels between
sites forming VPLS. In case number of sites in VPLS is high, adding new site to existing VPLS can become
burdensome for network administrator.
BGP based autodiscovery and signaling of VPLS tunnels can help to avoid complexity of configuration at the
expense of running BGP protocol between VPLS routers. In general, BGP based VPLS serves two purposes:
• autodiscovery: there is no need to configure each VPLS router with all remote endpoints of VPLS tunnels,
provided there are means to deliver BGP multiprotocol NLRIs between them - routers figure out remote endpoints
of tunnels from received BGP Updates;
• signaling: labels used for VPLS tunnels by remote endpoints are distributed in the same BGP Updates, this means
there is no need for targeted LDP sessions between tunnel endpoints as in case of LDP signaled VPLS.
For example, if LDP signaled VPLS is used, adding new site to existing VPLS would mean configuring router that
connects new site to establish tunnels with the rest of sites and also configure all other routers to establish tunnels
with router connecting this new site. BGP based VPLS, if configured properly eliminates need to adjust
configuration on all routers forming VPLS.
The requirement to exchange BGP NLRIs between VPLS routers means that either full mesh of BGP sessions need
to be established among routers forming VPLS or route reflector must be used. In case full mesh of BGP sessions are
established between VPLS routers, the benefits of BGP based VPLS over LDP signaled VPLS are questionable -
when new site is added to VPLS, BGP peer configuration still needs to be entered on every router forming given
VPLS. When BGP route reflector is used, adding new site to VPLS becomes more simple - router connecting new
site must only peer with route reflector and no additional configuration is required on other routers. Taking into
account that route reflector can also be one of routers forming VPLS, there is no need for additional separate
equipment. Of course, scalability and availability concerns still must be taken into account - multiple route reflectors
can be used for backup purposes as well as for distributing information load.
The drawback of running BGP based VPLS is requirement to configure BGP which requires that network
administrator has at least basic understanding of BGP, its multiprotocol capabilities and route reflectors. Therefore it
is advised to implement LDP signaled VPLS if amount of sites and VPLS networks is small, topology is more static
- that is, benefits of using BGP are not obvious.
Note that BGP based VPLS is a method only for VPLS tunnel label exchange, it does not deal with delivery of
traffic between VPLS tunnel endpoints, so general MPLS frame delivery between tunnel endpoints must be ensured
as discussed in MPLSVPLS.
Manual:BGP based VPLS 624

Suggested reading material:

• RFC 4761, Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and Signaling
• RFC 4456, BGP Route Reflection: An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP (IBGP)

Example network
Consider the same network as used for LDP signaled VPLS example in MPLSVPLS:

The requirements of customers A and B are the same - ethernet segments must be transparently connected. Taking
into account simplicity of given network topology Service Provider has decided to use R5 as route reflector and to
have no backup route reflector. Consider that MPLS switching is configured and running, as discussed in
MPLSVPLS, but no any VPLS configuration has been applied yet. the rest of this document deals with specifics that
are introduced by use of BGP for VPLS signaling.

Configuring IBGP session for VPLS signaling

At first, BGP instance must be configured, default instance can also be used:
[admin@R1] /routing bgp instance> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="default" as=65530 router-id=0.0.0.0 redistribute-connected=no redistribute-static=no
redistribute-rip=no redistribute-ospf=no redistribute-other-bgp=no out-filter=""
client-to-client-reflection=yes ignore-as-path-len=no

To enable VPLS NLRI delivery across BGP, BGP multiprotocol capability must be used. This is enabled by
specifying l2vpn in BGP peer's address-families setting.
For example, to configure BGP connection between R1 and R5, the following commands should get issued.
On R1:
Manual:BGP based VPLS 625

[admin@R1] /routing bgp peer> add remote-address=9.9.9.5 remote-as=65530 address-families=l2vpn \

update-source=lobridge

and on R5:
[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> add remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65530 address-families=l2vpn \
update-source=lobridge

BGP connection should get established between R1 and R5. This can be confirmed by:
[admin@R1] /routing bgp peer> print status
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.5 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""
nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=no hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge remote-id=4.4.4.5
local-address=9.9.9.1 uptime=3s prefix-count=0 updates-sent=0 updates-received=0
withdrawn-sent=0 withdrawn-received=0 remote-hold-time=3m used-hold-time=3m
used-keepalive-time=1m refresh-capability=yes state=established

There are several things to note about BGP peer configuration:

• there is no need to distribute any IP or IPv6 routes and even no need have IP or IP6 support over BGP connection
at all to be able to exchange VPLS NLRIs, it is sufficient to specify address-families=l2vpn
• "loopback" addresses of routers are used as BGP peer addresses (local address is configured by means of
update-source setting). BGP peer, when originating VPLS NLRI, specifies its local address as BGP NextHop
(for example, in given setup R1 originating BGP NLRIs will use address 9.9.9.1 as BGP NextHop address),
receiving VPLS router uses received BGP NextHop address as tunnel endpoint address and therefore uses
transport label that ensures delivery to BGP NextHop. In order for penultimate hop popping to work properly, it is
advised to use loopback IP address for this. See penultimate hop popping related discussion in MPLSVPLS.

Configuring Route Reflector

In its simplest sense BGP Route Reflector re-advertises received IBGP routes without changing BGP NextHop for
route. This feature can be used to avoid setting up full mesh of BGP connections. Note that for router be able to
operate as route reflector for VPLS NLRIs, it is not necessary for it to participate in any VPLS, it is even not
necessary for it to have MPLS support. Still it is mandatory for VPLS routers to be able to establish BGP sessions
with route reflector, therefore IP connectivity is a must.
Route reflector's BGP instance must be configured with client-to-client-reflection=yes setting:
[admin@R5] /routing bgp instance> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="default" as=65530 router-id=0.0.0.0 redistribute-connected=no redistribute-static=no
redistribute-rip=no redistribute-ospf=no redistribute-other-bgp=no out-filter=""
client-to-client-reflection=yes ignore-as-path-len=no

Additionaly, peers on route reflector must be configured with route-reflect=yes setting:

[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""
nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=no hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge
Manual:BGP based VPLS 626

[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> set 0 route-reflect=yes

[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""
nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=yes hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge

To enable R5 to operate as route reflector, all its peers should get added with route-reflect=yes setting. So to enable
proper VPLS NLRI distribution, R5 must be configured with 2 BGP peers - R1 and R4:
[admin@R5] /routing bgp peer> print status
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.1 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""
nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=yes hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge remote-id=1.1.1.1
local-address=9.9.9.5 uptime=5m55s prefix-count=0 updates-sent=0 updates-received=0
withdrawn-sent=0 withdrawn-received=0 remote-hold-time=3m used-hold-time=3m
used-keepalive-time=1m refresh-capability=yes state=established

1 name="peer2" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.4 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""

nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=yes hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge remote-id=3.3.3.4
local-address=9.9.9.5 uptime=23s prefix-count=0 updates-sent=0 updates-received=0
withdrawn-sent=0 withdrawn-received=0 remote-hold-time=3m used-hold-time=3m
used-keepalive-time=1m refresh-capability=yes state=established

But R1 and R4 must only peer with R5. On R1:

[admin@R1] /routing bgp peer> print status
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.5 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""
nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=no hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge remote-id=4.4.4.5
local-address=9.9.9.1 uptime=6m33s prefix-count=0 updates-sent=0 updates-received=0
withdrawn-sent=0 withdrawn-received=0 remote-hold-time=3m used-hold-time=3m
used-keepalive-time=1m refresh-capability=yes state=established

and on R4:
[admin@R4] /routing bgp peer> print status
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="peer1" instance=default remote-address=9.9.9.5 remote-as=65530 tcp-md5-key=""
nexthop-choice=default multihop=no route-reflect=no hold-time=3m ttl=255 in-filter=""
out-filter="" address-families=l2vpn update-source=lobridge remote-id=4.4.4.5
local-address=9.9.9.4 uptime=3s prefix-count=0 updates-sent=0 updates-received=0
withdrawn-sent=0 withdrawn-received=0 remote-hold-time=3m used-hold-time=3m
used-keepalive-time=1m refresh-capability=yes state=established

Using route reflector means that in order to add new site to some VPLS, e.g. connected by router Ry, would mean
adding Ry as BGP peer to R5 (with route-reflect=yes setting) and adding R5 as BGP peer to Ry.
Manual:BGP based VPLS 627

Configuring BGP signaled VPLS

Configuring ethernet bridging

BGP signalled VPLS tunnels are created dynamically when proper BGP NLRIs are received. Therefore there is no
need to configure any VPLS interfaces. Still, to transparently deliver packets from ethernet segment across VPLS
bridging must be configured. For example, on R1 two bridges are created, named "A" and "B" with appropriate
customer-facing ethernet interfaces added to them:
[admin@R1] /interface bridge> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="lobridge" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:00 protocol-mode=none
priority=0x8000 auto-mac=yes admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s
forward-delay=15s transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m

1 R name="A" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:01:50:E7:00:09 protocol-mode=none

auto-mac=yes admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s forward-delay=15s
priority=0x8000 transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m

2 R name="B" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:01:50:E7:00:08 protocol-mode=none

auto-mac=yes admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s forward-delay=15s
priority=0x8000 transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m
[admin@R1] /interface bridge> port print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON
0 ether2 A 0x80 10 none
1 ether1 B 0x80 10 none

Configuring BGP signaled VPLS instances

Configuring BGP signaled VPLS instance makes router advertise VPLS BGP NLRI that advertises that particular
router belongs to some VPLS. Upon receiving such advertisement, other members of same VPLS know to establish
VPLS tunnel with this router.
To configure VPLS for customers A and B, on R1 the following commands should be issued:
[admin@R1] /interface vpls bgp-vpls> add bridge=A bridge-horizon=1 route-distinguisher=1:1 \
site-id=1 import-route-targets=1:1 export-route-targets=1:1
[admin@R1] /interface vpls bgp-vpls> add bridge=B bridge-horizon=1 route-distinguisher=2:2 \
site-id=1 import-route-targets=2:2 export-route-targets=2:2

Note: Since v3.20 vpls-id was replaced with separate import/export-route-targets to provide more flexibility.
route-distinguisher setting specifies value that gets attached to VPLS NLRI so that receiving routers can distinguish
advertisements that may otherwise look the same. This implies that unique route-distinguisher for every VPLS must
be used. It is not necessary to use the same route distinguisher for some VPLS on all routers forming that VPLS as
distinguisher is not used for determining if some BGP NLRI is related to particular VPLS (Route Target attribute is
used for this), but it is mandatory to have different distinguishers for different VPLSes.
export-route-targets setting is used for tagging BGP NLRI
import-route-targets setting is used to determine if BGP NLRI is related to particular VPLS
Manual:BGP based VPLS 628

site-id setting must be unique among members of particular VPLS. It is advisable although not mandatory to allocate
site-id values in as narrow range as possible as that increases efficency of BGP (for details see RFC 4761).
bridge setting specifies bridge to which dynamically created VPLS tunnels should get added.
bridge-horizon specifies horizon value to be used for ports added to bridge (see Split horizon bridging discussion in
MPLSVPLS).
After configuring R4 as member of VPLS 1:1 (used for customer A) with command:
[admin@R4] /interface vpls bgp-vpls> add bridge=A bridge-horizon=1 route-distinguisher=1:1 \
site-id=4 import-route-targets=1:1 export-route-targets=1:1

Dynamic VPLS tunnel gets created on both R1 and R4. On R1 this can be confirmed:

[admin@R1] > /interface vpls print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running, B - bgp-signaled
0 RDB name="vpls1" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:FA:33:C4:7A:A9 arp=enabled
disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.4 cisco-style=no
cisco-style-id=0 vpls=bgp-vpls1
[admin@R1] > /interface bridge port print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON
0 ether2 A 0x80 10 none
1 ether1 B 0x80 10 none
2 D vpls1 A 0x80 50 1

Here we have confirmed also that route reflection as configured on R5 works as expected as there is no BGP peer
relationship between R1 and R4.
Additionally we must configure R5 to participate in VPLS for customer A:
[admin@R5] /interface vpls bgp-vpls> add bridge=A bridge-horizon=1 route-distinguisher=1:1 \
site-id=5 import-route-targets=1:1 export-route-targets=1:1

This causes R1 and R4 to establish additional VPLS tunnel with R5. For example on R1:

[admin@R1] > /interface vpls print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running, B - bgp-signaled
0 RDB name="vpls1" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:FA:33:C4:7A:A9 arp=enabled
disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.4 cisco-style=no
cisco-style-id=0 vpls=bgp-vpls1
1 RDB name="vpls2" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:FF:B7:0E:4B:97 arp=enabled
disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.5 cisco-style=no
cisco-style-id=0 vpls=bgp-vpls1

And bridge port to get added with proper horizon value:

[admin@R1] > /interface bridge port print

Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON
0 ether2 A 0x80 10 none
1 ether1 B 0x80 10 none
2 D vpls1 A 0x80 50 1
3 D vpls2 A 0x80 50 1
Manual:BGP based VPLS 629

To complete the setup, necessary configuration for customer B VPLS should be applied to R5:

[admin@R5] /interface vpls bgp-vpls> add site-id=5 route-distinguisher=2:2 bridge=B \

bridge-horizon=1 import-route-targets=2:2 export-route-targets=2:2

As the result we get full mesh of VPLS tunnels established, for example on R5:

[admin@R5] /interface vpls> print

Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, R - running, B - bgp-signaled

0 RDB name="vpls1" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:FA:5C:28:29:D3 arp=enabled

disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.1 cisco-style=no
cisco-style-id=0 vpls=bgp-vpls1
1 RDB name="vpls2" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:EA:51:31:3E:2B arp=enabled
disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.4 cisco-style=no
cisco-style-id=0 vpls=bgp-vpls1
2 RDB name="vpls3" mtu=1500 mac-address=02:F6:CF:06:1E:CB arp=enabled
disable-running-check=no remote-peer=9.9.9.1 cisco-style=no
cisco-style-id=0 vpls=bgp-vpls2

Note that remote-peer for VPLS tunnels is BGP NextHop address as received in BGP Update. For example BGP
logs on R5 when receiving Update for VPLS 2:2 (customer B), say:
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet UPDATE Message
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet RemoteAddress=9.9.9.1
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet MessageLength=79
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet PathAttributes
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet bgp-origin=INCOMPLETE
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet bgp-nexthop=9.9.9.1
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet bgp-localpref=100
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet bgp-extended-communities=RT:2:2
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet NLRI= rd
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet type=0
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet administrator=2
11:24:06 route,bgp,debug,packet assigned-number=2 veId=1 veBlockOffset=0 veBlockSize=16
labelBase=40

This is reflected for dynamic VPLS tunnel, where remote-peer for tunnel with export-route-targer 2:2 is 9.9.9.1. This
implies that R5 uses IGP route that leads to 9.9.9.1 to decide what transport label to use. In given case there are /32
IGP routes distributed in the network by means of OSPF, therefore:

[admin@R5] /interface vpls> monitor 2 once

remote-label: 45
local-label: 40
remote-status:
igp-prefix: 9.9.9.1/32
igp-nexthop: 4.4.4.3
imposed-labels: 17,45
Manual:BGP based VPLS 630

Shows that 9.9.9.1/32 route is used and immediate nexthop is 4.4.4.3. Labels attached to VPLS packets are 17 and 45
where 45 is label mapping received with BGP Update, and 17 is label assigned by R3 for prefix 9.9.9.1/32:

[admin@R5] > /mpls remote-bindings print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic
# DST-ADDRESS NEXTHOP LABEL PEER
...
14 AD 9.9.9.1/32 4.4.4.3 17 9.9.9.3:0
...

Manual:VPLS Control Word

Summary
Standards: Pseudowire Fragmentation and Reassembly (RFC 4623)
VPLS allows remote sites to share an Ethernet broadcast domain by connecting sites through pseudo-wires(PW)
tunnels over a packet switching network (PSN). Since VPLS encapsulation adds additional overhead, each interface
in LSP should be able to transmit large enough packet.
Each ethernet chipset has hardware limitation on maximum packet size that it can transmit. Even now there are
Ethernets that supports only one Vlan tag, meaning that maximum packet size without Ethernet header and
checksum (L2MTU) is 1504 bytes. Obviously it is not enough to forward VPLS encapsulated Ethernet frame without
fragmentation (at least 1524 L2MTU support is required). See MTU article for maximum supported L2MTUs on
RouterBOADs.
Since not even all RouterBOARDs support enough L2MTU to transmit VPLS encapsulated packet without
fragmentation, RouterOS have added Pseudowire Fragmentation and Reassembly (PWE3) support according to RFC
4623 using 4-byte Control Word (CW).

Control Word Usage

In RouterOS Control Word is used for packet fragmentation and reassembly inside VPLS tunnel and is done by
utilizing optional Control Word (CW). CW is added between PW label (demultiplexor) and packet payload and
adds additional 4-byte overhead.
Note: Reordering OOO packets are not implemented, out of order fragments will be dropped

Until RouterOS v5.5 CW was used always, but, for compatibility with other vendors that do not
use CW, feature to turn off Control Word usage was added. CW usage is controlled by one new
parameter use-control-word in /interface vpls bgp-vpls and /interface vpls cisco-bgp-vpls
Manual:VPLS Control Word 631

VPLS Packet and CW Format

As you can see Control Word is divided into 5 fileds:

• 0000 - 4-bits identifies that packet packet is PW (not IP)
• Flags - 4bits
• Frag - 2bits value that indicates payload fragmentation.
• Len - 6bits
• Seq - 16bits sequence number used to detect packet loss / misordering.
According to RFC generation and processing of sequence number is optional.

Example Setup
To show CW usage we will use simple three router setup as illustrated below.
This setup will not explain BGP and LDP configuration since its detailed explanation is found in other articles.
Read here>>

See Also
• Basic MPLS and LDP based VPLS
• BGP based VPLS
• VPLS with Cisco routers
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Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example 632

Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example

This is a kind of "putting it all together" setup.
Technologies used:
• LDP for MPLS label distribution
• BGP for VPNv4 route distribution
• OSPF as CE - PE routing protocol
Software:
• PE and P routers have RouterOS 3.17 with routing-test and mpls-test packages.
• CE routers have RouterOS 3.17 with routing-test package. (routing package and older versions can be used here
as well.)

IP addressing & routing

Provider's network
On Router B:
/ip address add address=10.1.1.2/24 interface=ether2

/ip address add address=10.2.2.2/24 interface=ether3

# put PE-CE interface in a VRF

/ip route vrf add routing-mark=vrf1 interfaces=ether2 \

route-distinguisher=10.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=10.1.1.1:111 export-route-targets=10.1.1.1:111

# loopback interface
Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example 633

/interface bridge add name=lobridge

/ip address add address=10.9.9.2/32 interface=lobridge

# add routes to loopback addresses

# (static routing is used for destinations inside providers network)

/ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.3/32 gateway=10.2.2.3

/ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.4/32 gateway=10.2.2.3

On Router C:

/ip address add address=10.2.2.3/24 interface=ether3

/ip address add address=10.3.3.3/24 interface=ether2

# loopback interface
/interface bridge add name=lobridge
/ip address add address=10.9.9.3/32 interface=lobridge

# add routes to loopback addresses

/ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.2/32 gateway=10.2.2.2
/ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.4/32 gateway=10.3.3.4

On Router D:
/ip address add address=10.3.3.4/24 interface=ether2

/ip address add address=10.4.4.4/24 interface=ether3

# put PE-CE interface in a VRF

/ip route vrf add routing-mark=vrf1 interfaces=ether3 \

route-distinguisher=10.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=10.1.1.1:111 export-route-targets=10.1.1.1:111

# loopback interface

/interface bridge add name=lobridge

/ip address add address=10.9.9.4/32 interface=lobridge

# add routes to loopback addresses

/ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.2/32 gateway=10.3.3.3

/ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.3/32 gateway=10.3.3.3

Client's sites
On Router A:

/ip address add address=10.1.1.1/24 interface=<ToRouterB>

On Router E:

/ip address add address=10.4.4.5/24 interface=<ToRouterD>

/ip address add address=10.7.7.5/24 interface=<ToLocalNetwork>
Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example 634

LDP
On Router B:

/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.2

/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether3

On Router C:

/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.3

/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether2
/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether3

On Router D:

/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.4

/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether2

Setting transport address for LDP is not required, but very recommended. If the address is not set, the router will
pick any address at random, which may be an address belonging to VRF, and as such not connectible from internal P
routers.

Results
[admin@C] > /mpls ldp neighbor print
Flags: X - disabled, D - dynamic, O - operational, T - sending-targeted-hello, V - vpls
# TRANSPORT LOCAL-TRANSPORT PEER SEN ADDRESSES
0 O 10.9.9.2 10.9.9.3 10.1.1.2:0 no 10.1.1.2
10.2.2.2
10.9.9.2
1 10.3.3.4 no
2 O 10.9.9.4 10.9.9.3 10.3.3.4:0 no 10.3.3.4
10.4.4.4
10.9.9.4

BGP
On Router B:
/routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=vrf1 redistribute-connected=yes \
redistribute-ospf=yes
/routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.9.9.3 remote-as=65530 address-families=vpnv4 \
update-source=lobridge

On Router C:

/routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.9.9.2 remote-as=65530 route-reflect=yes \

address-families=vpnv4 update-source=lobridge
/routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.9.9.4 remote-as=65530 route-reflect=yes \
address-families=vpnv4 update-source=lobridge
# client-to-client-reflection is on by default
#/routing bgp instance set default client-to-client-reflection=yes

On Router D:
Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example 635

/routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=vrf1 redistribute-connected=yes \

redistribute-ospf=yes
/routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.9.9.3 remote-as=65530 address-families=vpnv4 \
update-source=lobridge

Note that route reflection here is used for the sake of an example. A simpler configuration would work as well - one
where there is a BGP session between B and D and C is not running BGP at all.

Results
Check for routes on PE routers:

/routing bgp vpn vpnv4-route print

and

/ip route print where bgp

OSPF
On Router A:

/routing ospf network add network=10.1.1.0/24 area=backbone

On Router B:

/routing ospf instance set default routing-table=vrf1 redistribute-bgp=as-type-1

/routing ospf network add network=10.1.1.0/24 area=backbone

On Router D:

/routing ospf instance set default routing-table=vrf1 redistribute-bgp=as-type-1

/routing ospf network add network=10.4.4.0/24 area=backbone

On Router E:

/routing ospf network add network=10.4.4.0/24 area=backbone

/routing ospf network add network=10.7.7.0/24 area=backbone

Results
Routing table on CE router A:

[admin@A] > /ip route pr

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADC 10.1.1.0/24 10.1.1.1 ether2 0
1 ADo 10.4.4.0/24 10.1.1.2 reachab... 110
2 ADo 10.7.7.0/24 10.1.1.2 reachab... 110

Routing table on CE router E:

[admin@E] > /ip route pr

Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example 636

B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC GATEWAY DISTANCE
0 ADo 10.1.1.0/24 10.4.4.4 reachab... 110
1 ADC 10.4.4.0/24 10.4.4.5 ether2 0
2 ADC 10.7.7.0/24 10.7.7.5 ether3 0

Test
On Router A:
Ping from CE1 -> to PE1:

[admin@A] > /ping 10.1.1.2

10.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=8 ms
10.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=4 ms
10.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=5 ms
10.1.1.2 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=5 ms
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 4/5.5/8 ms

Ping from CE1 -> to CE2:

[admin@A] > /ping 10.4.4.5

10.4.4.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=12 ms
10.4.4.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=5 ms
10.4.4.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=6 ms
10.4.4.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=8 ms
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 5/7.7/12 ms

[admin@A] > /ping 10.7.7.5

10.7.7.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=14 ms

10.7.7.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=4 ms
10.7.7.5 64 byte ping: ttl=61 time=8 ms
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 4/8.6/14 ms

[admin@A] > /tool traceroute 10.7.7.5

ADDRESS STATUS
1 10.1.1.2 3ms 6ms 2ms
2 0.0.0.0 timeout timeout timeout
3 10.3.3.4 4ms 3ms 3ms
4 10.7.7.5 3ms 3ms 3ms

The second hop failure is normal.

To see whole MPLS cloud as one IP hop, configure propagate-ttl=no. This setting should be the same on all
provider's routers.
On Routers B,C,D:

/mpls set propagate-ttl=no

Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example 637

[admin@A] > /tool traceroute 10.7.7.5

ADDRESS STATUS
1 10.1.1.2 6ms 3ms 5ms
2 10.3.3.4 5ms 3ms 6ms
3 10.7.7.5 9ms 9ms 6ms

No failures here.

Connecting from PE to CE
In this case routing-table must be specified manually.
Ping from PE1 -> to CE1:

[admin@B] > ping 10.1.1.1 routing-table=vrf1

10.1.1.1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=9 ms
10.1.1.1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=6 ms
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 6/7.5/9 ms

Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol

Applies to RouterOS: v4

• Packages required: routing, mpls

• Software versions: 4.3+

Setup

In this setup we describe the use of EBGP as Provider Edge - Customer Edge (PE-CE) routing protocol.
Router A and Router F both belong to the same customer's VPN, but to different sites.
Router A is multihomed - is has connections to two PEs, router B and router C.
Routers B, C, and E are PE routers.
Router D is provider (P) router and functions as BGP route reflector.
All provider's routers belong to AS 100; all customer routers belong to private AS 65000.
Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol 638

Description
There are several tricky aspects about this setup.
First, it is not possible to use BGP built-in mechanism of routing loop prevention, that checks BGP AS path for
presence of local AS path numbers and discards all routes that match. We want to distribute routes from A to F, and
vice versa, but they belong to the same BGP AS. (One solution is to use different private AS numbers there, but
that's not always possible or desirable.)
• One way to do work around this BGP AS path loop check is to configure BGP as-override option at exit point
from provider's network.
• Another way is to configure remove-private-as at providers network entry point (it will work only if customer's
AS numbers are private, of course!)
• Yet another way is to configure allow-as-in=x on customers edge router. "x" is the number of times local as
number can be present in AS path.
In this configuration we use the as-override option on router E (to make router F accept routes from A), and
allow-as-in option on router A, to make it accept routes from F.
Router A:

routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.1.1.2 remote-as=100 allow-as-in=1;

routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.1.1.6 remote-as=100 allow-as-in=1;

Router E:
routing bgp peer add instance=ebgp remote-address=10.3.3.2 remote-as=65000 as-override=yes;

The second tricky aspect is that since CE1 is multihomed (i.e. has links to multiple PEs) and BGP AS path loop
prevention mechanism is disabled on router A because 'allow-as-in' option configured, the routes that A advertises to
one PE router may be received back from the second PE. Installing those route in VRF table can also lead to
suboptimal routing and even to BGP convergence failure. To avoid that, BGP Site of Origin (SOO) extended
communities can be used. In this configuration we configure routing filter on PE routers that sets BGP SOO
extended communities to routes received from CE router, and another filter, that filters out VPNv4 routes received
from IBGP by the same SOO extended community attribute.
Routers B, C:

routing filter add chain=ibgp-in site-of-origin=1:100 action=discard;

routing filter add chain=ebgp-in set-site-of-origin=1:100;

We also use different BGP instances on PE routers: one for PE-CE (i.e. EBGP) peers and one for provider's network
internal BGP peers.

Configuration
Router A:

ip address add address=10.1.1.1/30 interface=A_B;

ip address add address=10.1.1.5/30 interface=A_C;
interface bridge add name=somenet;
ip address add address=10.10.10.1/24 interface=somenet;
routing bgp instance set default as=65000 redistribute-connected=yes;
routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.1.1.2 remote-as=100 allow-as-in=1;
routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.1.1.6 remote-as=100 allow-as-in=1;

Router B:
Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol 639

ip address add address=10.1.1.2/30 interface=B_A;

ip address add address=10.2.2.1/30 interface=B_D;
interface bridge add name=lobridge;
ip address add address=10.9.9.2/32 interface=lobridge;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.3 gateway=10.2.2.2;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.4 gateway=10.2.2.2;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.5 gateway=10.2.2.2;
ip route vrf add routing-mark=vrf1 interfaces=B_A route-distinguisher=1:1 \
import-route-targets=1:1 export-route-targets=1:1;
mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.2;
mpls ldp interface add interface=B_D hello-interval=3;
routing bgp instance set default as=100;
routing bgp instance add name=ebgp router-id=0.0.0.2 as=100 routing-table=vrf1;
routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=vrf1 redistribute-connected=yes \
redistribute-other-bgp=yes;
routing bgp peer add address-families=vpnv4 remote-address=10.9.9.4 remote-as=100 \
in-filter=ibgp-in out-filter=ibgp-out update-source=10.9.9.2;
routing bgp peer add instance=ebgp remote-address=10.1.1.1 remote-as=65000 \
in-filter=ebgp-in out-filter=ebgp-out;
routing filter add chain=ebgp-out site-of-origin=1:100 action=discard;
routing filter add chain=ebgp-in set-site-of-origin=1:100;

Router C:

ip address add address=10.1.1.6/30 interface=C_A;

ip address add address=10.2.2.5/30 interface=C_D;
interface bridge add name=lobridge;
ip address add address=10.9.9.3/32 interface=lobridge;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.2 gateway=10.2.2.6;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.4 gateway=10.2.2.6;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.5 gateway=10.2.2.6;
ip route vrf add routing-mark=vrf1 interfaces=C_A route-distinguisher=1:1 \
import-route-targets=1:1 export-route-targets=1:1;
mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.3;
mpls ldp interface add interface=C_D hello-interval=3;
routing bgp instance set default as=100;
routing bgp instance add name=ebgp router-id=0.0.0.3 as=100 routing-table=vrf1;
routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=vrf1 \
redistribute-connected=yes redistribute-other-bgp=yes;
routing bgp peer add address-families=vpnv4 remote-address=10.9.9.4 remote-as=100 \
in-filter=ibgp-in update-source=10.9.9.3;
routing bgp peer add instance=ebgp remote-address=10.1.1.5 remote-as=65000 \
in-filter=ebgp-in out-filter=ebgp-out;
routing filter add chain=ibgp-in site-of-origin=1:100 action=discard;
routing filter add chain=ebgp-in set-site-of-origin=1:100;

Router D:
Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol 640

ip address add address=10.2.2.2/30 interface=D_B;

ip address add address=10.2.2.6/30 interface=D_C;
ip address add address=10.2.2.9/30 interface=D_E;
interface bridge add name=lobridge;
ip address add address=10.9.9.4/32 interface=lobridge;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.2 gateway=10.2.2.1;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.3 gateway=10.2.2.5;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.5 gateway=10.2.2.10;
mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.4;
mpls ldp interface add interface=D_B hello-interval=3;
mpls ldp interface add interface=D_C hello-interval=3;
mpls ldp interface add interface=D_E hello-interval=3;
routing bgp instance set default as=100;
routing bgp peer add address-families=vpnv4 remote-address=10.9.9.2 remote-as=100 \
update-source=10.9.9.4 route-reflect=yes;
routing bgp peer add address-families=vpnv4 remote-address=10.9.9.3 remote-as=100 \
update-source=10.9.9.4 route-reflect=yes;
routing bgp peer add address-families=vpnv4 remote-address=10.9.9.5 remote-as=100 \
update-source=10.9.9.4 route-reflect=yes;

Router E:
ip address add address=10.3.3.1/30 interface=E_F;
ip address add address=10.2.2.10/30 interface=E_D;
interface bridge add name=lobridge;
ip address add address=10.9.9.5/32 interface=lobridge;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.2 gateway=10.2.2.9;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.3 gateway=10.2.2.9;
ip route add dst-address=10.9.9.4 gateway=10.2.2.9;
ip route vrf add routing-mark=vrf1 interfaces=E_F route-distinguisher=1:1 \
import-route-targets=1:1 export-route-targets=1:1;
mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.9.9.5;
mpls ldp interface add interface=E_D hello-interval=3;
routing bgp instance set default as=100;
routing bgp instance add name=ebgp router-id=0.0.0.5 as=100 routing-table=vrf1;
routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=vrf1 redistribute-connected=yes \
redistribute-other-bgp=yes;
routing bgp peer add address-families=vpnv4 remote-address=10.9.9.4 remote-as=100 \
update-source=10.9.9.5;
routing bgp peer add instance=ebgp remote-address=10.3.3.2 remote-as=65000 as-override=yes;

Router F:

ip address add address=10.3.3.2/30 interface=F_E;

interface bridge add name=somenet;
ip address add address=10.20.20.1/24 interface=somenet;
routing bgp instance set default as=65000 redistribute-connected=yes;
routing bgp peer add remote-address=10.3.3.1 remote-as=100;
Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol 641

Results
Routes on CE1 router A:
[admin@A] > ip route print detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic, C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp,
o - ospf, m - mme, B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

1 ADC dst-address=10.1.1.4/30 pref-src=10.1.1.5 gateway=A_C gateway-status=A_C reachable

distance=0 scope=10

2 ADb dst-address=10.3.3.0/30 gateway=10.1.1.2 gateway-status=10.1.1.2 reachable A_B

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1 received-from=peer1

3 Db dst-address=10.3.3.0/30 gateway=10.1.1.6 gateway-status=10.1.1.6 reachable A_C

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1 received-from=peer2

4 ADC dst-address=10.10.10.1/30 pref-src=10.1.1.1 gateway=somenet

gateway-status=somenet reachable distance=0 scope=10

5 ADb dst-address=10.20.20.0/24 gateway=10.1.1.2 gateway-status=10.1.1.2 reachable A_B

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100,65000 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1 received-from=peer1

6 Db dst-address=10.20.20.0/24 gateway=10.1.1.6 gateway-status=10.1.1.6 reachable A_C

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100,65000 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1 received-from=peer2

Routes on CE2 router F:

[admin@F] > ip route print detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic, C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp,
o - ospf, m - mme, B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

0 ADb dst-address=10.1.1.0/30 gateway=10.3.3.1 gateway-status=10.3.3.1 reachable F_E

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1 received-from=peer1

1 ADb dst-address=10.1.1.4/30 gateway=10.3.3.1 gateway-status=10.3.3.1 reachable F_E

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1 received-from=peer1

2 ADC dst-address=10.3.3.0/30 pref-src=10.3.3.2 gateway=F_E gateway-status=F_E reachable

distance=0 scope=10

3 ADb dst-address=10.10.10.0/24 gateway=10.3.3.1 gateway-status=10.3.3.1 reachable F_E

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 bgp-as-path=100,100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1,SOO:1:100 received-from=peer1
Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol 642

4 ADC dst-address=10.20.20.0/30 pref-src=10.20.20.1 gateway=somenet

gateway-status=somenet reachable distance=0 scope=10

Routes on PE1 router B:

[admin@B] > ip route print detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic, C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp,
o - ospf, m - mme, B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit

0 ADC dst-address=10.1.1.0/30 pref-src=10.1.1.2 gateway=B_A gateway-status=B_A reachable

distance=0 scope=10 routing-mark=vrf1

1 Db dst-address=10.1.1.0/30 gateway=10.1.1.1 gateway-status=10.1.1.1 on vrf1 reachable A_B

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 routing-mark=vrf1 bgp-as-path=65000
bgp-origin=incomplete bgp-ext-communities=SOO:1:100 received-from=peer2

2 ADb dst-address=10.1.1.4/30 =gateway=10.1.1.1 gateway-status=10.1.1.1 on vrf1 reachable B_A

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 routing-mark=vrf1 bgp-as-path=65000
bgp-origin=incomplete bgp-ext-communities=SOO:1:100 received-from=peer2

3 Db dst-address=10.1.1.4/30 gateway=10.9.9.3 gateway-status=10.9.9.3 recursive via 10.2.2.2 B_D

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=30 routing-mark=vrf1 bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1

4 ADb dst-address=10.3.3.0/30 gateway=10.9.9.5 gateway-status=10.9.9.5 recursive via 10.2.2.2 B_D

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=30 routing-mark=vrf1 bgp-local-pref=100 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1

5 ADb dst-address=10.10.10.0/24 gateway=10.1.1.1 gateway-status=10.1.1.1 on vrf1 reachable B_A

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=10 routing-mark=vrf1 bgp-as-path=65000 bgp-origin=incomplete
bgp-ext-communities=SOO:1:100 received-from=peer2

6 ADb dst-address=10.20.20.0/24 gateway=10.9.9.5 gateway-status=10.9.9.5 recursive via 10.2.2.2 B_D

distance=20 scope=40 target-scope=30 routing-mark=vrf1 bgp-as-path=65000 bgp-local-pref=100
bgp-origin=incomplete bgp-ext-communities=RT:1:1

7 ADC dst-address=10.2.2.0/30 pref-src=10.2.2.1 gateway=B_D gateway-status=B_D reachable

distance=0 scope=10

8 ADC dst-address=10.9.9.2/32 pref-src=10.9.9.2 gateway=lobridge gateway-status=lobridge reachable

distance=0 scope=10

9 A S dst-address=10.9.9.3/32 gateway=10.2.2.2 gateway-status=10.2.2.2 reachable B_D

distance=1 scope=30 target-scope=10

10 A S dst-address=10.9.9.4/32 gateway=10.2.2.2 gateway-status=10.2.2.2 reachable B_D

distance=1 scope=30 target-scope=10
Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol 643

11 A S dst-address=10.9.9.5/32 gateway=10.2.2.2 gateway-status=10.2.2.2 reachable B_D

distance=1 scope=30 target-scope=10

Manual:OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol

Software:
• PE1 router is Cisco 7200
• PE2 is MT and has RouterOS 3.23 with routing-test and mpls-test packages.
• CE1 and CE2 have any RouterOS version.

Configuration with inter-area routing

CE1
/ip address add address=10.1.1.1/24 interface=ether1
# static route to redistribute
/ip route add dst-address=10.10.1.0/24 gateway=x.x.x.x
/routing ospf instance set default redistribute-static=as-type-1 router-id=0.0.0.1
/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=1.1.1.0/24

CE2
/ip address add address=10.3.3.4/24 interface=ether1
# static route to redistribute
/ip route add dst-address=10.10.4.0/24 gateway=y.y.y.y
/routing ospf instance set default redistribute-static=as-type-1 router-id=0.0.0.4
/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=10.3.3.0/24
Manual:OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol 644

PE1 (Cisco)
ip vrf vrf1
rd 1.1.1.1:111
route-target export 1.1.1.1:111
route-target import 1.1.1.1:111
exit

interface Loopback0
ip address 10.5.5.2 255.255.255.255

mpls ldp router-id Loopback0 force

mpls label protocol ldp

interface FastEthernet0/0
ip vrf forwarding vrf1
ip address 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0

interface FastEthernet1/0
ip address 10.2.2.2 255.255.255.0
mpls ip

router ospf 1 vrf vrf1

router-id 10.5.5.2
network 10.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 0
redistribute bgp 65000 subnets
domain-id 0.0.0.1
domain-tag 2222

router bgp 65000

neighbor 10.5.5.3 remote-as 65000
neighbor 10.5.5.3 update-source Loopback0
address-family vpnv4
neighbor 10.5.5.3 activate
neighbor 10.5.5.3 send-community both
exit-address-family
address-family ipv4 vrf vrf1
redistribute connected
redistribute ospf 1 vrf vrf1 match internal external
exit-address-family

ip route 10.5.5.3 255.255.255.255 10.2.2.3

Manual:OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol 645

PE2
/interface bridge add name=lobridge

/ip address

add address=10.2.2.3/24 interface=ether1

add address=10.3.3.3/24 interface=ether2

add address=10.5.5.3/32 interface=lobridge

/ip route vrf add disabled=no export-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 \

interfaces=ether2,vrf-lobridge route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 routing-mark=vrf1

/ip route add dst-address=10.5.5.2/32 gateway=10.2.2.2

/routing bgp instance set default as=65000

/routing bgp instance vrf add instance=default routing-mark=vrf1 redistribute-connected=yes redistribute-ospf=yes

/routing bgp peer add instance=default remote-as=65000 remote-address=10.5.5.2 \

address-families=vpnv4 update-source=lobridge

/routing ospf instance redistribute-bgp=as-type-1 router-id=10.5.5.3 routing-table=vrf1 \

domain-id=0.0.0.1 domain-tag=3333

/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=10.3.3.0/24

/mpls ldp set enabled=yes transport-address=10.5.5.3

/mpls ldp interface add interface=ether1

Configuration with intra-area routing (including a sham link)

Manual:OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol 646

CE1 additional backlink

/ip address add address=10.7.7.1/24 interface=backlink
/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=10.7.7.0/24
/routing ospf interface add interface=backlink cost=1000 network-type=point-to-point

CE2 additional backlink

/ip address add address=10.7.7.4/24 interface=backlink
/routing ospf network add area=backbone network=10.7.7.0/24
/routing ospf interface add interface=backlink cost=1000 network-type=point-to-point

PE1 (Cisco) with a sham link

interface Loopback1
ip vrf forwarding vrf1
ip address 10.6.6.2 255.255.255.255

router ospf 1 vrf vrf1

area 0 sham-link 10.6.6.2 10.6.6.3 cost 10

ip route 10.6.6.3 255.255.255.255 10.2.2.3

! all the rest of settings remain unchanged

PE2 with a sham-link

/interface bridge add name=vrf-lobridge

/ip address add address=10.6.6.3/32 interface=vrf-lobridge

# change the VRF to include vrf-lobridge interface
/ip route vrf add disabled=no export-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 import-route-targets=1.1.1.1:111 \
interfaces=ether2,vrf-lobridge route-distinguisher=1.1.1.1:111 routing-mark=vrf1
# configure the sham link
/routing ospf sham-link add area=backbone src-address=10.6.6.3 dst-address=10.6.6.2
# add route to sham link's remote address
/ip route add dst-address=10.6.6.2 gateway=10.2.2.2
Manual:MPLS/Traffic-eng 647

Manual:MPLS/Traffic-eng
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Interface
Sub-menu: /mpls traffic-eng interface
Properties:

Property Description

bandwidth (integer[bps]; Default: 0bps) Total bandwidth that can be allocated on an interface by TE tunnels.

blockade-k-factor (integer; Default: 3) Value used to calculate blockade state timeout.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether item is ignored or used. By default VPLS interface is disabled.

down-flood-thresholds
(integer[0..100],interer[0..100],...; Default:
15,30,45,60,75,80,85,90,95,97,98,99,100)

igp-flood-period (time; Default: 3m)

interface (string; Default: ) Name of an interface on which to run RSVP.

k-factor (integer; Default: 3) Value used to calculate RSVP timeout. Timeout is calculated using following
formula: (K + 0.5)*1.5*R, where K is k-factor, R is refresh-time.
Read more >>

refresh-time (time; Default: 30s) Interval in which RSVP Path messages are sent out.

resource-class (integer[0..FFFFFFFF]; Default: 0)

te-metric (integer; Default: 1)

up-flood-thresholds
(integer[0..100],interer[0..100],...; Default:
15,30,45,60,75,80,85,90,95,97,98,99,100)

use-udp (yes | no; Default: no) An RSVP implementation generally requires the ability to perform "raw" network
I/O, i.e., to send and receive IP datagrams using protocol 46. Some systems may not
support raw network I/O, in such cases RSVP messages can be encapsulated in UDP
datagrams. Ports 1698 and 1699 will be used.

Read-only properties:

Property Description

remaining-bw (integer[bps]) Shows currently unallocated bandwidth.

Manual:MPLS/Traffic-eng 648

Tunnel Path
Sub-menu: /mpls traffic-eng tunnel-path
Properties:

Property Description

affinity-exclude (integer; Default: ) Do not use the path if resource-class matches any of specified bits.

affinity-include-all (integer; Use the path only if resource-class matches all of specified bits.
Default: )

affinity-include-any (integer; Use the path if resource-class matches any of specified bits.
Default: )

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the item

disabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether item is ignored or used. By default VPLS interface is disabled.

holding-priority (integer[0..7]; Is used to decide whether this path can be preempted by another path. 0 sets the highest priority.
Default: )

hops (Address:[strict|loose] [, List of hops that path traverses. Used if use-cspf is not enabled. It is possible to specify strict
Address:[strinct|loose]]; Default: ) hop or loose hop:
• strict - defines that there must not be any other hops between previous hop and "strict" hop
(fully specified path).
• loose - there are acceptable other hops between previous hop and defined hop (not fully
specified path).
Read more >>

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of tunnel path

record-route (yes | no; Default: ) If enabled, the sender node will receive information about the actual route that the LSP tunnel
traverses. Record Route is analogous to a path vector, and hence can be used for loop detection.

reoptimize-interval (time; Default: ) Interval in which tunnel path will be re-optimized. Useful if use-cspf is set to yes.

setup-priority (integer[0..7]; Default: ) Parameter is used to decide whether this path can preempt another path. 0 sets the highest priority.

use-cspf (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to use CSPF to create dynamic tunnel path.

Monitoring TE Status

Path State
Sub-menu: /mpls traffic-eng path-state
Available read only properties:

Property Description

bandwidth (integer[bps]) Bandwidth required for the path

dst (address:integer) Shows TE path destination address and tunnel ID.

egress (yes | no) Shows if router is egress router of the path

forwarding (yes | no) Shows if router is forwarding router of the path

in-interface (string) Interface on which path message is received.

in-previous-hop (IP) Recorded previous hop

label (integer)

locally-originated (yes | no) Shows if router is ingress router of the path

out-interface (string) Interface through which path message is sent out.

Manual:MPLS/Traffic-eng 649

out-label (integer)

out-next-hop (IP)

path-in-explicit-route ()

path-in-record-route (List of IPs) Received recorded routes along the path.

path-out-explicit-route ()

path-out-record-route () List of recorded routes along the path that is sent out to next hop.

resv-bandwidth (integer[bps]) bandwidth that TE path is reserving.

resv-out-record-route ()

sending-path (yes | no) Whether path messages are being sent

sending-resv (yes | no) Whether resv messages are being sent

src (Address:ID) Shows source address and LSP ID number

Resv State
Sub-menu: /mpls traffic-eng resv-state
Available read only properties:

Property Description

active (yes | no) Shows whether reservation is active.

bandwidth (integer[bps]) Bandwidth that RSVP session is allocating.

dst (address:ID) Shows TE destination address and tunnel ID from RSVP session.

egress (yes | no) Shows if router is egress router of the path

interface (string) Shows an interface on which bandwidth is reserved

label (integer)

next-hop ()

non-output (yes | no)

recorded-route Shows recorded routes and labels along LSP.

(IP[label])

shared (yes | no) Whether LSP tunnels can share resources, so that the new LSP tunnel can be set up without having to wait for the old
LSP tunnel to be cleared. Read more >>

src (address:ID) Shows TE source address and LSP ID from RSVP session.
Manual:Router AAA 650

Manual:Router AAA
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4, v5+

Summary
Sub-menu: /user
MikroTik RouterOS router user facility manage the users connecting the router from the local console, via serial
terminal, telnet, SSH or Winbox. The users are authenticated using either local database or designated RADIUS
server.
Each user is assigned to a user group, which denotes the rights of this user. A group policy is a combination of
individual policy items.
In case the user authentication is performed using RADIUS, the RADIUS Client should be previously configured.

User Groups
Sub-menu: /user group
The router user groups provide a convenient way to assign different permissions and access rights to different user
classes.

Properties

Property Description

name (string; Default: ) The name of the user group

policy (local | telnet | ssh | ftp | reboot | read List of allowed policies:
| write | policy | test | web | sniff | api | winbox |
password | sensitive; Default: )
Manual:Router AAA 651

• local - policy that grants rights to log in locally via console

• telnet - policy that grants rights to log in remotely via telnet
• ssh - policy that grants rights to log in remotely via secure shell protocol
• ftp - policy that grants full rights to log in remotely via FTP and to transfer files from and to
the router. Users with this policy can both read, write and erase files, regardless of
"read/write" permission, as that deals only with RouterOS configuration.
• reboot - policy that allows rebooting the router
• read - policy that grants read access to the router's configuration. All console commands that
do not alter router's configuration are allowed. Doesn't affect FTP
• write - policy that grants write access to the router's configuration, except for user
management. This policy does not allow to read the configuration, so make sure to enable
read policy as well
• policy - policy that grants user management rights. Should be used together with write
policy. Allows also to see global variables created by other users (requires also 'test' policy).
• test - policy that grants rights to run ping, traceroute, bandwidth-test, wireless scan, sniffer,
snooper and other test commands
• web - policy that grants rights to log in remotely via WebBox
• winbox - policy that grants rights to log in remotely via WinBox
• password - policy that grants rights to change the password
• sensitive - grants rights to see sensitive information in the router, see below list as to
what is regarded as sensitive.
• api - grants rights to access router via API.
• sniff - policy that grants rights to use packet sniffer tool.

Sensitive information
Starting with RouterOS v3.27, the following information is regarded as sensitive, and can be hidden from certain
user groups with the 'sensitive' policy unchecked.
Also, since RouterOS v4.3, backup files are considered sensitive, and users without this policy will not be able to
download them in any way.
system package

/radius: secret
/snmp/community: authentication-password, encryption-password

advanced-tools package

/tool/sms: secret

wireless package

/interface/wireless/security-profiles: wpa-pre-shared-key,
wpa2-pre-shared-key, static-key-0, static-key-1, static-key-2,
static-key-3, static-sta-private-key
/interface/wireless/access-list: private-key, private-pre-shared-key

wireless-test package
/interface/wireless/security-profiles: wpa-pre-shared-key, wpa2-pre-shared-key,

static-key-0, static-key-1, static-key-2, static-key-3, static-sta-private-key, management-protection-key

/interface/wireless/access-list: private-key, private-pre-shared-key, management-protection-key

user-manager package

/tool/user-manager/user: password
/tool/user-manager/customer: password
Manual:Router AAA 652

hotspot package

/ip/hotspot/user: password

ppp package

/ppp/secret: password

security package

/ip/ipsec/installed-sa: auth-key, enc-key

/ip/ipsec/manual-sa: ah-key, esp-auth-key, esp-enc-key
/ip/ipsec/peer: secret

routing package

/routing/bgp/peer: tcp-md5-key
/routing/rip/interface: authentication-key
/routing/ospf/interface: authentication-key
/routing/ospf/virtual-link: authentication-key

routing-test package

/routing/bgp/peer: tcp-md5-key
/routing/rip/interface: authentication-key
/routing/ospf/interface: authentication-key
/routing/ospf/virtual-link: authentication-key

Notes
There are three system groups which cannot be deleted:
[admin@rb13] > /user group print

0 name="read" policy=local,telnet,ssh,reboot,read,test,winbox,password,web,!ftp,!write,!policy

1 name="write" policy=local,telnet,ssh,reboot,read,write,test,winbox,password,web,!ftp,!policy

2 name="full" policy=local,telnet,ssh,ftp,reboot,read,write,policy,test,winbox,password,web

3 name="test" policy=ssh,read,policy,!local,!telnet,!ftp,!reboot,!write,!test,!winbox,!password,!web

[admin@rb13] >

Exclamation sign '!' just before policy item name means NOT.

Example
To add reboot group that is allowed to reboot the router locally or using telnet, as well as read the router's
configuration, enter the following command:
[admin@rb13] user group> add name=reboot policy=telnet,reboot,read,local

[admin@rb13] user group> print

0 name="read" policy=local,telnet,ssh,reboot,read,test,winbox,password,web,!ftp,!write,!policy

1 name="write" policy=local,telnet,ssh,reboot,read,write,test,winbox,password,web,!ftp,!policy
Manual:Router AAA 653

2 name="full" policy=local,telnet,ssh,ftp,reboot,read,write,policy,test,winbox,password,web

3 name="reboot" policy=local,telnet,reboot,read,!ssh,!ftp,!write,!policy,!test,!winbox,!password,!web

[admin@rb13] user group>

Router Users
Sub-menu: /user
Router user database stores the information such as username, password, allowed access addresses and group about
router management personnel.

Properties

Property Description

address (IP/mask | IPv6 Host or network address from which the user is allowed to log in
prefix; Default: )

group (string; Default: ) Name of the group the user belongs to

name (string; Default: ) User name. Although it must start with an alphanumeric character, it may contain "*", "_", "." and "@" symbols.

password (string; Default: ) User password. If not specified, it is left blank (hit [Enter] when logging in). It conforms to standard Unix
characteristics of passwords and may contain letters, digits, "*" and "_" symbols.

Notes
There is one predefined user with full access rights:

[admin@MikroTik] user> print

Flags: X - disabled
# NAME GROUP ADDRESS
0 ;;; system default user
admin full 0.0.0.0/0

[admin@MikroTik] user>

There always should be at least one user with fulls access rights. If the user with full access rights is the only one, it
cannot be removed.

Monitoring Active Users

Sub-menu: /user active
/user active print command shows the currently active users along with respective statisics information.

Properties
All properties are read-only.
Manual:Router AAA 654

Property Description

address (IP/IPv6 address) Host IP/IPv6 address from which the user is accessing the router. 0.0.0.0 means that user is logged in
locally

group (string) Group that user belongs to.

name (string) User name.

radius (true | false) Whether user is authenticated by RADIUS server.

via (console | telnet | ssh |winbox | api | User's access method

web)

when (time) Time and date when user logged in.

Example
To print currently active users, enter the following command:

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /user active> print detail

Flags: R - radius
0 when=dec/08/2010 16:19:24 name="admin" address=10.5.8.52 via=winbox

2 when=dec/09/2010 09:23:04 name="admin" address=10.5.101.38 via=telnet

3 when=dec/09/2010 09:34:27 name="admin" address=fe80::21a:4dff:fe5d:8e56 via=api

Remote AAA
Sub-menu: /user aaa
Router user remote AAA enables router user authentication and accounting via RADIUS server. The RADIUS user
database is consulted only if the required username is not found in the local user database

Properties

Property Description

accounting (yes | no; Default:

yes)

exclude-groups (list of group Exclude-groups consists of the groups that should not be allowed to be used for users authenticated by
names; Default: ) radius. If radius server provides group specified in this list, default-group will be used instead.
This is to protect against privilege escalation when one user (without policy permission) can change radius
server list, setup it's own radius server and log in as admin.

default-group (string; Default: User group used by default for users authenticated via RADIUS server.
read)

interim-update (time; Default: Interim-Update time interval

0s)

use-radius (yes |no; Default: no) Enable user authentication via RADIUS
Manual:Router AAA 655

Note: If you are using RADIUS, you need to have CHAP support enabled in the RADIUS server for Winbox
to work

SSH Keys
Sub-menu: /user ssh-keys
This menu allows to import public keys used for ssh authentication.
Warning: User is not allowed to login via ssh by password if ssh-keys for the user is added

Properties:

Property Description

user (string; Default: ) username to which ssh key is assigned.

Read-only properties:

Property Description

key-owner (string)

When importing ssh key by /user ssh-keys import command you will be asked for two parameters:
• public-key-file - file name in routers root directory containing the key.
• user - name of the user to which key will be assigned

Private keys
Sub-menu: /user ssh-keys private
This menu is used to import and list imported private keys. Private keys are used to authenticate remote login
attempts using certificates.
Read-only properties:

Property Description

user (string)

key-owner (string)

When importing ssh keys from this sub menu using /user ssh-keys private import command you will be
asked for three parameters:
• private-key-file - file name in routers root directory containing private key.
• public-key-file - file name in routers root directory containing public key.
• user - name of the user to which key will be assigned
Manual:Router AAA 656

Example
Read full example >>

Manual:PPP AAA
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4, v5

Summary
Sub-menu: /ppp
The MikroTik RouterOS provides scalable Authentication, Athorization and Accounting (AAA) functionality.
Local authentication is performed using the User Database and the Profile Database. The actual configuration for the
given user is composed using respective user record from the User Database, associated item from the Profile
Database and the item in the Profile database which is set as default for a given service the user is authenticating to.
Default profile settings from the Profile database have lowest priority while the user access record settings from the
User Database have highest priority with the only exception being particular IP addresses take precedence over IP
pools in the local-address and remote-address settings, which described later on.
Support for RADIUS authentication gives the ISP or network administrator the ability to manage PPP user access
and accounting from one server throughout a large network. The MikroTik RouterOS has a RADIUS client which
can authenticate for PPP, PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP and ISDN connections. The attributes received from RADIUS server
override the ones set in the default profile, but if some parameters are not received they are taken from the respective
default profile.

User Profiles
Sub-menu: /ppp profile
PPP profiles are used to define default values for user access records stored under /ppp secret submenu.
Settings in /ppp secret User Database override corresponding /ppp profile settings except that single IP
addresses always take precedence over IP pools when specified as local-address or remote-address parameters.

Properties
Manual:PPP AAA 657

Property Description

address-list (string; Default: ) Address list name to which ppp assigned address will be added.

bridge (string; Default: ) Name of the bridge interface to which ppp interface will be added as slave port.

change-tcp-mss (yes | no | Modifies connection MSS settings:

default; Default: default) • yes - adjust connection MSS value
• no - do not atjust connection MSS value
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile

comment (string; Default: )

dhcpv6-pd-pool (string; Name of the IPv6 pool which will be used by dynamically created DHCPv6-PD server when client connects.
Default: ) Read more >>

dns-server (IP; Default: ) IP address of the DNS server that is supplied to ppp clients

idle-timeout (time; Default: ) Specifies the amount of time after which the link will be terminated if there are no activity present. Timeout
is not set by default

incoming-filter (string; Firewall chain name for incoming packets. Specified chain gets control for each packet coming from the
Default: ) client. The ppp chain should be manually added and rules with action=jump jump-target=ppp should be
added to other relevant chains in order for this feature to work. For more information look at the examples
section

local-address (IP address | Tunnel address or name of the pool from which address is assigned to ppp interface locally.
pool; Default: )

name (string; Default: ) PPP profile name

only-one (yes | no | default; Defines whether a user is allowed to have more than one connection at a time
Default: default) • yes - a user is not allowed to have more than one connection at a time
• no - the user is allowed to have more than one connection at a time
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile

outgoing-filter (string; Firewall chain name for outgoing packets. Specified chain gets control for each packet going to the client.
Default: ) The ppp chain should be manually added and rules with action=jump jump-target=ppp should be added to
other relevant chains in order for this feature to work. For more information look at the Examples section.

rate-limit (string; Default: ) Rate limitation in form of rx-rate[/tx-rate] [rx-burst-rate[/tx-burst-rate]

[rx-burst-threshold[/tx-burst-threshold] [rx-burst-time[/tx-burst-time] [priority]
[rx-rate-min[/tx-rate-min]]]] from the point of view of the router (so "rx" is client upload, and "tx" is client
download). All rates are measured in bits per second, unless followed by optional 'k' suffix (kilobits per
second) or 'M' suffix (megabits per second). If tx-rate is not specified, rx-rate serves as tx-rate too. The same
applies for tx-burst-rate, tx-burst-threshold and tx-burst-time. If both rx-burst-threshold and
tx-burst-threshold are not specified (but burst-rate is specified), rx-rate and tx-rate are used as burst
thresholds. If both rx-burst-time and tx-burst-time are not specified, 1s is used as default. Priority takes values
1..8, where 1 implies the highest priority, but 8 - the lowest. If rx-rate-min and tx-rate-min are not specified
rx-rate and tx-rate values are used. The rx-rate-min and tx-rate-min values can not exceed rx-rate and tx-rate
values.

remote-address (IP; Default: ) Tunnel address or name of the pool from which address is assigned to remote ppp interface.

remote-ipv6-prefix-pool Assign prefix from IPv6 pool to the client and install corresponding IPv6 route.
(string | none; Default: none)

session-timeout (time; Maximum time the connection can stay up. By default no time limit is set.
Default: )
Manual:PPP AAA 658

use-compression (yes | no | Specifies whether to use data compression or not.

default; Default: default) • yes - enable data compression
• no - disable data compression
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile

use-encryption (yes | no | Specifies whether to use data encryption or not.

default | require; Default: default) • yes - enable data encryption
• no - disable data encryption
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile
• require - explicitly requires encryption

use-ipv6 (yes | no | default | Specifies whether to allow IPv6. By default is enabled if IPv6 package is installed.
require; Default: default) • yes - enable IPv6 support
• no - disable IPv6 support
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile
• require - explicitly requires IPv6 support

use-mpls (yes | no | default | Specifies whether to allow MPLS over PPP.

require; Default: default) • yes - enable MPLS support
• no - disable MPLS support
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile
• require - explicitly requires MPLS support

use-vj-compression (yes | no Specifies whether to use Van Jacobson header compression algorithm.
| default; Default: default) • yes - enable Van Jacobson header compression
• no - disable Van Jacobson header compression
• default - derive this value from the interface default profile; same as no if this is the interface default
profile

wins-server (IP address; IP address of the WINS server to supply to Windows clients
Default: )

Notes
There are two default profiles that cannot be removed:
[admin@rb13] ppp profile> print
Flags: * - default
0 * name="default" use-compression=no use-vj-compression=no use-encryption=no only-one=no
change-tcp-mss=yes
1 * name="default-encryption" use-compression=default use-vj-compression=default use-encryption=yes
only-one=default change-tcp-mss=default
[admin@rb13] ppp profile>

Use Van Jacobson compression only if you have to because it may slow down the communications on bad or
congested channels.
incoming-filter and outgoing-filter arguments add dynamic jump rules to chain ppp, where the jump-target argument
will be equal to incoming-filter or outgoing-filter argument in /ppp profile. Therefore, chain ppp should be manually
added before changing these arguments.
only-one parameter is ignored if RADIUS authentication is used.
If there are more that 10 simultaneous PPP connections planned, it is recommended to turn the change-mss
property off, and use one general MSS changing rule in mangle table instead, to reduce CPU utilization.
Manual:PPP AAA 659

User Database
Sub-menu: /ppp secret
PPP User Database stores PPP user access records with PPP user profile assigned to each user.

Properties

Property Description

caller-id (string; Default: ) For PPTP and L2TP it is the IP address a client must connect from. For PPPoE it is the MAC address
(written in CAPITAL letters) a client must connect from. For ISDN it is the caller's number (that may
or may not be provided by the operator) the client may dial-in from

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of the user.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether secret will be used.

limit-bytes-in (integer; Default: 0) Maximal amount of bytes for a session that client can upload.

limit-bytes-out (integer; Default: 0) Maximal amount of bytes for a session that client can download.

local-address (IP address; Default: ) IP address that will be set locally on ppp interface.

name (string; Default: ) Name used for authentication

password (string; Default: ) Password used for authentication

profile (string; Default: default) Which user profile to use.

remote-address (IP; Default: ) IP address that will be assigned to remote ppp interface.

remote-ipv6-prefix (IPv6 prefix; IPv6 prefix assigned to ppp client. Prefix is added to ND prefix list enabling stateless address
Default: ) auto-configuration on ppp interface.Available starting from v5.0.

routes (string; Default: ) Routes that appear on the server when the client is connected. The route format is: dst-address gateway
metric (for example, 10.1.0.0/ 24 10.0.0.1 1). Several routes may be specified separated with commas.
This parameter will be ignored for OpenVPN.

service (any | async | isdn | l2tp | pppoe Specifies the services that particular user will be able to use.
| pptp | ovpn | sstp; Default: any)

Active Users
Sub-menu: /ppp active
This submenu allows to monitor active (connected) users.
/ppp active print command will show all currently connected users.
/ppp active print stats command will show received/sent bytes and packets

Properties
Manual:PPP AAA 660

Property Description

address (IP address) IP address the client got from the server

bytes (integer) Amount of bytes transfered through tis connection. First figure represents amount of transmitted traffic
from the router's point of view, while the second one shows amount of received traffic.

caller-id (string) For PPTP and L2TP it is the IP address the client connected from. For PPPoE it is the MAC address the
client connected from.

encoding (string) Shows encryption and encoding (separated with '/' if asymmetric) being used in this connection

limit-bytes-in (integer) Maximal amount of bytes the user is allowed to send to the router.

limit-bytes-out (integer) Maximal amount of bytes the user is allowed to send to the client.

name (string) User name supplied at authentication stage

packets (integer/integer) Amount of packets transfered through tis connection. First figure represents amount of transmitted traffic
from the router's point of view, while the second one shows amount of received traffic

service (async | isdn | l2tp | pppoe | Type of service the user is using.
pptp | ovpn | sstp)

session-id (string) Shows unique client identifier.

uptime (time) User's uptime

Remote AAA
Sub-menu: /ppp aaa
Settings in this submenu allows to set RADIUS accounting and authentication. Note that RADIUS user database is
consulted only if the required username is not found in local user database.

Properties

Property Description

accounting (yes | no; Default: Enable RADIUS accounting

yes)

interim-update (time; Default: Interim-Update time interval

0s)

use-radius (yes | no; Default: Enable user authentication via RADIUS. If entry in local secret database is not found, then client will be
no) authenticated via RADIUS.

Examples

Add new profile

To add the profile ex that assigns the router itself the 10.0.0.1 address, and the addresses from the ex pool to the
clients, filtering traffic coming from clients through mypppclients chain:
[admin@rb13] ppp profile> add name=ex local-address=10.0.0.1 remote-address=ex incoming-filter=mypppclients

[admin@rb13] ppp profile> print

Flags: * - default

0 * name="default" use-compression=no use-vj-compression=no use-encryption=no only-one=no

change-tcp-mss=yes

1 name="ex" local-address=10.0.0.1 remote-address=ex use-compression=default

Manual:PPP AAA 661

use-vj-compression=default use-encryption=default only-one=default change-tcp-mss=default

incoming-filter=mypppclients

2 * name="default-encryption" use-compression=default use-vj-compression=default use-encryption=yes

only-one=default change-tcp-mss=default

[admin@rb13] ppp profile>

Add new user

To add the user ex with password lkjrht and profile ex available for PPTP service only, enter the following
command:
[admin@rb13] ppp secret> add name=ex password=lkjrht service=pptp profile=ex

[admin@rb13] ppp secret> print

Flags: X - disabled

# NAME SERVICE CALLER-ID PASSWORD PROFILE REMOTE-ADDRESS

0 ex pptp lkjrht ex 0.0.0.0

[admin@rb13] ppp secret>

Manual:RADIUS Client
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4, v5

Summary
Sub-menu: /radius
Standards: RADIUS RFC 2865
RADIUS, short for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service, is a remote server that provides authentication and
accounting facilities to various network apliances. RADIUS authentication and accounting gives the ISP or network
administrator ability to manage PPP user access and accounting from one server throughout a large network. The
MikroTik RouterOS has a RADIUS client which can authenticate for HotSpot, PPP, PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP and ISDN
connections. The attributes received from RADIUS server override the ones set in the default profile, but if some
parameters are not received they are taken from the respective default profile.
The RADIUS server database is consulted only if no matching user acces record is found in router's local database.
Traffic is accounted locally with MikroTik Traffic Flow and Cisco IP pairs and snapshot image can be gathered
using Syslog utilities. If RADIUS accounting is enabled, accounting information is also sent to the RADIUS server
default for that service.
Manual:RADIUS Client 662

Radius Client
This sub-menu allows to add/remove radius clients.
Note: The order of added items in this list is significant.

Properties

Property Description

accounting-backup (yes | no; Default: no) Whether configuration is for backup RADIUS server

accounting-port (integer [1..65535]; Default: RADIUS server port used for accounting
1813)

address (IPv4/IPv6 address; Default: 0.0.0.0) IPv4 or IPv6 address of RADIUS server.

authentication-port (integer [1..65535]; RADIUS server port used for authentication.

Default: 1812)

called-id (string; Default: ) Value depends on Point-to-Point protocol: PPPoE - service name, PPTP - server's IP
address, L2TP - server's IP address.

comment (string; Default: )

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

domain (string; Default: ) Microsoft Windows domain of client passed to RADIUS servers that require domain
validation.

realm (string; Default: ) Explicitly stated realm (user domain), so the users do not have to provide proper ISP
domain name in user name.

secret (string; Default: ) Shared secret used to access the RADIUS server.

service (ppp|login|hotspot|wireless|dhcp; Default: ) Router services that will use this RADIUS server:
• hotspot - HotSpot authentication service
• login - router's local user authentication
• ppp - Point-to-Point clients authentication
• wireless - wireless client authentication (client's MAC address is sent as
User-Name)
• dhcp - DHCP protocol client authentication (client's MAC address is sent as
User-Name)

src-address (ipv4/ipv6 address; Default: 0.0.0.0) Source IP/IPv6 address of the packets sent to RADIUS server

timeout (time; Default: 100ms) Timeout after which the request should be resend

Note: Microsoft Windows clients send their usernames in form domain\username

Manual:RADIUS Client 663

Note: When RADIUS server is authenticating user with CHAP, MS-CHAPv1, MS-CHAPv2, it is not using
shared secret, secret is used only in authentication reply, and router is verifying it. So if you have wrong
shared secret, RADIUS server will accept request, but router won't accept reply. You can see that with /radius
monitor command, "bad-replies" number should increase whenever somebody tries to connect.

Example
To set a RADIUS server for HotSpot and PPP services that has 10.0.0.3 IP address and ex shared secret, you need to
do the following:

[admin@MikroTik] radius> add service=hotspot,ppp address=10.0.0.3 secret=ex

[admin@MikroTik] radius> print
Flags: X - disabled
# SERVICE CALLED-ID DOMAIN ADDRESS SECRET
0 ppp,hotspot 10.0.0.3 ex
[admin@MikroTik] radius>
AAA for the respective services should be enabled too:
[admin@MikroTik] radius> /ppp aaa set use-radius=yes
[admin@MikroTik] radius> /ip hotspot profile set default use-radius=yes
To view some statistics for a client:
[admin@MikroTik] radius> monitor 0
pending: 0
requests: 10
accepts: 4
rejects: 1
resends: 15
timeouts: 5
bad-replies: 0
last-request-rtt: 0s
[admin@MikroTik] radius>

Connection Terminating from RADIUS

Sub-menu: /radius incoming
This facility supports unsolicited messages sent from RADIUS server. Unsolicited messages extend RADIUS
protocol commands, that allow to terminate a session which has already been connected from RADIUS server. For
this purpose DM (Disconnect-Messages) are used. Disconnect messages cause a user session to be terminated
immediately.
Note: RouterOS doesn't support POD (Packet of Disconnect) the other RADIUS access request packet that
performs a similar function as Disconnect Messages
Manual:RADIUS Client 664

Properties

Property Description

accept (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to accept the unsolicited messages

port (integer; Default: 1700) The port number to listen for the requests on

Supported RADIUS Attributes

Here you can download the RADIUS reference dictionary, which incorporates all the needed RADIUS attributes.
This dictionary is the minimal dictionary, which is enough to support all features of MikroTik RouterOS. It is
designed for FreeRADIUS [1], but may also be used with many other UNIX RADIUS servers (eg. XTRadius [2]).
Note: it may conflict with the default configuration files of RADIUS server, which have references to the
Attributes, absent in this dictionary. Please correct the configuration files, not the dictionary, as no other
Attributes are supported by MikroTik RouterOS.

There is also the RADIUS MikroTik specific dictionary that can be included in an existing
dictionary to support MikroTik vendor-specific Attributes.

Definitions
• PPPs - PPP, PPTP, PPPoE and ISDN
• default configuration - settings in default profile (for PPPs) or HotSpot server settings (for HotSpot)

Access-Request
• Service-Type - always is "Framed" (only for PPPs)
• Framed-Protocol - always is "PPP" (only for PPPs)
• NAS-Identifier - router identity
• NAS-IP-Address - IP address of the router itself
• NAS-Port - unique session ID
• Acct-Session-Id - unique session ID
• NAS-Port-Type - async PPP - "Async"; PPTP and L2TP - "Virtual"; PPPoE - "Ethernet"; ISDN - "ISDN
Sync"; HotSpot - "Ethernet | Cable | Wireless-802.11" (according to the value of nas-port-type parameter in /ip
hotspot p
• Calling-Station-Id - PPPoE and HotSpot- client MAC address in capital letters; PPTP and L2TP - client
public IP address; ISDN - client MSN
• Called-Station-Id - PPPoE - service name; PPTP and L2TP - server IP address; ISDN - interface MSN;
HotSpot - name of the HotSpot server
• NAS-Port-Id - async PPP - serial port name; PPPoE - ethernet interface name on which server is running;
HotSpot - name of the physical HotSpot interface (if bridged, the bridge port name is showed here); not present
for ISDN, PPTP and L2TP
• Framed-IP-Address - IP address of HotSpot client after Universal Client translation
• Mikrotik-Host-IP - IP address of HotSpot client before Universal Client translation (the original IP address
of the client)
• User-Name - client login name
• MS-CHAP-Domain - User domain, if present
• Mikrotik-Realm - If it is set in /radius menu, it is included in every RADIUS request as Mikrotik-Realm
attribute. If it is not set, the same value is sent as in MS-CHAP-Domain attribute (if MS-CHAP-Domain is
missing, Realm is not included neither)
Manual:RADIUS Client 665

• WISPr-Location-ID - text string specified in radius-location-id property of the HotSpot server

• WISPr-Location-Name - text string specified in radius-location-name property of the HotSpot server
• WISPr-Logoff-URL - full link to the login page (for example, http://10.48.0.1/lv/logout)
Depending on authentication methods (NOTE: HotSpot uses CHAP by default and may use also PAP if unencrypted
passwords are enabled, it can not use MSCHAP):
• User-Password - encrypted password (used with PAP authentication)
• CHAP-Password, CHAP-Challenge - encrypted password and challenge (used with CHAP authentication)
• MS-CHAP-Response, MS-CHAP-Challenge - encrypted password and challenge (used with MS-CHAPv1
authentication)
• MS-CHAP2-Response, MS-CHAP-Challenge - encrypted password and challenge (used with
MS-CHAPv2 authentication)

Access-Accept
• Framed-IP-Address - IP address given to client. If address belongs to 127.0.0.0/8 or 224.0.0.0/3 networks,
IP pool is used from the default profile to allocate client IP address. If Framed-IP-Address is specified,
Framed-Pool is ignored
• Framed-IP-Netmask - client netmask. PPPs - if specified, a route will be created to the network
Framed-IP-Address belongs to via the Framed-IP-Address gateway; HotSpot - ignored by HotSpot
• Framed-Pool - IP pool name (on the router) from which to get IP address for the client. If Framed-IP-Address
is specified, this attribute is ignored
• Framed-IPv6-Prefix - Ipv6 prefix assigned for the client. Added in v5.8
• Mikrotik-Delegated-IPv6-Pool - IPv6 pool used for Prefix Delegation. Added in v5.9
NOTE: if Framed-IP-Address or Framed-Pool is specified it overrides remote-address in default configuration
• Idle-Timeout - overrides idle-timeout in the default configuration
• Session-Timeout - overrides session-timeout in the default configuration
• Port-Limit - maximal mumber of simultaneous connections using the same username (overrides te
shared-users property of the HotSpot user profile)
• Class - cookie, will be included in Accounting-Request unchanged
• Framed-Route - routes to add on the server. Format is specified in RFC 2865 (Ch. 5.22), can be specified as
many times as needed
• Filter-Id - firewall filter chain name. It is used to make a dynamic firewall rule. Firewall chain name can
have suffix .in or .out, that will install rule only for incoming or outgoing traffic. Multiple Filter-id can be
provided, but only last ones for incoming and outgoing is used. For PPPs - filter rules in ppp chain that will jump
to the specified chain, if a packet has come to/from the client (that means that you should first create a ppp chain
and make jump rules that would put actual traffic to this chain). The same applies for HotSpot, but the rules will
be created in hotspot chain
• Mikrotik-Mark-Id - firewall mangle chain name (HotSpot only). The MikroTik RADIUS client upon
receiving this attribute creates a dynamic firewall mangle rule with action=jump chain=hotspot and jump-target
equal to the atribute value. Mangle chain name can have suffixes .in or .out, that will install rule only for
incoming or outgoing traffic. Multiple Mark-id attributes can be provided, but only last ones for incoming and
outgoing is used.
• Acct-Interim-Interval - interim-update for RADIUS client. PPP - if 0 uses the one specified in RADIUS
client; HotSpot - only respected if radius-interim-update=received in HotSpot server profile
• MS-MPPE-Encryption-Policy - require-encryption property (PPPs only)
• MS-MPPE-Encryption-Types - use-encryption property, non-zero value means to use encryption (PPPs
only)
Manual:RADIUS Client 666

• Ascend-Data-Rate - tx/rx data rate limitation if multiple attributes are provided, first limits tx data rate,
second - rx data rate. If used together with Ascend-Xmit-Rate, specifies rx rate. 0 if unlimited. Ignored if
Rate-Limit attribute is present
• Ascend-Xmit-Rate - tx data rate limitation. It may be used to specify tx limit only instead of sending two
sequental Ascend-Data-Rate attributes (in that case Ascend-Data-Rate will specify the receive rate). 0 if
unlimited. Ignored if Rate-Limit attribute is present
• MS-CHAP2-Success - auth. response if MS-CHAPv2 was used (for PPPs only)
• MS-MPPE-Send-Key, MS-MPPE-Recv-Key - encryption keys for encrypted PPPs provided by RADIUS
server only is MS-CHAPv2 was used as authentication (for PPPs only)
• Ascend-Client-Gateway - client gateway for DHCP-pool HotSpot login method (HotSpot only)
• Mikrotik-Recv-Limit - total receive limit in bytes for the client
• Mikrotik-Recv-Limit-Gigawords - 4G (2^32) bytes of total receive limit (bits 32..63, when bits 0..31
are delivered in Mikrotik-Recv-Limit)
• Mikrotik-Xmit-Limit - total transmit limit in bytes for the client
• Mikrotik-Xmit-Limit-Gigawords - 4G (2^32) bytes of total transmit limit (bits 32..63, when bits 0..31
are delivered in Mikrotik-Recv-Limit)
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Forward - not forward the client's frames back to the wireless infrastructure if this
attribute is set to "0" (Wireless only)
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Skip-Dot1x - disable 802.1x authentication for the particulat wireless client if set to
non-zero value (Wireless only)
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Enc-Algo - WEP encryption algorithm: 0 - no encryption, 1 - 40-bit WEP, 2 -
104-bit WEP (Wireless only)
• Mikrotik-Wireless-Enc-Key - WEP encruption key for the client (Wireless only)
• Mikrotik-Rate-Limit - Datarate limitation for clients. Format is: rx-rate[/tx-rate]
[rx-burst-rate[/tx-burst-rate] [rx-burst-threshold[/tx-burst-threshold] [rx-burst-time[/tx-burst-time] [priority]
[rx-rate-min[/tx-rate-min]]]] from the point of view of the router (so "rx" is client upload, and "tx" is client
download). All rates should be numbers with optional 'k' (1,000s) or 'M' (1,000,000s). If tx-rate is not specified,
rx-rate is as tx-rate too. Same goes for tx-burst-rate and tx-burst-threshold and tx-burst-time. If both
rx-burst-threshold and tx-burst-threshold are not specified (but burst-rate is specified), rx-rate and tx-rate is used
as burst thresholds. If both rx-burst-time and tx-burst-time are not specified, 1s is used as default. Priority takes
values 1..8, where 1 implies the highest priority, but 8 - the lowest. If rx-rate-min and tx-rate-min are not specified
rx-rate and tx-rate values are used. The rx-rate-min and tx-rate-min values can not exceed rx-rate and tx-rate
values.
• Mikrotik-Group - Router local user group name (defines in /user group) for local users. HotSpot default
profile for HotSpot users.
• Mikrotik-Advertise-URL - URL of the page with advertisements that should be displayed to clients. If this
attribute is specified, advertisements are enabled automatically, including transparent proxy, even if they were
explicitly disabled in the corresponding user profile. Multiple attribute instances may be send by RADIUS server
to specify additional URLs which are choosen in round robin fashion.
• Mikrotik-Advertise-Interval - Time interval between two adjacent advertisements. Multiple attribute
instances may be send by RADIUS server to specify additional intervals. All interval values are threated as a list
and are taken one-by-one for each successful advertisement. If end of list is reached, the last value is continued to
be used.
• WISPr-Redirection-URL - URL, which the clients will be redirected to after successfull login
• WISPr-Bandwidth-Min-Up - minimal datarate (CIR) provided for the client upload
• WISPr-Bandwidth-Min-Down - minimal datarate (CIR) provided for the client download
• WISPr-Bandwidth-Max-Up - maxmal datarate (MIR) provided for the client upload
Manual:RADIUS Client 667

• WISPr-Bandwidth-Max-Down - maxmal datarate (MIR) provided for the client download

• WISPr-Session-Terminate-Time - time, when the user should be disconnected; in
"YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD" form, where Y - year; M - month; D - day; T - separator symbol (must be
written between date and time); h - hour (in 24 hour format); m - minute; s - second; TZD - time zone in one of
these forms: "+hh:mm", "+hhmm", "-hh:mm", "-hhmm"
Note: the received attributes override the default ones (set in the default profile), but if an attribute is not
received from RADIUS server, the default one is to be used.

Rate-Limit takes precedence over all other ways to specify data rate for the client. Ascend data rate
attributes are considered second; and WISPr attributes takes the last precedence.
Here are some Rate-Limit examples:

• 128k - rx-rate=128000, tx-rate=128000 (no bursts)

• 64k/128M - rx-rate=64000, tx-rate=128000000
• 64k 256k - rx/tx-rate=64000, rx/tx-burst-rate=256000, rx/tx-burst-threshold=64000, rx/tx-burst-time=1s
• 64k/64k 256k/256k 128k/128k 10/10 - rx/tx-rate=64000, rx/tx-burst-rate=256000,
rx/tx-burst-threshold=128000, rx/tx-burst-time=10s

Accounting-Request
The accounting request carries the same attributes as Access Request, plus these ones:
• Acct-Status-Type - Start, Stop, or Interim-Update
• Acct-Authentic - either authenticated by the RADIUS or Local authority (PPPs only)
• Class - RADIUS server cookie, as received in Access-Accept
• Acct-Delay-Time - how long does the router try to send this Accounting-Request packet

Stop and Interim-Update Accounting-Request

Additionally to the accounting start request, the following messages will contain the following attributes:
• Acct-Session-Time - connection uptime in seconds
• Acct-Input-Octets - bytes received from the client
• Acct-Input-Gigawords - 4G (2^32) bytes received from the client (bits 32..63, when bits 0..31 are
delivered in Acct-Input-Octets)
• Acct-Input-Packets - nubmer of packets received from the client
• Acct-Output-Octets - bytes sent to the client
• Acct-Output-Gigawords - 4G (2^32) bytes sent to the client (bits 32..63, when bits 0..31 are delivered in
Acct-Output-Octets)
• Acct-Output-Packets - number of packets sent to the client
Manual:RADIUS Client 668

Stop Accounting-Request
These packets will, additionally to the Interim Update packets, have:
• Acct-Terminate-Cause - session termination cause (see RFC 2866 ch. 5.10)

Change of Authorization
RADIUS disconnect and Change of Authorization (according to RFC3576) are supported as well. These attributes
may be changed by a CoA request from the RADIUS server:
• Mikrotik-Group
• Mikrotik-Recv-Limit
• Mikrotik-Xmit-Limit
• Mikrotik-Rate-Limit
• Ascend-Data-Rate (only if Mikrotik-Rate-Limit is not present)
• Ascend-XMit-Rate (only if Mikrotik-Rate-Limit is not present)
• Mikrotik-Mark-Id
• Filter-Id
• Mikrotik-Advertise-Url
• Mikrotik-Advertise-Interval
• Session-Timeout
• Idle-Timeout
• Port-Limit
Note that it is not possible to change IP address, pool or routes that way - for such changes a user must be
disconnected first.

MikroTik Specific RADIUS Attribute Numeric Values

Click here to get plain text attribute list of MikroTik specific attributes (FreeRadius comaptible) .

Name VendorID Value RFC

MIKROTIK_RECV_LIMIT 14988 1

MIKROTIK_XMIT_LIMIT 14988 2

MIKROTIK_GROUP 14988 3

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_FORWARD 14988 4

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_SKIPDOT1X 14988 5

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_ENCALGO 14988 6

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_ENCKEY 14988 7

MIKROTIK_RATE_LIMIT 14988 8

MIKROTIK_REALM 14988 9

MIKROTIK_HOST_IP 14988 10

MIKROTIK_MARK_ID 14988 11

MIKROTIK_ADVERTISE_URL 14988 12

MIKROTIK_ADVERTISE_INTERVAL 14988 13

MIKROTIK_RECV_LIMIT_GIGAWORDS 14988 14

MIKROTIK_XMIT_LIMIT_GIGAWORDS 14988 15

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_PSK 14988 16
Manual:RADIUS Client 669

MIKROTIK_TOTAL_LIMIT 14988 17

MIKROTIK_TOTAL_LIMIT_GIGAWORDS 14988 18

MIKROTIK_ADDRESS_LIST 14988 19

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_MPKEY 14988 20

MIKROTIK_WIRELESS_COMMENT 14988 21

MIKROTIK_DELEGATED_IPV6_POOL 14988 22

All Supported Attribute Numeric Values

Note: FreeRadius already has these attributes predefined. If you are using other radius server then use table
below to create dictionary file

Name VendorID Value RFC

Acct-Authentic 45 RFC 2866

Acct-Delay-Time 41 RFC 2866

Acct-Input-Gigawords 52 RFC 2869

Acct-Input-Octets 42 RFC 2866

Acct-Input-Packets 47 RFC 2866

Acct-Interim-Interval 85 RFC 2869

Acct-Output-Gigawords 53 RFC 2869

Acct-Output-Octets 43 RFC 2866

Acct-Output-Packets 48 RFC 2866

Acct-Session-Id 44 RFC 2866

Acct-Session-Time 46 RFC 2866

Acct-Status-Type 40 RFC 2866

Acct-Terminate-Cause 49 RFC 2866

Ascend-Client-Gateway 529 132

Ascend-Data-Rate 529 197

Ascend-Xmit-Rate 529 255

Called-Station-Id 30 RFC 2865

Calling-Station-Id 31 RFC 2865

CHAP-Challenge 60 RFC 2866

CHAP-Password 3 RFC 2865

Class 25 RFC 2865

Filter-Id 11 RFC 2865

Framed-IP-Address 8 RFC 2865

Framed-IP-Netmask 9 RFC 2865

Framed-IPv6-Prefix 97 RFC 3162

Manual:RADIUS Client 670

Framed-Pool 88 RFC 2869

Framed-Protocol 7 RFC 2865

Framed-Route 22 RFC 2865

Idle-Timeout 28 RFC 2865

MS-CHAP-Challenge 311 11 RFC 2548

MS-CHAP-Domain 311 10 RFC 2548

MS-CHAP-Response 311 1 RFC 2548

MS-CHAP2-Response 311 25 RFC 2548

MS-CHAP2-Success 311 26 RFC 2548

MS-MPPE-Encryption-Policy 311 7 RFC 2548

MS-MPPE-Encryption-Types 311 8 RFC 2548

MS-MPPE-Recv-Key 311 17 RFC 2548

MS-MPPE-Send-Key 311 16 RFC 2548

NAS-Identifier 32 RFC 2865

NAS-Port 5 RFC 2865

NAS-IP-Address 4 RFC 2865

NAS-Port-Id 87 RFC 2869

NAS-Port-Type 61 RFC 2865

Port-Limit 62 RFC 2865

Redback-Agent-Remote-Id 2352 96

Redback-Agent-Circuit-Id 2352 97

Service-Type 6 RFC 2865

Session-Timeout 27 RFC 2865

User-Name 1 RFC 2865

User-Password 2 RFC 2865

WISPr-Bandwidth-Max-Down 14122 8 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Bandwidth-Max-Up 14122 7 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Bandwidth-Min-Down 14122 6 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Bandwidth-Min-Up 14122 5 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Location-Id 14122 1 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Location-Name 14122 2 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Logoff-URL 14122 3 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Redirection-URL 14122 4 wi-fi.org

WISPr-Session-Terminate-Time 14122 9 wi-fi.org

Manual:RADIUS Client 671

Troubleshooting
My radius server accepts authentication request from the client with "Auth: Login OK:...", but the user cannot log
on. The bad replies counter is incrementing under radius monitor.
This situation can occur, if the radius client and server have high delay link between them. Try to increase the
radius client's timeout to 600ms or more instead of the default 300ms! Also, double check, if the secrets match
on client and server!
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / freeradius. org
[2] http:/ / xtradius. sourceforge. net/

Manual:User Manager
Introduction
• What is User Manager
• Requirements
• Supported browsers
• Demo
• Differences between version 3 and version 4-test

Getting started
• Download
• Install
• Create first subscriber
• First log on User Manager web

Quick start
• User Manager and HotSpot
• User Manager and PPP servers
• User Manager and DHCP
• User Manager and Wireless
• User Manager and RouterOS user
Manual:User Manager 672

Concepts explained

Common
• Customers
• Users
• Routers
• Sessions
• Payments
• Reports
• Logs
• Customer permission levels
• Character constants
• Active sessions
• Active users
• Customer public ID

Version 4.x test package specific

• Profiles
• Limitations
• User data templates
• MAC binding
• Languages
• CoA (Radius incoming)

Version 3.x specific

• Subscribers
• Credits
• User prefix
• Time, traffic amount and rate limiting
• Prepaid and unlimited users
• Voucher template

Reference

Web interface
• Search patterns
• Tables:
• Sorting
• Filtering
• Division in pages
• Multiple object selection
• Operations with selected objects
• Minimization
• Links to detail form
• Detail forms
• Page printing
Manual:User Manager 673

Customer page
• Setup
• How to find it?
• Sections
• Status
• Routers
• Credits
• Users
• Sessions
• Customers
• Reports
• Logs

User page
• Setup
• How to find it?
• Link to user page
• Sections
• Status
• Payments
• Settings

User sign-up
• Setup
• Sign-up steps
• Creating account
• Activating account
• Login

User payments
• Authorize.Net
• PayPal

Questions and answers

• Quick introduction into User Manager setup
• How to separate users among customers?
• How to create a link to user page?
• How to create a link to user sign-up page?
• Visual bugs since upgrade
• Cannot log in User Manager
• Too many active sessions shown
• What does "active sessions" refer to?
• How to make Hotspot and User Manager on the same router?
• How to make MAC authentication in the User Manager?
• How to turn off logging for specific Routers?
Manual:User Manager 674

• How to create timed Voucher?

• Cannot access User Manager WEB interface
• Incorrect time shown for sessions and credits
• User Manager does not allow to login due to expired uptime
• How to debug PayPal payments
• How to send logs to a remote host, using SysLog

Manual:Hotspot Introduction
Summary
HotSpot is a way to authorize users to access some network resources, but does not provide traffic encryption. To log
in, users may use almost any web browser (either HTTP or HTTPS protocol), so they are not required to install
additional software. The gateway is accounting the uptime and amount of traffic each client have used, and also can
send this information to a RADIUS server. The HotSpot system may limit each particular user's bitrate, total amount
of traffic, uptime and some other parameters mentioned further in this document.
The HotSpot system is targeted to provide authentication within a local network (for the local network users to
access the Internet), but may as well be used to authorize access from outer networks to access local resources (like
an authentication gateway for the outside world to access your network). It is possible to allow users to access some
web pages without authentication using Walled Garden feature.

Getting an Address
First of all, a client have to get an IP address. It may be set on the client statically, or leased from a DHCP server.
The DHCP server may provide ways of binding lent IP addresses to clients MAC addresses, if required. The HotSpot
system does not care how client get an address before he/she gets to the HotSpot login page.
Moreover, HotSpot server may automatically and transparently change any IP address (yes, meaning really any IP
address) of a client to a valid unused address from the selected IP pool. If a user is able to get his/her Internet
connection working at their place, he/she will be able to get his/her connection working in the HotSpot network. This
feature gives a possibility to provide a network access (for example, Internet access) to mobile clients that are not
willing (or are disallowed, not qualified enough or otherwise unable) to change their networking settings. The users
will not notice the translation (i.e., there will not be any changes in the users' config), but the router itself will see
completely different (from what is actually set on each client) source IP addresses on packets sent from the clients
(even the firewall mangle table will 'see' the translated addresses). This technique is called one-to-one NAT, but is
also known as "Universal Client" as that is how it was called in the RouterOS version 2.8.
One-to-one NAT accepts any incoming address from a connected network interface and performs a network address
translation so that data may be routed through standard IP networks. Clients may use any preconfigured addresses. If
the one-to-one NAT feature is set to translate a client's address to a public IP address, then the client may even run a
server or any other service that requires a public IP address. This NAT is changing source address of each packet just
after it is received by the router (it is like source NAT that is performed early in the packet path, so that even firewall
mangle table, which normally 'sees' received packets unaltered, can only 'see' the translated address).
Note: arp mode must be enabled on the interface where one-to-one NAT is used
Manual:Hotspot Introduction 675

Before the authentication

When enabling HotSpot on an interface, the system automatically sets up everything needed to show login page for
all clients that are not logged in. This is done by adding dynamic destination NAT rules, which you can observe on a
working HotSpot system. These rules are needed to redirect all HTTP and HTTPS requests from unauthorized users
to the HotSpot authentication proxy. Other rules that are also inserted, will be described later in a special section of
this manual.
In most common setup, opening any HTTP page will bring up the HotSpot servlet login page (which can be
customized extensively, as described later on). As normal user behavior is to open web pages by their DNS names, a
valid DNS configuration should be set up on the HotSpot gateway itself (it is possible to reconfigure the gateway so
that it will not require local DNS configuration, but such a configuration is impractical and thus not recommended).

Walled Garden
You may wish not to require authorization for some services (for example to let clients access the web server of your
company without registration), or even to require authorization only to a number of services (for example, for users
to be allowed to access an internal file server or another restricted area). This can be done by setting up Walled
Garden system.
When a not logged-in user requests a service allowed in the Walled Garden configuration, the HotSpot gateway does
not intercept it, or in case of HTTP, simply redirects the request to the original destination. Other requests are
redirected to the HotSpot servlet (login page infrastructure). When a user is logged in, there is no effect of this table
on him/her.
Walled Garden for HTTP requests is using the embedded proxy server . This means that all the configured
parameters of that proy server will also be effective for the WalledGarden clients (as well as for all clients that have
transparent proxy enabled)

Authentication
There are currently 6 different authentication methods. You can use one or more of them simultaneously:
• HTTP PAP - simplest method, which shows the HotSpot login page and expect to get the authentication info (i.e.
username and password) in plain text. Another use of this method is the possibility of hard-coded authentication
information in the servlet's login page simply creating the appropriate link.
Note: passwords are not encrypted when transferred over the network
• HTTP CHAP - standard method, which includes CHAP challenge in the login page. The
CHAP MD5 hash challenge is used together with the user's password for computing the string
which will be sent to the HotSpot gateway. The hash result (as a password) together with
username is sent over network to HotSpot service (so, password is never sent in plain text over
IP network). On the client side, MD5 algorithm is implemented in JavaScript applet, so if a browser does not
support JavaScript (like, for example, Internet Explorer 2.0 or some PDA browsers) or it has JavaScipt disabled, it
will not be able to authenticate users. It is possible to allow unencrypted passwords to be accepted by turning on
HTTP PAP authentication method, but it is not recommended due to security considerations.
• HTTPS - the same as HTTP PAP, but uses SSL protocol to encrypt transmissions. HotSpot user just sends his/her
password without additional hashing (note that there is no need to worry about plain-text password exposure over
the network, as the transmission itself is encrypted). In either case, HTTP POST method (if not possible, then -
HTTP GET method) is used to send data to the HotSpot gateway.
• HTTP cookie - after each successful login, a cookie is sent to the web browser and the same cookie is added to
active HTTP cookie list. Next time the same user will try to log in, web browser will send the saved HTTP
cookie. This cookie will be compared with the one stored on the HotSpot gateway and only if source MAC
Manual:Hotspot Introduction 676

address and randomly generated ID matches the ones stored on the gateway, user will be automatically logged in
using the login information (username and password pair) was used when the cookie was first generated.
Otherwise, the user will be prompted to log in, and in the case authentication is successful, old cookie will be
removed from the local HotSpot active cookie list and the new one with different random ID and expiration time
will be added to the list and sent to the web browser. It is also possible to erase cookie on user manual logoff (not
in the default server pages, but you can modify them to perform this). This method may only be used together
with HTTP PAP, HTTP CHAP or HTTPS methods as there would be nothing to generate cookies in the first
place otherwise.
• MAC address - try to authenticate clients as soon as they appear in the hosts list (i.e., as soon as they have sent
any packet to the HotSpot server), using client's MAC address as username.
• Trial - users may be allowed to use the service free of charge for some period of time for evaluation, and be
required to authenticate only after this period is over. HotSpot can be configured to allow some amount of time
per MAC address to be freely used with some limitations imposed by the provided user profile. In case the MAC
address still has some trial time unused, the login page will contain the link for trial login. The time is
automatically reset after the configured amount of time (so that, for example, any MAC address may use 30
minutes a day without ever registering). The username of such a user (as seen in the active user table and in the
login link) is "T-XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX" (where XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is his/her MAC address). The
authentication procedure will not ask RADIUS server permission to authorise such a user.
HotSpot can authenticate users consulting the local user database or a RADIUS server (local database is consulted
first, then - a RADIUS server). In case of HTTP cookie authentication via RADIUS server, the router will send the
same information to the server as it was used when the cookie was first generated. If authentication is done locally,
profile corresponding to that user is used, otherwise (in case RADIUS reply did not contain the group for that user)
the default profile is used to set default values for parameters, which are not set in RADIUS access-accept message.
For more information on how the interaction with a RADIUS server works, see the respective manual section.
The HTTP PAP method also makes it possible to authenticate by requesting the page:
/login?username=username&password=password
In case you want to log in using telnet connection, the exact HTTP request would look like that:

GET /login?username=username&password=password HTTP/1.0

Note that the request is case-sensitive.

Authorization
After authentication user gets access to the Internet and receives some limitations (which are user profile specific).
HotSpot may also perform a one-to-one NAT for the client, so that a particular user would always receive the same
IP address regardless of what PC is used.
The system will automatically detect and redirect requests to a proxy server that client is using (if any; it may be set
in his/her settings to use an unknown proxy server) to the proxy server embedded in the router.
Authorization may be delegated to a RADIUS server, which delivers similar configuration options as the local
database. For any user requiring authorization, a RADIUS server gets queried first, and if no reply received, the local
database is examined. RADIUS server may send a Change of Authorization request according to standards to alter
the previously accepted parameters.
Manual:Hotspot Introduction 677

MAC Cookie
MAC cookie is a new hotspot feature, designed to improve accessibility for smartphones, laptops and other mobile
devices.
When MAC cookie feature is enabled (login-by=mac-cookie, add-mac-cookie=yes set in user profile),
following actions are taken:
• first successful login. Mac cookie keeps record of username and password for the MAC address if there is only
one host with such MAC. Cookie timeout is set to value equal to mac-cookie-timeout.
• new host appears. Hotspot checks if there is a mac cookie record for the MAC address and logs in host using
recorded username and password. If there is more than one host with the same MAC address, user will not be
logged in and MAC cookie record for this address will be deleted.
• When user logs out mac cookie is removed in following cases:
• user-request - user clicked on logout button.
• admin-reset - disconnected from radius server or user is removed from hotspot active menu
• nas-request - traffic limit reached
• session-timeout

Advertisement
The same proxy used for unauthorized clients to provide Walled-Garden facility, may also be used for authorized
users to show them advertisement popups. Transparent proxy for authorized users allows to monitor http requests of
the clients and to take some action if required. It enables the possibility to open status page even if client is logged in
by mac address, as well as to show advertisements time after time
When the time has come to show an advertisement, the server redirects client's web browser to the status page. Only
requests, which provide html content, are redirected (images and other content will not be affected). The status page
displays the advertisement and next advertise-interval is used to schedule next advertisement. If status page is unable
to display an advertisement for configured timeout starting from moment, when it is scheduled to be shown, client
access is blocked within walled-garden (just as unauthorized clients are). Client is unblocked when the scheduled
page is finally shown. Note that if popup windows are blocked in the browser, the link on the status page may be
used to open the advertisement manually.
While client is blocked, FTP and other services are not allowed. Thus requiring client to open an advertisement for
any Internet activity not especially allowed by the Walled-Garden.

Accounting
The HotSpot system implement accounting internally, you are not required to do anything special for it to work. The
accounting information for each user may be sent to a RADIUS server.

Configuration menus
• /ip hotspot - HotSpot servers on particular interfaces (one server per interface). HotSpot server must be added in
this menu in order for HotSpot system to work on an interface /ip hotspot profile - HotSpot server profiles.
Settings, which affect login procedure for HotSpot clients are configured here. More than one HotSpot servers
may use the same profile
• /ip hotspot host - dynamic list of active network hosts on all HotSpot interfaces. Here you can also find IP address
bindings of the one-to-one NAT
• /ip hotspot ip-binding - rules for binding IP addresses to hosts on hotspot interfaces
• /ip hotspot service-port - address translation helpers for the one-to-one NAT
Manual:Hotspot Introduction 678

• /ip hotspot walled-garden - Walled Garden rules at HTTP level (DNS names, HTTP request substrings)
• /ip hotspot walled-garden ip - Walled Garden rules at IP level (IP addresses, IP protocols)
• /ip hotspot user - local HotSpot system users
• /ip hotspot user profile - local HotSpot system users profiles (user groups)
• /ip hotspot active - dynamic list of all authenticated HotSpot users
• /ip hotspot cookie - dynamic list of all valid HTTP cookies
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Customizing Hotspot
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

HTML customizations

Summary
You can create a completely different set of servlet pages for each HotSpot server you have, specifying the directory
it will be stored in html-directory property of a HotSpot server profile /ip hotspot profile. The default servlet pages
are copied in the directory of your choice right after you create the profile. This directory can be accessed by
connecting to the router with an FTP client. You can modify the pages as you like using the information from this
section of the manual. Note that it is suggested to edit the files manually, as automated HTML editing tools may
corrupt the pages by removing variables or other vital parts.

Available Pages
Main HTML servlet pages, which are shown to user:
• redirect.html - redirects user to another url (for example, to login page)
• login.html - login page shown to a user to ask for username and password. This page may take the following
parameters:
• username - username
• password - either plain-text password (in case of PAP authentication) or MD5 hash of chap-id variable,
password and CHAP challenge (in case of CHAP authentication). This value is used as e-mail address for trial
users
• dst - original URL requested before the redirect. This will be opened on successfull login
• popup - whether to pop-up a status window on successfull login
• radius<id> - send the attribute identified with <id> in text string form to the RADIUS server (in case
RADIUS authentication is used; lost otherwise)
• radius<id>u - send the attribute identified with <id> in unsigned integer form to the RADIUS server (in case
RADIUS authentication is used; lost otherwise)
• radius<id>-<vnd-id> - send the attribute identified with <id> and vendor ID <vnd-id> in text string form to
the RADIUS server (in case RADIUS authentication is used; lost otherwise)
• radius<id>-<vnd-id>u - send the attribute identified with <id> and vendor ID <vnd-id> in unsigned integer
form to the RADIUS server (in case RADIUS authentication is used; lost otherwise)
• md5.js - JavaScript for MD5 password hashing. Used together with http-chap login method
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 679

• alogin.html - page shown after client has logged in. It pops-up status page and redirects browser to originally
requested page (before he/she was redirected to the HotSpot login page)
• status.html - status page, shows statistics for the client. It is also able to display advertisements automatically
• logout.html - logout page, shown after user is logged out. Shows final statistics about the finished session. This
page may take the following additional parameters:
• erase-cookie - whether to erase cookies from the HotSpot server on logout (makes impossible to log in with
cookie next time from the same browser, might be useful in multiuser environments)
• error.html - error page, shown on fatal errors only
Some other pages are available as well, if more control is needed:
• rlogin.html - page, which redirects client from some other URL to the login page, if authorization of the client is
required to access that URL
• rstatus.html - similarly to rlogin.html, only in case if the client is already logged in and the original URL is not
known
• radvert.html - redirects client to the scheduled advertisement link
• flogin.html - shown instead of login.html, if some error has happened (invalid username or password, for
example)
• fstatus.html - shown instead of redirect, if status page is requested, but client is not logged in
• flogout.html - shown instead of redirect, if logout page is requested, but client is not logged in

Serving Servlet Pages

The HotSpot servlet recognizes 5 different request types:
1. request for a remote host
• if user is logged in and advertisement is due to be displayed, radvert.html is displayed. This page makes
redirect to the scheduled advertisment page
• if user is logged in and advertisement is not scheduled for this user, the requested page is served
• if user is not logged in, but the destination host is allowed by walled garden, then the request is also served
• if user is not logged in, and the destination host is disallowed by walled garden, rlogin.html is displayed; if
rlogin.html is not found, redirect.html is used to redirect to the login page
2. request for "/" on the HotSpot host
• if user is logged in, rstatus.html is displayed; if rstatus.html is not found, redirect.html is used to redirect to the
status page
• if user is not logged in, rlogin.html is displayed; if rlogin.html is not found, redirect.html is used to redirect to
the login page
3. request for "/login" page
• if user has successfully logged in (or is already logged in), alogin.html is displayed; if alogin.html is not found,
redirect.html is used to redirect to the originally requested page or the status page (in case, original destination
page was not given)
• if user is not logged in (username was not supplied, no error message appeared), login.html is showed
• if login procedure has failed (error message is supplied), flogin.html is displayed; if flogin.html is not found,
login.html is used
• in case of fatal errors, error.html is showed
4. request for "/status" page
• if user is logged in, status.html is displayed
• if user is not logged in, fstatus.html is displayed; if fstatus.html is not found, redirect.html is used to redirect to
the login page
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 680

5. request for '/logout' page

• if user is logged in, logout.html is displayed
• if user is not logged in, flogout.html is displayed; if flogout.html is not found, redirect.html is used to redirect
to the login page
Note: If it is not possible to meet a request using the pages stored on the router's FTP server, Error 404 is
displayed

There are many possibilities to customize what the HotSpot authentication pages look like:
• The pages are easily modifiable. They are stored on the router's FTP server in the directory you
choose for the respective HotSpot server profile.
• By changing the variables, which client sends to the HotSpot servlet, it is possible to reduce keyword count to one
(username or password; for example, the client's MAC address may be used as the other value) or even to zero
(License Agreement; some predefined values general for all users or client's MAC address may be used as
username and password)
• Registration may occur on a different server (for example, on a server that is able to charge Credit Cards). Client's
MAC address may be passed to it, so that this information need not be written in manually. After the registration,
the server should change RADIUS database enabling client to log in for some amount of time.
To insert variable in some place in HTML file, the $(var_name) syntax is used, where the "var_name" is the name of
the variable (without quotes). This construction may be used in any HotSpot HTML file accessed as '/', '/login',
'/status' or '/logout', as well as any text or HTML (.txt, .htm or .html) file stored on the HotSpot server (with the
exception of traffic counters, which are available in status page only, and error, error-orig, chap-id,
chap-challenge and popup variables, which are available in login page only). For example, to show a link to the
login page, following construction can be used:

<a href="$(link-login)">login</a>

Variables
All of the Servlet HTML pages use variables to show user specific values. Variable names appear only in the HTML
source of the servlet pages - they are automatically replaced with the respective values by the HotSpot Servlet. For
most variables there is an example of their possible value included in brackets. All the described variables are valid
in all servlet pages, but some of them just might be empty at the time they are accesses (for example, there is no
uptime before a user has logged in).

List of available variables

Common server variables:
• hostname - DNS name or IP address (if DNS name is not given) of the HotSpot Servlet ("hotspot.example.net")
• identity - RouterOS identity name ("MikroTik")
• login-by - authentication method used by user
• plain-passwd - a "yes/no" representation of whether HTTP-PAP login method is allowed ("no")
• server-address - HotSpot server address ("10.5.50.1:80")
• ssl-login - a "yes/no" representation of whether HTTPS method was used to access that servlet page ("no")
• server-name - HotSpot server name (set in the /ip hotspot menu, as the name property)
Links:
• link-login - link to login page including original URL requested ("http://10.5.50.1/login?dst=http://
www.example.com/")
• link-login-only - link to login page, not including original URL requested ("http://10.5.50.1/login")
• link-logout - link to logout page ("http://10.5.50.1/logout")
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 681

• link-status - link to status page ("http://10.5.50.1/status")

• link-orig - original URL requested ("http://www.example.com/")
General client information:
• domain - domain name of the user ("example.com")
• interface-name - physical HotSpot interface name (in case of bridged interfaces, this will return the actual
bridge port name)
• ip - IP address of the client ("10.5.50.2")
• logged-in - "yes" if the user is logged in, otherwise - "no" ("yes")
• mac - MAC address of the user ("01:23:45:67:89:AB")
• trial - a "yes/no" representation of whether the user has access to trial time. If users trial time has expired, the
value is "no"
• username - the name of the user ("John")
• host-ip - client IP address from /ip hotspot host table
User status information:
• idle-timeout - idle timeout ("20m" or "" if none)
• idle-timeout-secs - idle timeout in seconds ("88" or "0" if there is such timeout)
• limit-bytes-in - byte limit for send ("1000000" or "---" if there is no limit)
• limit-bytes-out - byte limit for receive ("1000000" or "---" if there is no limit)
• refresh-timeout - status page refresh timeout ("1m30s" or "" if none)
• refresh-timeout-secs - status page refresh timeout in seconds ("90s" or "0" if none)
• session-timeout - session time left for the user ("5h" or "" if none)
• session-timeout-secs - session time left for the user, in seconds ("3475" or "0" if there is such timeout)
• session-time-left - session time left for the user ("5h" or "" if none)
• session-time-left-secs - session time left for the user, in seconds ("3475" or "0" if there is such
timeout)
• uptime - current session uptime ("10h2m33s")
• uptime-secs - current session uptime in seconds ("125")
Traffic counters, which are available only in the status page:
• bytes-in - number of bytes received from the user ("15423")
• bytes-in-nice - user-friendly form of number of bytes received from the user ("15423")
• bytes-out - number of bytes sent to the user ("11352")
• bytes-out-nice - user-friendly form of number of bytes sent to the user ("11352")
• packets-in - number of packets received from the user ("251")
• packets-out - number of packets sent to the user ("211")
• remain-bytes-in - remaining bytes until limit-bytes-in will be reached ("337465" or "---" if there is no limit)
• remain-bytes-out - remaining bytes until limit-bytes-out will be reached ("124455" or "---" if there is no
limit)
Miscellaneous variables:
• session-id - value of 'session-id' parameter in the last request
• var - value of 'var' parameter in the last request
• error - error message, if something failed ("invalid username or password")
• error-orig - original error message (without translations retrieved from errors.txt), if something failed
("invalid username or password")
• chap-id - value of chap ID ("\371")
• chap-challenge - value of chap challenge
("\357\015\330\013\021\234\145\245\303\253\142\246\133\175\375\316")
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 682

• popup - whether to pop-up checkbox ("true" or "false")

• advert-pending - whether an advertisement is pending to be displayed ("yes" or "no")
• http-status - allows to set http status code and message
• http-header - allows to add http header
RADIUS-related variables:
• radius<id> - show the attribute identified with <id> in text string form (in case RADIUS authentication was
used; "" otherwise)
• radius<id>u - show the attribute identified with <id> in unsigned integer form (in case RADIUS
authentication was used; "0" otherwise)
• radius<id>-<vnd-id> - show the attribute identified with <id> and vendor ID <vnd-id> in text string form
(in case RADIUS authentication was used; "" otherwise)
• radius<id>-<vnd-id>u - show the attribute identified with <id> and vendor ID <vnd-id> in unsigned
integer form (in case RADIUS authentication was used; "0" otherwise)

Working with variables

$(if <var_name>) statements can be used in theses pages. Following content will be included, if value of
<var_name> will not be an empty string. It is an equivalent to $(if <var_name> != "") It is possible to compare on
equivalence as well: $(if <var_name> == <value>) These statements have effect until $(elif <var_name>), $(else) or
$(endif). In general case it looks like this:

some content, which will always be displayed

$(if username == john)
Hey, your username is john
$(elif username == dizzy)
Hello, Dizzy! How are you? Your administrator.
$(elif ip == 10.1.2.3)
You are sitting at that crappy computer, which is damn slow...
$(elif mac == 00:01:02:03:04:05)
This is an ethernet card, which was stolen few months ago...
$(else)
I don't know who you are, so lets live in peace.
$(endif)
other content, which will always be displayed

Only one of those expressions will be shown. Which one - depends on values of those variables for each client.

Redirects and custom Headers

Starting from RouterOS 5.12 there are 2 new hotspot html page variables:
• http-status - allows to set http status code and message
• http-header - allows to add http header
Example:

$(if http-status == 302)Hotspot login required$(endif)

$(if http-header == "Location")$(link-redirect)$(endif)

In case if $(link-redirect) will evaluate to "http://192.168.88.1/login", then HTTP response will look like:

HTTP/1.0 302 Hotspot login required

<regular HTTP headers>
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 683

Location: http://192.168.88.1/login

http-status syntax:

$(if http-status == XYZ)HTTP_STATUS_MESSAGE$(endif)

• XYZ - status code, should be 3 decimal digits, first one must not be 0
• HTTP_STATUS_MESSAGE - any text, will follow status code in HTTP reply
In HTTP response it will be on first line and will look like:

HTTP/1.0 XYZ HTTP_STATUS_MESSAGE

http-header syntax:

$(if http-header == HTTP_HEADER_NAME)HTTP_HEADER_VALUE$(endif)

• HTTP_HEADER_NAME - name of the HTTP header to add

• HTTP_HEADER_VALUE - value of HTTP header with name HTTP_HEADER_NAME
In HTTP response it will look like:

HTTP_HEADER_NAME: HTTP_HEADER_VALUE

All variables and conditional expressions within HTTP_HEADER_VALUE and HTTP_STATUS_MESSAGE are
processed as usual.
In case multiple headers with the same name are added, then only the last one will be used (previous ones will be
discarded). It allows to override regular HTTP headers (for example, Content-Type and Cache-Control).

Customizing Error Messages

All error messages are stored in the errors.txt file within the respective HotSpot servlet directory. You can change
and translate all these messages to your native language. To do so, edit the errors.txt file. You can also use variables
in the messages. All instructions are given in that file.

Multiple Versions of HotSpot Pages

Multiple HotSpot page sets for the same HotSpot server are supported. They can be chosen by user (to select
language) or automatically by JavaScript (to select PDA/regular version of HTML pages).
To utilize this feature, create subdirectories in HotSpot HTML directory, and place those HTML files, which are
different, in that subdirectory. For example, to translate everything in Latvian, subdirectory "lv" can be created with
login.html, logout.html, status.html, alogin.html, radvert.html and errors.txt files, which are translated into Latvian.
If the requested HTML page can not be found in the requested subdirectory, the corresponding HTML file from the
main directory will be used. Then main login.html file would contain link to "/lv/login?dst=$(link-orig-esc)", which
then displays Latvian version of login page: <a href="/lv/login?dst=$(link-orig-esc)">Latviski</a> . And Latvian
version would contain link to English version: <a href="/login?dst=$(link-orig-esc)">English</a>
Another way of referencing directories is to specify 'target' variable:

<a href="$(link-login-only)?dst=$(link-orig-esc)&target=lv">Latviski</a>
<a href="$(link-login-only)?dst=$(link-orig-esc)&target=%2F">English</a>

After preferred directory has been selected (for example, "lv"), all links to local HotSpot pages will contain that path
(for example, $(link-status) = "http:/ / hotspot. mt. lv/ lv/ status"). So, if all HotSpot pages reference links using
"$(link-xxx)" variables, then no more changes are to be made - each client will stay within the selected directory all
the time.
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 684

Misc
If you want to use HTTP-CHAP authentication method it is supposed that you include the doLogin() function
(which references to the md5.js which must be already loaded) before the Submit action of the login form.
Otherwise, CHAP login will fail.
The resulting password to be sent to the HotSpot gateway in case of HTTP-CHAP method, is formed MD5-hashing
the concatenation of the following: chap-id, the password of the user and chap-challenge (in the given order)
In case variables are to be used in link directly, then they must be escaped accordingly. For example, in login page,
<a href="https://login.example.com/login?mac=$(mac)&user=$(username)">link</a> will not work as
intended, if username will be "123&456=1 2". In this case instead of $(user), its escaped version must be used:
$(user-esc): <a href="https://login.server.serv/login?mac=$(mac-esc)&user=$(user-esc)">link</a>. Now the
same username will be converted to "123%26456%3D1+2", which is the valid representation of "123&456=1 2" in
URL. This trick may be used with any variables, not only with $(username).
There is a boolean parameter "erase-cookie" to the logout page, which may be either "on" or "true" to delete user
cookie on logout (so that the user would not be automatically logged on when he/she opens a browser next time.

Examples
With basic HTML language knowledge and the examples below it should be easy to implement the ideas described
above.
• To provide predefined value as username, in login.html change:

<type="text" value="$(username)>

to this line:

<input type="hidden" name="username" value="hsuser">

(where hsuser is the username you are providing)

• To provide predefined value as password, in login.html change:

<input type="password">

to this line:

<input type="hidden" name="password" value="hspass">

(where hspass is the password you are providing)

• To send client's MAC address to a registration server in form of:
https://www.example.com/register.html?mac=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
change the Login button link in login.html to:

https://www.example.com/register.html?mac=$(mac)

(you should correct the link to point to your server)

• To show a banner after user login, in alogin.html after
$(if popup == 'true') add the following line:

open('http://www.example.com/your-banner-page.html', 'my-banner-name','');

(you should correct the link to point to the page you want to show)
• To choose different page shown after login, in login.html change:
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 685

<input type="hidden" name="dst" value="$(link-orig)">

to this line:

<input type="hidden" name="dst" value="http://www.example.com">

(you should correct the link to point to your server)

• To erase the cookie on logoff, in the page containing link to the logout (for example, in status.html) change:

open('$(link-logout)', 'hotspot_logout', ...

to this:

open('$(link-logout)?erase-cookie=on', 'hotspot_logout', ...

or alternatively add this line:

<input type="hidden" name="erase-cookie" value="on">

before this one:

<input type="submit" value="log off">

An another example is making HotSpot to authenticate on a remote server (which may, for example, perform
creditcard charging):
• Allow direct access to the external server in walled-garden (either HTTP-based, or IP-based)
• Modify login page of the HotSpot servlet to redirect to the external authentication server. The external server
should modify RADIUS database as needed
Here is an example of such a login page to put on the HotSpot router (it is redirecting to https:/ / auth.
example.com/login.php, replace with the actual address of an external authentication server):

<html>
<title>...</title>
<body>
<form name="redirect" action="https://auth.example.com/login.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="mac" value="$(mac)">
<input type="hidden" name="ip" value="$(ip)">
<input type="hidden" name="username" value="$(username)">
<input type="hidden" name="link-login" value="$(link-login)">
<input type="hidden" name="link-orig" value="$(link-orig)">
<input type="hidden" name="error" value="$(error)">
</form>
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
document.redirect.submit();
//-->
</script>
</body>
</html>

• The external server can log in a HotSpot client by redirecting it back to the original HotSpot servlet login page,
specifying the correct username and password
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 686

Here is an example of such a page (it is redirecting to https:/ / hotspot. example. com/ login, replace with the
actual address of a HotSpot router; also, it is displaying www.mikrotik.com after successful login, replace with
what needed):

<html>
<title>Hotspot login page</title>
<body>
<form name="login" action="https://hotspot.example.com/login" method="post">
<input type="text" name="username" value="demo">
<input type="password" name="password" value="none">
<input type="hidden" name="domain" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="dst" value="http://www.mikrotik.com/">
<input type="submit" name="login" value="log in">
</form>
</body>
</html>

• Hotspot will ask RADIUS server whether to allow the login or not. If not allowed, alogin.html page will be
displayed (it can be modified to do anything). If not allowed, flogin.html (or login.html) page will be displayed,
which will redirect client back to the external authentication server.
Note: as shown in these examples, HTTPS protocol and POST method can be used to secure
communications.

Firewall customizations

Summary
Apart from the obvious dynamic entries in the /ip hotspot submenu itself (like hosts and active users), some
additional rules are added in the firewall tables when activating a HotSpot service. Unlike RouterOS version 2.8,
there are relatively few firewall rules added in the firewall as the main job is made by the one-to-one NAT algorithm.

NAT
From /ip firewall nat print dynamic command, you can get something like this (comments follow after each of the
rules):

0 D chain=dstnat action=jump jump-target=hotspot hotspot=from-client

Putting all HotSpot-related tasks for packets from all HotSpot clients into a separate chain.

1 I chain=hotspot action=jump jump-target=pre-hotspot

Any actions that should be done before HotSpot rules apply, should be put in the pre-hotspot chain. This chain is
under full administrator control and does not contain any rules set by the system, hence the invalid jump rule (as the
chain does not have any rules by default).

2 D chain=hotspot action=redirect to-ports=64872 dst-port=53 protocol=udp

3 D chain=hotspot action=redirect to-ports=64872 dst-port=53 protocol=tcp

Redirect all DNS requests to the HotSpot service. The 64872 port provides DNS service for all HotSpot users. If you
want HotSpot server to listen also to another port, add rules here the same way, changing dst-port property.
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 687

4 D chain=hotspot action=redirect to-ports=64873 hotspot=local-dst dst-port=80

protocol=tcp

Redirect all HTTP login requests to the HTTP login servlet. The 64873 is HotSpot HTTP servlet port.

5 D chain=hotspot action=redirect to-ports=64875 hotspot=local-dst dst-port=443

protocol=tcp

Redirect all HTTPS login requests to the HTTPS login servlet. The 64875 is HotSpot HTTPS servlet port.

6 D chain=hotspot action=jump jump-target=hs-unauth hotspot=!auth protocol=tcp

All other packets except DNS and login requests from unauthorized clients should pass through the hs-unauth chain.

7 D chain=hotspot action=jump jump-target=hs-auth hotspot=auth protocol=tcp

And packets from the authorized clients - through the hs-auth chain.

8 D ;;; www.mikrotik.com
chain=hs-unauth action=return dst-address=66.228.113.26 dst-port=80 protocol=tcp

First in the hs-unauth chain is put everything that affects TCP protocol in the /ip hotspot walled-garden
ip submenu (i.e., everything where either protocol is not set, or set to TCP). Here we are excluding
www.mikrotik.com from being redirected to the login page.

9 D chain=hs-unauth action=redirect to-ports=64874 dst-port=80 protocol=tcp

All other HTTP requests are redirected to the Walled Garden proxy server which listens the 64874 port. If there is an
allow entry in the /ip hotspot walled-garden menu for an HTTP request, it is being forwarded to the
destination. Otherwise, the request will be automatically redirected to the HotSpot login servlet (port 64873).

10 D chain=hs-unauth action=redirect to-ports=64874 dst-port=3128 protocol=tcp

11 D chain=hs-unauth action=redirect to-ports=64874 dst-port=8080 protocol=tcp

HotSpot by default assumes that only these ports may be used for HTTP proxy requests. These two entries are used
to "catch" client requests to unknown proxies (you can add more rules here for other ports). I.e., to make it possible
for the clients with unknown proxy settings to work with the HotSpot system. This feature is called "Universal
Proxy". If it is detected that a client is using some proxy server, the system will automatically mark that packets with
the http hotspot mark to work around the unknown proxy problem, as we will see later on. Note that the port used
(64874) is the same as for HTTP requests in the rule #9 (so both HTTP and HTTP proxy requests are processed by
the same code).

12 D chain=hs-unauth action=redirect to-ports=64875 dst-port=443 protocol=tcp

HTTPS proxy is listening on the 64875 port.

13 I chain=hs-unauth action=jump jump-target=hs-smtp dst-port=25 protocol=tcp

Redirect for SMTP protocol may also be defined in the HotSpot configuration. In case it is, a redirect rule will be put
in the hs-smtp chain. This is done so that users with unknown SMTP configuration would be able to send their mail
through the service provider's (your) SMTP server instead of going to the [possibly unavailable outside their network
of origin] SMTP server users have configured on their computers. The chain is empty by default, hence the invalid
jump rule.

14 D chain=hs-auth action=redirect to-ports=64874 hotspot=http protocol=tcp

Manual:Customizing Hotspot 688

Providing HTTP proxy service for authorized users. Authenticated user requests may need to be subject to
transparent proxying (the "Universal Proxy" technique and advertisement feature). This http mark is put
automatically on the HTTP proxy requests to the servers detected by the HotSpot HTTP proxy (the one that is
listening on the 64874 port) as HTTP proxy requests for unknown proxy servers. This is done so that users that have
some proxy settings would use the HotSpot gateway instead of the [possibly unavailable outside their network of
origin] proxy server users have configured in their computers. This mark is also applied when advertisement is due
to be shown to the user, as well as on any HTTP requests done form the users whose profile is configured to
transparently proxy their requests.

15 I chain=hs-auth action=jump jump-target=hs-smtp dst-port=25 protocol=tcp

Providing SMTP proxy for authorized users (the same as in rule #13).

Packet Filtering
From /ip firewall filter print dynamic command, you can get something like this (comments follow after each of
the rules):

0 D chain=forward action=jump jump-target=hs-unauth hotspot=from-client,!auth

Any packet that traverse the router from an unauthorized client will be sent to the hs-unauth chain. The hs-unauth
implements the IP-based Walled Garden filter.

1 D chain=forward action=jump jump-target=hs-unauth-to hotspot=to-client,!auth

Everything that comes to clients through the router, gets redirected to another chain, called hs-unauth-to. This chain
should reject unauthorized requests to the clients.

2 D chain=input action=jump jump-target=hs-input hotspot=from-client

Everything that comes from clients to the router itself, gets to yet another chain, called hs-input.

3 I chain=hs-input action=jump jump-target=pre-hs-input

Before proceeding with [predefined] dynamic rules, the packet gets to the administratively controlled pre-hs-input
chain, which is empty by default, hence the invalid state of the jump rule.

4 D chain=hs-input action=accept dst-port=64872 protocol=udp

5 D chain=hs-input action=accept dst-port=64872-64875 protocol=tcp

Allow client access to the local authentication and proxy services (as described earlier).

6 D chain=hs-input action=jump jump-target=hs-unauth hotspot=!auth

All other traffic from unauthorized clients to the router itself will be treated the same way as the traffic traversing the
routers.

7 D chain=hs-unauth action=return protocol=icmp

8 D ;;; www.mikrotik.com
chain=hs-unauth action=return dst-address=66.228.113.26 dst-port=80 protocol=tcp

Unlike NAT table where only TCP-protocol related Walled Garden entries were added, in the packet filter
hs-unauth chain is added everything you have set in the /ip hotspot walled-garden ip menu. That is why although
you have seen only one entry in the NAT table, there are two rules here.

9 D chain=hs-unauth action=reject reject-with=tcp-reset protocol=tcp

10 D chain=hs-unauth action=reject reject-with=icmp-net-prohibited
Manual:Customizing Hotspot 689

Everything else that has not been while-listed by the Walled Garden will be rejected. Note usage of TCP Reset for
rejecting TCP connections.

11 D chain=hs-unauth-to action=return protocol=icmp

12 D ;;; www.mikrotik.com
chain=hs-unauth-to action=return src-address=66.228.113.26 src-port=80 protocol=tcp

Same action as in rules #7 and #8 is performed for the packets destined to the clients (chain hs-unauth-to) as well.

13 D chain=hs-unauth-to action=reject reject-with=icmp-host-prohibited

Reject all packets to the clients with ICMP reject message.

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:IP/Hotspot
HotSpot
The MikroTik HotSpot Gateway provides authentication for clients before access to public networks .
HotSpot Gateway features:
• different authentication methods of clients using local client database on the router, or remote RADIUS server;
• users accounting in local database on the router, or on remote RADIUS server;
• walled-garden system, access to some web pages without authorization;
• login page modification, where you can put information about the company;
• automatic and transparent change any IP address of a client to a valid address;

Sub Categories

List of reference sub-pages Case studies List of examples

<splist showparent=yes />

HotSpot Setup
The simplest way to setup HotSpot server on a router is by /ip hotspot setup command. Router will ask to
enter parameters required to successfully set up HotSpot. When finished, default configuration will be added for
HotSpot server.

[admin@MikroTik] /ip hotspot> setup

Select interface to run HotSpot on

hotspot interface: ether3

Set HotSpot address for interface

local address of network: 10.5.50.1/24

masquerade network: yes
Set pool for HotSpot addresses

address pool of network: 10.5.50.2-10.5.50.254

Manual:IP/Hotspot 690

Select hotspot SSL certificate

select certificate: none

Select SMTP server

ip address of smtp server: 0.0.0.0

Setup DNS configuration

dns servers: 10.1.101.1

DNS name of local hotspot server

dns name: myhotspot

Create local hotspot user

name of local hotspot user: admin

password for the user:
[admin@MikroTik] /ip hotspot>

What was created:

[admin@MikroTik] /ip hotspot> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, S - HTTPS
# NAME INTERFACE ADDRESS-POOL PROFILE IDLE-TIMEOUT
0 hotspot1 ether3 hs-pool-3 hsprof1 5m
[admin@MikroTik] /ip hotspot>
[admin@MikroTik] /ip pool> print
# NAME RANGES
0 hs-pool-3 10.5.50.2-10.5.50.254
[admin@MikroTik] /ip pool> /ip dhcp-server
[admin@MikroTik] /ip dhcp-server> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
# NAME INTERFACE RELAY ADDRESS-POOL LEASE-TIME ADD-ARP
0 dhcp1 ether3 hs-pool-3 1h
[admin@MikroTik] /ip dhcp-server> /ip firewall nat
[admin@MikroTik] /ip firewall nat> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
0 X ;;; place hotspot rules here
chain=unused-hs-chain action=passthrough

1 ;;; masquerade hotspot network

chain=srcnat action=masquerade src-address=10.5.50.0/24
[admin@MikroTik] /ip firewall nat>

Parameters asked during setup process

Manual:IP/Hotspot 691

Parameter Description

hotspot interface (string; Default: Interface name on which to run HotSpot. To run HotSpot on a bridge interface, make sure public
allow) interfaces are not included to the bridge ports.

local address of network (IP; HotSpot gateway address

Default: 10.5.50.1/24)

masquerade network (yes | no; Whether to masquerade HotSpot network, when yes rule is added to /ip firewall nat with
Default: yes) action=masquerade

address pool of network (string; Address pool for HotSpot network, which is used to change user IP address to a valid address. Useful
Default: yes) if providing network access to mobile clients that are not willing to change their networking settings.

select certificate (none | Choose SSL certificate, when HTTPS authorization method is required.
import-other-certificate; Default: )

ip address of smtp server (IP; IP address of the SMTP server, where to redirect HotSpot's network SMTP requests (25 TCP port)
Default: 0.0.0.0)

dns servers (IP; Default: 0.0.0.0) DNS server addresses used for HotSpot clients, configuration taken from /ip dns menu of the HotSpot
gateway

dns name (string; Default: "") domain name of the HotSpot server, full quality domain name is required, for example
www.example.com

name of local hotspot user username of one automatically created HotSpot user, added to /ip hotspot user
(string; Default: "admin")

password for the user' (string; Password for automatically created HotSpot user
Default: )

ip hotspot
Menu is designed to manage HotSpot servers of the router. It is possible to run HotSpot on Ethernet, wireless,
VLAN and bridge interfaces. One HotSpot server is allowed per interface. When HotSpot is configured on bridge
interface, set HotSpot interface as bridge interface not as bridge port, do not add public interfaces to bridge ports.
You can add HotSpot servers manually to /ip hotspot menu, but it is advised to run /ip hotspot setup, that adds all
necessary settings.
• name (text) : HotSpot server's name or identifier
• address-pool (name / none; default: none) : address space used to change HotSpot client any IP address to a valid
address. Useful for providing public network access to mobile clients that are not willing to change their
networking settings
• idle-timeout (time / none; default: 5m) : period of inactivity for unauthorized clients. When there is no traffic
from this client (literally client computer should be switched off), once the timeout is reached, user is dropped
from the HotSpot host list, its used address becomes available
• interface (name of interface) : interface to run HotSpot on
• addresses-per-mac (integer / unlimited; default: 2) : number of IP addresses allowed to be bind with the MAC
address, when multiple HotSpot clients connected with one MAC-address
• profile (name; default: default) - HotSpot server default HotSpot profile, which is located in /ip hotspot profile
Manual:IP/Hotspot 692

ip hotspot active
HotSpot active menu shows all clients authenticated in HotSpot, menu is informational it is not possible to change
anything here.
• server (read-only; name) : HotSpot server name client is logged in
• user (read-only; name) : name of the HotSpot user
• domain (read-only; text) : domain of the user (if split from username), parameter is used only with RADIUS
authentication
• address (read-only; IP address) : IP address of the HotSpot user
• mac-address (read-only; MAC-address) : MAC-address of the HotSpot user
• login-by (read-only; multiple choice: cookie / http-chap / http-pap / https / mac / mac / trial) : authentication
method used by HotSpot client
• uptime (read-only; time) : current session time of the user, it is showing how long user has been logged in
• idle-time (read-only; time) : the amount of time user has been idle
• session-time-left (read-only; time) : the exact value of session-time, that is applied for user. Value shows how
long user is allowed to be online to be logged of automatically by uptime reached
• idle-timeout (read-only; time) : the exact value of the user's idle-timeout
• keepalive-timeout (read-only; time) : the exact value of the keepalive-timeout, that is applied for user. Value
shows how long host can stay out of reach to be removed from the HotSpot
• limit-bytes-in (read-only; integer) : value shows how many bytes received from the client, option is active when
the appropriate parameter is configured for HotSpot user
• limit-bytes-out (read-only; integer) : value shows how many bytes send to the client, option is active when the
appropriate parameter is configured for HotSpot user
• limit-bytes-total (read-only; integer) : value shows how many bytes total were send/received from client, option
is active when the appropriate parameter is configured for HotSpot user

ip hotspot host
Host table lists all computers connected to the HotSpot server. Host table is informational and it is not possible to
change any value there
• mac-address (read-only; MAC-address) : HotSpot user MAC-address
• address (read-only; IP address) : HotSpot client original IP address
• to-address (read-only; IP address) : New client address assigned by HotSpot, it might be the same as original
address
• server (read-only; name) : HotSpot server name client is connected to
• bridge-port (read-only; name) : /interface bridge port client connected to, value is unknown when HotSpot is not
configured on the bridge
• uptime (read-only; time) : value shows how long user is online (connected to the HotSpot)
• idle-time (read-only; time) : time user has been idle
• idle-timeout (read-only; time) : value of the client idle-timeout (unauthorized client)
• keeaplive-timeout (read-only; time) : keepalive-timeout value of the unauthorized client
• bytes-in (read-only; integer) : amount of bytes received from unauthorized client
• packet-in (read-only; integer) : amount of packets received from unauthorized client
• bytes-out (read-only; integer) : amount of bytes send to unauthorized client
• packet-out (read-only; integer) : amount of packets send to unauthorized client
Manual:IP/Hotspot 693

IP Bindings
Sub-menu: /ip hotspot ip-binding
IP-Binding HotSpot menu allows to setup static One-to-One NAT translations, allows to bypass specific HotSpot
clients without any authentication, and also allows to block specific hosts and subnets from HotSpot network

Property Description

address (IP Range; Default: "") The original IP address of the client

mac-address (MAC; Default: "") MAC address of the client

server (string | all; Default: "all") Name of the HotSpot server.

• all - will be applied to all hotspot servers

to-address (IP; Default: "") New IP address of the client, translation occurs on the router (client does not know anything about
the translation)

type (blocked | bypassed | regular; Default: Type of the IP-binding action

"") • regular - performs One-to-One NAT according to the rule, translates address to to-address
• bypassed - performs the translation, but excludes client from login to the HotSpot
• blocked - translation is not performed and packets from host are dropped

Cookies
Sub-menu: /ip hotspot cookie
Menu contains all cookies sent to the HotSpot clients, which are authorized by cookie method, all the entries are
read-only.

Property Description

domain (string) Domain name (if split from username)

expires-in (time) How long the cookie is valid

mac-address (MAC) Client's MAC-address

user (string) HotSpot username

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Virtualization 694

Manual:Virtualization
Applies to RouterOS: 3, v4

RouterOS has three different Virtualization implementations. Choose your topic:

• Metarouter
• Xen
• Kvm

Metarouter
Metarouter is created by MikroTik and currently is supported only on RouterBOARD 4xx series (mips-be) and
RB1000 series (powerpc). Currently Metarouter can only create RouterOS virtual machines.
We are planning to add more features to Metarouter, so that it will even exceed Xen in functionality. New hardware
support will also be added to Metarouter

Xen
Xen is based on the Linux Xen Virtual machine project, and current RouterOS implementation is supported only on
RouterOS X86 systems (PCs). Xen can create Virtual machines of different Operating Systems that supports Xen.

Kvm
Kvm is based on Linux Kvm virtualization software and requires your CPU to support virtualization. Kvm is
available only on x86 systems.

Usage Examples
The following are just a few of possible scenarios where virtual machines could be used (some of these currently are
possible only in Xen, but Metarouter features will be expanded to allow even more functionality):
In the datacenter
• consolidate a number of routers on one hardware platform
• consolidate routing services and higher levels services such a VOIP switches in the same box
• use a guest machine on top of a router for custom features such as accounting, LDAP or legacy networking
• redundant routers much easier and cheaper to have available in case of crashed systems
In the hosting center
• use RouterOS and extensive networking features as a host with a server (mail, http, ftp...) running as guest or
multiple guest virtual machines
• offer virtual routers with VPN solutions that give a network administrator customer his own router on a highspeed
backbone to make any kind of tunneled intranet or simply VPN access system
At the wireless ISP client site
• set up two isolated routers and set the wireless control only for the router controlled by the WISP while the
Ethernet side router is fully under the clients control
At multiclient sites (such as office buildings)
• in locations serving multiple clients by Ethernet from one backbone connection (wired or wireless), give each
customer control over his own isolated virtual router
For network planning and testing
Manual:Virtualization 695

• build a virtual network on one box with the same topography as a planned network and test the configurations so
that the fine tuning of the configurations can be done in the lab and not in the field, simulate and monitor the
network with advanced scripting and The Dude network monitor utility
In custom applications
• develop your own programs (and even Linux distributions) that can be installed on MikroTik supported platforms
with minimum difficulty as software patches and virtual drivers are provided for guest systems
• use low cost RouterBOARD embedded systems easily with your own Linux and the advantage that it will work
across all RouterBOARDS with the same CPU

Manual:KVM
Applies to RouterOS: v4.3+ on x86

Overview
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is the method to run multiple guest operating systems on one RouterOS host.
KVM can be used only on x86 machines that have CPU with virtualization support .

Requirements
KVM requires Intel VT-x or AMD-V CPU virtualization support. Here [1] you can find a list of supported CPUs, for
more detailed information look on vendor's web site.
Each guest requires at least 16 MB of RAM and sufficient storage space on image file. Once image file have been
created, its size cannot be increased.
KVM support in RouterOS is enabled if kvm package is installed.

Where it can be used?

Virtual Router is useful to allow clients or lower-privilege users access their own 'router' and adjust configure as they
like without the need for a second hardware.
For example; a WISP can create a virtual router for the clients ethernet port allowing them to define their own
firewall settings, while leaving the WISP's wireless settings untouched.
Another useful method is to run guest OS that supports functionality which is not available in RouterOS, for
example, Intrusion detection (SNORT), Asterisk or Squid web proxy.
It can also be used as test environment. it is possible to create virtual network within one x86 machine very similar to
real network and test how RouterOS behaves before implementing the setup in your production network.
Manual:KVM 696

Creating KVM Guest

Before creating KVM guest we need image file. RouterOS has built in commands to make and modify RouterOS
image easily without external tools.

/kvm make-routeros-image file-name=ros1.img file-size=128

We can proceed with Guest configuration when disk image is created.

/kvm add name=ROS memory=128MiB cpu-count=2 disabled=no disk-images=hda:ros1.img \

initrd="" kernel="" kernel-cmdline="console=ttyS0"

As you noticed initrd and kernel properties are empty, which means that hosts kernel and initrd is used.
For example, to add guest without SMP support we can explicitly set initrd and kernel:

/kvm add name=ROS memory=128MiB cpu-count=2 disabled=no disk-images=hda:ros1.img \

initrd=/boot/initrd.rgz kernel=/boot/vmlinuz kernel-cmdline="console=ttyS0"

Note: Leaving initrd and kernel properties empty is dangerous if Host and Guest will be running different
RouterOS versions . Guests other than RouterOS also can break if you leave these values empty.

KVM Guest when created is not automatically started. We must start it manually

[admin@proxy] /kvm> start ROS;

[admin@proxy] /kvm> print

Flags: X - disabled
0 name="ROS" cpu-count=2 memory=128MiB disk-images=hda:ros1.img kernel="/boot/vmlinuz"
kernel-cmdline="" initrd="/boot/initrd.rgz" vnc-server=0.0.0.0:0 snapshot=no state=running
[admin@proxy] /kvm>

Adding Interfaces
Lets add to our previously created Virtual Router one interface.

[admin@proxy] /kvm interface> add virtual-machine=ROS type=dynamic

[admin@proxy] /kvm interface> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active
# VIRTUAL-MACHINE INTERFACE TYPE VM-MAC-ADDRESS
0 ROS dynamic 02:D9:52:31:11:CC
[admin@proxy] /kvm interface>

In this case dynamic type is used which creates dynamic virtual interface on the host:

[admin@proxy] /interface virtual-ethernet> print

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU ARP MAC-ADDRESS
0 D R tap1 1500 enabled 02:3F:9F:AE:10:34
[admin@proxy] /interface virtual-ethernet>
Manual:KVM 697

Note: Add and remove interfaces only when KVM guest is shut-down, stopped or disabled. Making
changes to running guest may lead to host system crash.

If mac addresses are not specified when creating virtual interfaces, addresses are generated
automatically. Generate MAC addresses will be in form of 02:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX. For static
interfaces this address will not change during use of guest, for dynamic interface will change every
time dynamic interface is created.
More information about virtual interfaces are in virtual-ethernet manual

Connecting to the virtual machine

There are two ways how to connect to KVM Guest:
• virtual console;
• vnc.

Console
To connect using console:

[admin@proxy] /kvm> console ROS

You will see your newly added virtual interface here:

[admin@mr0] > interface print

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME TYPE MTU
0 R ether1 ether 1500

To disconnect from the metarouter virtual machine console, hit CTRL + A and then Q to Quit back to your Host
console (if you are using minicom, hit CTRL + A twice):

[admin@MikroTik] >
[Q - quit connection] [B - send break]
[A - send Ctrl-A prefix] [R - autoconfigure rate]

Welcome back!

VNC
Before connecting with VNC client guest needs some configuration changes.
[admin@proxy] /kvm> print
Flags: X - disabled
0 name="ROS" cpu-count=2 memory=128MiB disk-images=hda:ros1.img kernel="/boot/vmlinuz"
kernel-cmdline="" initrd="/boot/initrd.rgz" vnc-server=0.0.0.0:0 snapshot=no state=running
[admin@proxy] /kvm> shut-down 0
[admin@proxy] /kvm> set 0 vnc-server=10.5.100.99:1
[admin@proxy] /kvm> start 0

[admin@proxy] /kvm> print

Flags: X - disabled
Manual:KVM 698

0 name="ROS" cpu-count=2 memory=128MiB disk-images=hda:ros1.img kernel="/boot/vmlinuz"

kernel-cmdline="" initrd="/boot/initrd.rgz" vnc-server=10.5.100.99:1 snapshot=no
state=running
[admin@proxy] /kvm>

VNC servers address in this case is the address on the host reachable from remote locations. Address is followed by
screen number.
Now we can try to connect from remote location:

mrz@bumba:/$ vncviewer 10.5.100.99:1

Configuring a virtual network

Right now you saw that the virtual interface is visible in the Host Interfaces menu as tap1 and also in the guest
interfaces menu as ether1. You can add an IP address on both interfaces, and set up networking. Creating a bridge
between the virtual interface and a physical interface allows traffic to pass.
As an example lets make three virtual routers connected to each other on the same broadcast domain.
Create images and guests:

/kvm
make-routeros-image file-name=R1.img file-size=64
make-routeros-image file-name=R2.img file-size=64
make-routeros-image file-name=R3.img file-size=64

add name=R1 disk-image=hda:R1.img

add name=R2 disk-image=hda:R2.img
add name=R3 disk-image=hda:R3.img

Create a bridge interface which will simulate broadcast domain and add virtual interfaces:

/interface bridge
add name=kvm_bridge

/kvm interface
add virtual-machine=R1 type=dynamic dynamic-bridge=kvm_bridge
add virtual-machine=R2 type=dynamic dynamic-bridge=kvm_bridge
add virtual-machine=R3 type=dynamic dynamic-bridge=kvm_bridge

Now we can start virtual machines and verify if dynamic interfaces are created:

[admin@proxy] /kvm> start [find]

[admin@proxy] > /interface virtual-ethernet print

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running
# NAME MTU ARP MAC-ADDRESS
0 D R tap2 1500 enabled 02:20:94:67:D6:D5
1 D R tap3 1500 enabled 02:95:EE:EA:43:FF
2 D R tap4 1500 enabled 02:05:7E:4B:86:F9
[admin@proxy] > /interface bridge port print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON
Manual:KVM 699

0 D tap2 kvm_bridge 0x80 10 none

1 D tap3 kvm_bridge 0x80 10 none
2 D tap4 kvm_bridge 0x80 10 none
[admin@proxy] >

Now we can connect with console to each of guests and set up ip addresses from the same network and verify
reachability. R1

[admin@proxy] > /kvm console R1

[Ctrl-A is the prefix key]

MikroTik 5.0rc8
MikroTik Login: admin
Password:

[admin@MikroTik] > /ip address add address=192.168.1.1/24 interface=ether1

R2

<pre>
[admin@proxy] > /kvm console R2

[Ctrl-A is the prefix key]

MikroTik 5.0rc8
MikroTik Login: admin
Password:

[admin@MikroTik] > /ip address add address=192.168.1.2/24 interface=ether1

R3

<pre>
[admin@proxy] > /kvm console R1

[Ctrl-A is the prefix key]

MikroTik 5.0rc8
MikroTik Login: admin
Password:

[admin@MikroTik] > /ip address add address=192.168.1.3/24 interface=ether1

[admin@MikroTik] > /ping 192.168.1.1
HOST SIZE TTL TIME STATUS
192.168.1.1 56 64 11ms
192.168.1.1 56 64 2ms
sent=2 received=2 packet-loss=0% min-rtt=2ms avg-rtt=6ms max-rtt=11ms

[admin@MikroTik] > /ping 192.168.1.2

Manual:KVM 700

HOST SIZE TTL TIME STATUS

192.168.1.2 56 64 12ms
sent=1 received=1 packet-loss=0% min-rtt=12ms avg-rtt=12ms max-rtt=12ms

Removing KVM guest

KVM guest has two parts in RouterOS - configuration (kvm, virtual-ethernet, /kvm interface) and image file (/file).
If image file is removed, but KVM guest is still running, then file will be removed from file menu but still exist until
guest is shut-down or disabled, at that moment file will be removed and storage space returned to available storage
on the router.

Additional information
Information useful for running KVM guests

Host shutdown
When host is shutting down each guest receives shut-down notification and are give 10 seconds to shut down. After
time-out value is reached, guests are killed.

Host and guest update

When new version of RouterOS is updated to host system and you have RouterOS guest with initrd and kernel fields
empty, it is good practice to update guest first (even it it does not boot up at current host versions. Then update host
and see if guests are running. After guest update incompatibilities between host kernel and guest drivers might
prevent guest from booting up properly.

Reference

General
Sub-menu: /kvm

KVM Guest Properties

To add new KVM guest you will have to issue command add under /kvm menu with attributes as follows:

Property Desciption

comment (text, default: to add simple text description of the KVM guest
')

cpu-count (1 .. 32, available count of processing cores for guest. Allowed values are [1..32]
default: 1)

disabled (yes | no, to set guest state after creation, values: yes or no
default: no)

disk-images ( list of list of image assignment to drives for guest OS. If type will be set to cdrom then guest will automatically boot from that,
images used in guest) instead of any other drive configured in this field. It can be single drive specified

disk-images=hda:ros.img

or it can be comma seperated list:

disk-images=hda:system.img,hdb:swap.img

initrd (path) path to initrd file, can be left empty if running RouterOS as guest

kernel (path) path to kernel image file, if using RouterOS image created on host this field can be left empty
Manual:KVM 701

kernel-cmdline (text) parameters that are passed to kernel, it is space separated string.

memory (integer to set up amount of memory that is available to KVM guest

default:32)

name (text) name of KVM guest that it will be accessible though the system

snapshot (yes | no) will try to run virtual machine with image file in read-only mode.

vnc-server-address (IP address to bind VNC server port that will connect to guest virtual screen. If left empty it will bind to all IP addresses. If
address ) address set is not ready at the moment when guest is started then system will automatically attempt to start guest for the
next 20 seconds. If IP address to bind VNC does not become available in that time automatic start of guest will fail and
guest will not be started. IP address is considered unavailable if either address or interface address is assigned to is invalid
or does not exist.

vnc-server-display will try to run virtual machine with image file in read-only
(number (0..99)
default:0)

copy-from (number) use configuration from already existing KVM guest

Warning: vnc-server attribute has been changed since RouterOS 5.0. in older versions instead of
vnc-server-address and vnc-server-display was used combine attribute named vnc-server <IP
address>:<display number>

Note: If start of guest failed for the first time, then next 20 seconds KVM will attempt to start guest. After 20
seconds it will fail and guest will stay in stopped state.

States of KVM guest

This field is read-only and is set by RouterOS. These are possible values that can be set:

• stopped - KVM guest is not running, either successful shut-down or disabled.

• stopping - KVM guest is shutting down
• starting - KVM guest is starting
• running - KVM guest has started successfully and is executing guest operating system
• restarting - KVM guest is reloading its guest operating system
• failed - KVM guest has encountered an error and is not operational.
• image-busy - image file set in configuration is already in use by other KVM guest entry
• no-kernel-or-initrd - initrd or kernel was not found in files set in configuration, mentioned files could not be
found or no values in those fields where set
• no-disk-image - either disk image was not found or disk image was not set in configuration.
• kernel-extract-failed - when in guest configuration field kernel is left empty and and KVM cannot extract kernel
from image file supplied
• vnc-cant-bind - vnc server for guest cannot bind to setting specified in vnc-server-address and/or
vnc-server-display
Manual:KVM 702

KVM commands
Sub-menu allows to manage KVM guests on RouterOS host.

Command Desciption

add Create new KVM guest entry

comment Set comment for KVM guest entry

console to connect to KVM guest console display

continue resume KVM guest if it was paused

disable change global state of KVM guest. If enabled KVM guest will be started when RouterOS boots. KVM guest cannot
change

edit edit selected value of KVM guest entry

enable change KVM guest global state to enable operation of KVM guest. If guest where disabled before - KVM guest is
automatically started.

export Print or save an export script that can be used to restore configuration of current sub-menu, KVM guest
configuration, image files will not be saved

find Find items by value

get Gets value of item's property

make-routeros-image creates RouterOS image from current installation installed on the router with no configuration. It is advised to create
Image file larger than minimal, so you are able to upload new package files and upgrade/update RouterOS
installation. Also, all the additional files created in KVM guest will be stored in file image. This image file is not
connected to host RouterOS and user is able to run different RouterOS versions on host and guest. This command
will create RAW image file containing RouterOS installation. parameters:
• file-name - name of ROS image file;
• file-size - image size in Meba Bytes;
• configuration-script - file name where configuration script is located;

pause suspend operation of KVM guest

print Print values of item properties

reboot issue ACPI shut-down command to KVM guest, if guest does not support ACPI, command have no effect. After
KVM guest is shut-downed it will be automatically started by host when shut down is complete.

reconfigure-routeros-image sets up default configuration for RouterOS image. Parameters:

• file-name - name of ROS image to be reconfigured;
• configuraton-script - file name where configuration script is located;
• configuration-string - string containing ROS commands to be configured on ROS image.

remove Remove item

set Change item properties

shut-down issue ACPI shut-down command to KVM guest, if guest does not support ACPI, command have no effect.

start to start KVM guest

Interface
Sub-menu: /kvm interface
Manual:KVM 703

Property Desciption

comment (text) description of interface

disabled (yes|no, default: no) state of interface after creation

host-mac-address (MAC Address, MAC address of virtual interface that host will use
default: generated)

model (virto | e1000 | pcnet, mode of virtual interface. Available options are:
default: virtio) • virtio - default value. Fastest available option, should be chosen if no other problems are encountered
• e1000 - emulates card that uses e1000 driver. This option where added for compatibility with some guest
operating systems that where not able to communicate with host RouterOS if virtio interface model where
used.
• pcnet - emulates card that uses pcnet driver. This option where added for compatibility with some guest
operating systems that where not able to communicate with host RouterOS if virtio interface model where
used.

vm-mac-address (MAC Address, MAC address of virtual interface that guest will use
default: generated)

copy-from (number) use configuration from existing virtual interface

dynamic-bridge (interface name, if set, dynamic interface will be automatically added as port to bridge interface
default: none)

interface is set for static interface, to assign it to already created virtual-ethernet interface

type (dynamic | static, to set if interface is either static or dynamic.

default: static) • dynamic interface will add virtual-ethernet automatically when virtual machine starts.
• static interface have to have created virtual-ethernet interface at the time of creation of the entry.

virtual-machine (KVM machine name of virtual machine this interface will be assigned to
name, must be set)

References
[1] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ X86_virtualization
Manual:Metarouter 704

Manual:Metarouter
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Overview
MetaRouter is a new feature in RouterOS 4.0 beta 1 and RouterOS v3.21
Currently MetaRouter can be used on
• RB400, RB700 series, RB900 series, RB2011 boards
• Listed PPC boards: RB1000, RB1100, RB1100AH and RB800.

Requirements
Each Metarouter instance uses the same amount of resources as a stand-alone RouterOS installation. It means that
you need a minimum of 16MB of RAM for each RouterOS virtual machine plus memory for the MetaROUTER host
itself. It is suggested to have more than 16MB memory available for each Metarouter. Upcoming RouterOS versions
will have ability to run virtual machines with less than 16MB per machine.
Note: It is possible to run other virtual machines with less than 16MB RAM per machine if the virtual
operating system is OpenWRT. The 16MB limitation is only for virtual RouterOS installations.

Currently on one host you can create up to 8 virtual machines and up to 8 virtual interfaces.
Workaround to have more than 8 interfaces in total is to use VLANs. In future versions it will be
possible to add up to 16 virtual machines.

Also it is not possible to use external storage devices (Store) in the metarouter virtual devices.

Where it can be used?

The MetaRouter function is useful for allowing clients or lower-privilege users access to their own 'router' and
config to configure as they like, without the need for a complete second router, or giving them access to the main
router configuration.
For example; a WISP can create a virtual router for the clients ethernet port allowing them to define their own
firewall settings, while leaving the WISP's wireless settings untouched.

Creating a Metarouter
[admin@RB_Meta] /metarouter> add name=mr0 memory-size=32 disk-size=32000 disabled=no
[admin@RB_Meta] /metarouter> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME MEMORY-SIZE DISK-SIZE USED-DISK STATE
0 mr0 16MiB 0kiB 377kiB running

As you can see, creating virtual router is quite easy, you just have to specify name of the router, how many RAM
will be allocated for it and disk size that will be used by virtual router. Explanations of all other properties are
available in reference manual.
Note: * be careful when using dynamic HDD size for metarouters, a proxy could fill up all your hosts storage!
Manual:Metarouter 705

Example with no settings

If you will add a new metarouter without specifying any parameters, it will be added with Dynamic HDD size, and
16MiB of RAM:

[admin@RB_Meta] /metarouter> add name=mr1

[admin@RB_Meta] /metarouter> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME MEMORY-SIZE DISK-SIZE USED-DISK STATE
1 mr1 16MiB 0kiB 3kiB running

OpenWRT as virtual machine

Starting from v3.24 and v4.0beta3 MetaROUTER has the ability to import custom built images. As an example we
will show how to patch and use OpenWRT as the virtual machine.

Importing image
If you don't have any specific needs, you can import our prebuilt OpenWRT image, which is downloadable MIPS
image [1], PPC image [2]. Upload openwrt image to the router and import it by import-image command:

[admin@MikroTik] /metarouter> import-image file-name=openwrt-mr-mips-rootfs.tgz

imported: 100%

[admin@MikroTik] /metarouter> print

Flags: X - disabled
# NAME MEMORY-SIZE DISK-SIZE USED-DISK STATE
0 mr1 16MiB unlimited 7383kiB running

As you can see OpenWRT is running, now you can start configuration process, which is explained in sections below.

Building your own OpenWRT image

If you are not satisfied with our prebuilt version of OpenWRT, then you can build and use your own image.
First step is to install svn and get the latest source code from openwrt.org
Note: Patch 1.2 was made against older kernel then in current trunk and some extra steps should be taken to
apply it to OpenWRT. For example r29684 can be used without modifications

svn checkout -r 29684 svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/trunk/

Now you have to path downloaded source with our patch [3]
Note: Patch v1.2 adds newer kernel support which makes it possible to compile with latest OpenWRT
revisions. This patch also adds PowerPC support (ability to run OpenWRT image on RB1000 and RB1100).

cd trunk/
wget http://www.mikrotik.com/download/metarouter/openwrt-metarouter-1.2.patch
Manual:Metarouter 706

patch -p0 <openwrt-metarouter-1.2.patch

When source is patched, you have to set up configuration options

make menuconfig

Go to Target System menu and choose Mikrotik MetaROUTER MIPS or Mikrotik MetaROUTER PowerPC from the
list depending for which platform you are building the image.

Other options depends on what is your requirements (include for example IPv6 and ppp support or not), you can also
stick with defaults.
If you see any error messages while trying to launch menuconfig, like

Build dependency: Please install ncurses. (Missing libncurses.so or ncurses.h)

It means that required libraries are not installed, check the output and install all required libraries.
When you are done with build configuration, type

make

It will take a while to build everything so you can go and have a cup of tea.
After the build process is done, upload newly built image to the router and import it as described in section above.
For more options and build instructions look in OpenWRT's documentation [4]

Adding Interfaces
First, you need to add a new interface to your virtual router. This is done in the interface menu.
The interface command has the following options:

[admin@MikroTik] /metarouter> interface add

comment disabled dynamic-mac-address type virtual-machine
copy-from dynamic-bridge static-interface vm-mac-address

Description of each option can be found in reference manual.

Let's add one interface:
Manual:Metarouter 707

[admin@MikroTik] /metarouter> interface add virtual-machine=mr1 type=dynamic

On the host physical router the interface appears as a virtual interface:

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface print

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME TYPE MTU
8 R ether9 ether 1500
9 R test bridge 1500
10 DR vif1 vif 1500

Connecting to the virtual machine

To connect to your virtual machine, use the console command:

/metarouter console 0

You will see your newly added virtual interface here:

[admin@mr0] > interface print

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME TYPE MTU
0 R ether1 ether 1500

To disconnect from the metarouter virtual machine console, hit CTRL + A and then Q to Quit back to your Host
console (if you are using minicom, hit CTRL + A twice):

[admin@MikroTik] >
[Q - quit connection] [B - send break]
[A - send Ctrl-A prefix] [R - autoconfigure rate]

Welcome back!

Configuring a virtual network

Right now you saw that the virtual interface is visible in the Host Interfaces menu as vif1 and also in the metarouter
interfaces menu as ether1. You can add an IP address on both interfaces, and set up networking. Creating a bridge
between the virtual interface and a physical interface allows traffic to pass.

Configuration examples

Creating isolated Metarouter for client

This Example will show how to use Metarouter feature to create a isolated router on top of the WISP client site
router. The setup for the example is shown on the diagram below:
1. Adding a Metarouter for client:
[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter> add name=client1 memory-size=32
[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME MEMORY-SIZE DISK-SIZE USED-DISK STATE
Manual:Metarouter 708

0 client1 32MiB 0kiB 189kiB running

[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter>

2. Adding Metarouter Interfaces for the new created Metarouter:

[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter interface> add virtual-machine=client1
[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter interface> add virtual-machine=client1
[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter interface> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active
# VIRTUAL-MACHINE TYPE VM-MAC-ADDRESS
0 A client1 dynamic 02:49:E8:55:8E:E8
1 A client1 dynamic 02:16:16:90:EF:0E
[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter interface>

3. Creating a Bridge Interface for bridging metarouter interface together with ethernet interface where the client is
physically connected:
[admin@RouterGW] /interface bridge> add
[admin@RouterGW] /interface bridge> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running
0 R name="bridge1" mtu=1500 arp=enabled mac-address=00:00:00:00:00:00 protocol-mode=none
priority=0x8000 auto-mac=yes admin-mac=00:00:00:00:00:00 max-message-age=20s
forward-delay=15s transmit-hold-count=6 ageing-time=5m

[admin@RouterGW] /interface bridge port> add interface=ether2 bridge=bridge1

[admin@RouterGW] /interface bridge port> add interface=vif2 bridge=bridge1
[admin@RouterGW] /interface bridge port> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic
# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON
0 ether2 bridge1 0x80 10 none
1 vif2 bridge1 0x80 10 none

4. Adding IP configuration for the new Metarouter interface which will be used for connecting between Metarouter
and Metarouter Host system:
[admin@RouterGW] /ip address> add address=10.0.1.1/24 interface=vif1
[admin@RouterGW] /ip address> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 D 10.5.8.68/24 10.5.8.0 10.5.8.255 ether1
1 10.0.1.1/24 10.0.1.0 10.0.1.255 vif1
[admin@RouterGW] /ip address>

5. Connecting to Metarouter using the Console

[admin@RouterGW] /metarouter> console client1

[Ctrl-A is the prefix key]

Starting...
Starting services...
Manual:Metarouter 709

MikroTik 3.21
MikroTik Login: admin
Password:

[admin@MikroTik] > /sys identity set name=Client1

6. Configuring Metarouter to make it easy for client to understand the configuration:

[admin@Client1] /interface ethernet> p
Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R ether1 1500 02:49:E8:55:8E:E8 enabled
1 R ether2 1500 02:16:16:90:EF:0E enabled
[admin@Client1] /interface ethernet> set 0 name=public
[admin@Client1] /interface ethernet> set 1 name=local
[admin@Client1] /interface ethernet> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave
# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP
0 R public 1500 02:49:E8:55:8E:E8 enabled
1 R local 1500 02:16:16:90:EF:0E enabled
[admin@Client1] /interface ethernet>

[admin@Client1] /ip address> add address=10.0.1.2/24 interfae=public

[admin@Client1] /ip address> add address=10.0.2.1/24 interface=local
[admin@Client1] /ip address> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
# ADDRESS NETWORK BROADCAST INTERFACE
0 10.0.1.2/24 10.0.1.0 10.0.1.255 public
1 10.0.2.1/24 10.0.2.0 10.0.2.255 local

[admin@Client1] /ip route> add gateway=10.0.1.1

[admin@Client1] /ip route> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active, D - dynamic,
C - connect, S - static, r - rip, b - bgp, o - ospf, m - mme,
B - blackhole, U - unreachable, P - prohibit
# DST-ADDRESS PREF-SRC G GATEWAY DISTANCE INTERFACE
0 A S 0.0.0.0/0 r 10.0.1.1 1 public
1 ADC 10.0.1.0/24 10.0.1.2 0 public
2 ADC 10.0.2.0/24 10.0.2.1 0 local
[admin@Client1] /ip route>

[admin@Client1] /ip firewall nat> add action=masquerade out-interface=public chain=srcnat

Manual:Metarouter 710

Reference

General
Sub-menu: /metarouter
Menu specific commands:

Property Description

console (console <vm-id>) connect to specified virtual machine's console

import-image (import-image file-name=<image-file>) import custom built image (available starting from v3.24 and v4.0b3)

reboot (reboot <vm-id>) reboot specified virtual machine

shut-down (shut-down <vm-id>) shut down specified virtual machine

start (start <vm-id>) boot up specified virtual machine

Configurable properties:

Property Description

disk-size (unlimited|0..4294967295[kiB] ; Default: Disk size that will be allocated by virtual router.
unlimited)

memory-size (16..256[MiB] ; Default: 16) Amount of memory that will be allocated by virtual
router.

name (string ;) Name of the virtual machine.

Read only properties:

Property Description

used-disk (integer[kiB] ;) currently used disk space by virtual router.

disk-reads (integer;) number of disk reads

disk-writes (integer;) number of disk writes

state (booting|running|rebooting|shutting-down|stopped|disabled;) current state of virtual machine

Interface
Sub-menu: /metarouter interface
Configurable properties:

Property Description

dynamic-bridge (string;) name of the bridge where to assign virtual interface as a port. Useful if interface type is
dynamic

dynamic-mac-address (mac;) mac address of dynamically created interface

static-interface static interface that virtual interface will be bound to

(none|name-of-iface;)

type (dynamic|static;) specifies whether interface is static or dynamic

virtual-machine (string;) specifies to which virtual machine this interface will be bound

vm-mac-address (mac;) interface mac address that appears in VM

Manual:Metarouter 711

Known Issues

MIPS-BE
Issues and possible workarounds for MetaROUTER feature on RouterBOARDs with MIPS-BE architecture

Random freezing
Only listed routers are affected by this issue: RB450G, RB750G, RB435G, RB493G
Certain RouterBOARD products tend to become unresponsive for some amount of time, after a while becoming
available on the network. Similar problem is - that only guest becomes unresponsive and after a while continues to
perform as expected. If watchdog is enabled on the router - router will be restarted by it instead of becoming
available on its own.
Other routers from this architecture are believed to not to suffer from this issue.
Other issues that do not fit the description most probably are caused by RouterOS misconfiguration and does not
have common denominator and have to be checked case by case.
As alternatives listed boards can be used instead: RB2011, RB433AH or any other from these series

PPC
Issues and possible workarounds for MetaROUTER feature on RouterBOARDs with PPC architecture

Not enough resources

Only listed routers are affected: RB1100AH
When attempt is made to create MetaROUTER guest on the router error message is given that there is not enough
resources on the router to create guest.
This problem is resolved in 5.12 and later RouterOS releases. If you are using newer release and still encounter
problem on the router you have to reinstall router using Netinstall tool.
RouterBOARD RB1100AHx2 reports similar message, but MetaROUTER feature is not currently supported on this
router.
All other routers form this architecture that support MetaROUTER feature are not affected.
Other issues that do not fit the description most probably are caused by RouterOS misconfiguration and does not
have common denominator and have to be checked case by case.

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download/ metarouter/ openwrt-mr-mips-rootfs. tgz
[2] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download/ metarouter/ openwrt-mr-ppc-rootfs. tgz
[3] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download/ metarouter/ openwrt-metarouter-1. 2. patch
[4] http:/ / kamikaze. openwrt. org/ docs/ openwrt. html#x1-410002. 1. 1
Manual:Xen 712

Manual:Xen
Xen Virtualization Overview
XEN is discontinued since version 4.4
Applies to RouterOS: v4.3 and below only

Virtualization techonogies enable single physical device to execute multiple different operating
systems. Virtualization support in RouterOS allows to run multiple copies of RouterOS sofware and
even other supported operating systems. Note that virtualization support depends on system
architecture, not all architectures that RouterOS supports allow virtualization.
Ability to run non-RouterOS sofware allows user to run applications that are not included in RouterOS.
Xen is the RouterOS Virtualization system for X86 machines, Xen is based on Xen Virtual machine of Linux.

x86 Virtualization Support

Virtualization support on x86 architecture systems is implemented using Xen hypervisor (http:/ / www. xen. org).
This enables RouterOS to run other operating systems that support Xen paravirtualization in "virtual machines"
(guests), controlled by RouterOS software (host).
Support for virtualization for x86 architecture systems is included in RouterOS software versions starting with 3.11.
To enable virtualization support "xen" package must be installed.
Host RouterOS software sets up virtual machines such that they use file in RouterOS host file system as disk
image(s). Additionally host RouterOS can set up virtual ethernet network interfaces between itself and virtual
machine. This enables virtual machines to participate in network under control of host RouterOS software.
In order to execute operating system in virtual machine, you need:
• OS kernel that supports Xen paravirtualization
• OS disk image
• (optionally) initial ram disk to use while booting OS in VM
If RouterOS image is used for booting in VM, OS kernel and initial ram disk are not necessary - specifying
RouterOS disk image is sufficient. RouterOS images for use by VMs can be created in 2 ways:
• either by taking image from existing RouterOS x86 installation that supports virtualization (version >= 3.11)
• or by using special RouterOS functions to create RouterOS image to use in VM (note that these functions do not
produce RouterOS image that can be copied and successfully run from physical media!).
The latter approach is more flexible because allows user to specify disk image size.
To be able to run non-RouterOS operating system in VM, you need Linux kernel, disk image and initial ram disk (if
necessary) files.
Note that one disk image at the same time can only be used by one VM.

Creating RouterOS image to use in VM

To create RouterOS image to use in VM use "/xen make-routeros-image" command:

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> make-routeros-image file-name=ros1.img file-size=32

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> /file print

# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 ros1.img .img file 33554432 jun/06/2008 14:47:23
Manual:Xen 713

This produces 32MB RouterOS image that is ready to use in VM. New RouterOS image is based on host system
sofware and therefore contains all sofware packages that are installed on host system, but does not contain host
configuration.
Additionally, "make-routeros-image" has "configuration-script" file parameter that can be used to put on initial
configuration script in created image. The script will be run on first boot of image.

VM Configuration
All virtualization for x86 architecture related functions are configured under "/xen" menu.

Memory Available to Host RouterOS

By default all the memory is available to host system, for example for system with 1GB of memory:

[admin@MikroTik] > /system resource print

uptime: 2m4s
version: "3.9"
free-memory: 934116kB
total-memory: 963780kB
cpu: "Intel(R)"
cpu-count: 2
cpu-frequency: 2813MHz
cpu-load: 0
free-hdd-space: 77728884kB
total-hdd-space: 79134596kB
write-sect-since-reboot: 989
write-sect-total: 989
architecture-name: "x86"
board-name: "x86"
[admin@MikroTik] > /xen global-settings print
memory-for-main: unlimited

In some cases this may limit ability to allocate necessary memory for running guest VMs, because host system may
have used memory for e.g. filesystem caching purposes. Therefore it is advised to configure limit of memory
available to host system (exact value for limit depends on what sofware features are used on host system - in general,
the same rules as for choosing amount of physical memory for regular RouterOS installation apply):

[admin@MikroTik] > /system resource print

uptime: 2m4s
version: "3.9"
free-memory: 934116kB
total-memory: 963780kB
cpu: "Intel(R)"
cpu-count: 2
cpu-frequency: 2813MHz
cpu-load: 0
free-hdd-space: 77728884kB
total-hdd-space: 79134596kB
write-sect-since-reboot: 989
write-sect-total: 989
Manual:Xen 714

architecture-name: "x86"
board-name: "x86"
[admin@MikroTik] > /xen global-settings print
memory-for-main: unlimited
[admin@MikroTik] > /xen global-settings set memory-for-main=128
[admin@MikroTik] > /system reboot
Reboot, yes? [y/N]:
y
system will reboot shortly

....

[admin@MikroTik] > /system resource print

uptime: 1m5s
version: "3.11"
free-memory: 114440kB
total-memory: 131272kB
cpu: "Intel(R)"
cpu-count: 2
cpu-frequency: 2813MHz
cpu-load: 0
free-hdd-space: 77728884kB
total-hdd-space: 79134596kB
write-sect-since-reboot: 794
write-sect-total: 794
architecture-name: "x86"
board-name: "x86"

Creating RouterOS VM
Assuming that RouterOS image "ros1.img" is previously made, new VM to run RouterOS can be created:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> add name=ros1 disk-images=hda:ros1.img memory=64 console-telnet-port=64000

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print detail

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

0 X name="ros1" disk-images="hda:ros1.img" initrd="" kernel="" kernel-cmdline="" cpu-count=1 memory=64 weight=256

console-telnet-port=64000 state=disabled

The following parameters were passed to "add" command:

• disk-images=hda:ros1.img - these parameters specify that file "ros1.img" in host filesystem will be set up as disk
"hda" (IDE Primary Master) in guest system;
• memory=64 - this specifies amount of memory for guest VM;
• console-telnet-port=64000 - specifies that host system will listen on port 64000 and once telnetted to, will forward
guests console output to telnet client and accept console input from telnet client.
There are few other settings:
• kernel & initrd - VM kernel file to boot and initial ram disk file to use (if specified), as noted before, specifying
these is not necessary when booting RouterOS image;
• kernel-cmdline - command line to pass to Linux kernel
Manual:Xen 715

• cpu-count - how many CPUs should be made available to VM;

• weight - proportional "importance" of this VM when scheduling multiple VMs for execution. Taking into account
that host operating system shares CPUs with all running guest VMs, weight parameter specifies proportional
share of CPU(s) that guest operating system will get when multiple operating systems start competing for CPU
resource. "Weight" of host operating system is 256. So, for example, if guest VM is also configured with weight
256, if both OSes will be running at 100% CPU usage, both will get equal share of CPU. If guest VM will be
configured with weight 128, it will get only 1/3 of CPU.

Starting, Stopping and Connecting to RouterOS VM

To start booting guest VM, enable it:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> enable ros1

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

# NAME MEMORY WEIGHT STATE

0 ros1 64 256 running

There are 2 (mutually exclusive, because there is just one virtual console provided for guest VM) ways to connect to
console of running VM:
• by using "/xen console <VM name>" command, or
• by using telnet program and connecting to port specified in "console-telnet-port" parameter.
There are multiple ways to stop running VM:
• preferred way is to shut down from guest VM (e.g. by connecting to guest VM, logging in and issuing "/system
shutdown" command).
• force shutdown from host RouterOS by using "/xen shutdown <VM name>" command;
• simply by disabling VM entry in "/xen" menu, note that this is the most dangerous way of stopping running VM,
because guest VM can leave its filesystem in corrupt state (disabling VM entry for VM is the same as unplugging
power for physical device).
VM shutdown state can be confirmed in "/xen" menu:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> shutdown ros1

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

# NAME MEMORY WEIGHT STATE

0 ros1 64 256 shutdown

In order to boot VM that is shut down, you must either disable and enable VM entry in "/xen" menu or use "/xen
start <VM name>" command.
There is also "/xen reboot <VM name>" command, that can be used to restart running guest VM, but it must be taken
into account that using this command is dagerous - although it instructs guest VM to reboot, in most cases it does not
cause guest to flush its filesystem and terminate correctly.
If any guest VM related settings are changed for VM entry in "/xen" menu, if guest VM is running, those settings are
not applied immediately (because that would involve destroying VM and starting it again). Instead, VM is marked as
"configuration-changed" and new settings will be applied on next reboot. For example:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

Manual:Xen 716

# NAME MEMORY WEIGHT STATE

0 ros1 64 256 running

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> set ros1 memory=32

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

# NAME MEMORY WEIGHT STATE

0 C ros1 32 256 running

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> shutdown ros1

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

# NAME MEMORY WEIGHT STATE

0 ros1 32 256 shutdown

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> start ros1

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print

Flags: X - disabled, C - configuration-changed

# NAME MEMORY WEIGHT STATE

0 ros1 32 256 running

After this command sequence memory of running guest is actually 32Mb.

Reconfiguring RouterOS VM Image

With "/xen reconfigure-routeros-image", RouterOS configuration from existing RouterOS image can be wiped out
and new configuration script put on (the script will be executed when VM using this image will next get started):
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> reconfigure-routeros-image file-name=ros1.img configuration-script=script.file

Configuring VM Networking
In order for guest VM to participate in network, virtual interfaces that connect guest VM with host must be created.
Virtual network connection with guest VM can be thought of as point-to-point ethernet network connection, which
terminates in guest VM as "/interface ethernet" type interface and in host as "/interface virtual-ethernet" interface. By
configuring appropriate data forwarding (either by bridging or routing) to/from virtual-ethernet interface in host
system, guest VM can be allowed to participate in real network.

Configuring Network Interfaces for Guest VM

Network interfaces that will appear in guest VM as ethernet interfaces are configured in "/xen interface" menu:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> add virtual-machine=ros1 type=dynamic
[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> print detail
Flags: X - disabled, A - active
0 virtual-machine=ros1 vm-mac-addr=02:1C:AE:C1:B4:B2 type=dynamic static-interface=none
dynamic-mac-addr=02:38:19:0C:F3:98 dynamic-bridge=none

Above command creates interface for guest VM "ros1" with type "dynamic".
There are 2 types of interfaces:
• dynamic - endpoint of virtual network connection in host ("/interface virtual-ethernet") will be created
dynamically when guest VM will be booted. By using this type of interface user avoids manually creating
Manual:Xen 717

endpoint of virtual connection in host, at the expense of limited flexibility how this connection can be used (e.g.
there is no way how to reliably assign IP address to dynamically created interface). Currently, it can only be
automatically added to bridge specified in "dynamic-bridge" parameter. This behaviour is similar to dynamic
WDS interfaces for wireless WDS links.
• static - endpoint of virtual network connection in host ("/interface virtual-ethernet") must be manually created.
This type of interface allows maximum flexibility because interface that will connect with guest VM is previously
known (therefore IP addresses can be added, interface can be used in filter rules, etc.), at the expense of having to
create "/interface virtual-ethernet" manually.
VM interfaces have the following parameters:
• virtual-machine - to which VM this interface belongs;
• vm-mac-addr - MAC address of ethernet interface in guest system;
• type - interface type as described above
• static-interface - when "type=static", this parameter specifies which "/interface virtual-ethernet" in host system
will be connected with guest;
• dynamic-mac-addr - when "type=dynamic", automatically created "/interface virtual-ethernet" in host system will
have this MAC address;
• dynamic-bridge - when "type=dynamic", dynamically created "/interface virtual-ethernet" will automatically get
added as bridge port to this bridge.

Configuring Dynamic Interfaces

To create virtual connection that will have its endpoint in host dynamically made, use the following command:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> add virtual-machine=ros1 type=dynamic

[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> print detail

Flags: X - disabled, A - active

0 virtual-machine=ros1 vm-mac-addr=02:1C:AE:C1:B4:B2 type=dynamic static-interface=none dynamic-mac-addr=02:38:19:0C:F3:98 dynamic-bridge=none

After enabling "ros1" VM, you can confirm that new virtual-ethernet interface is made with given
dynamic-mac-addr:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> /interface virtual-ethernet print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running

# NAME MTU ARP MAC-ADDRESS

0 R vif1 1500 enabled 02:38:19:0C:F3:98

And in guest VM ethernet interface is available with given vm-mac-addr:

[admin@Guest] > int ethernet print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave

# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP

0 R ether1 1500 02:1C:AE:C1:B4:B2 enabled

By configuring "dynamic-bridge" setting, virtual-ethernet interface can be automatically added as bridge port to
some bridge in host system. For example, if it is necessary to forward traffic between "ether1" interface on host and
VM "ros1" ethernet interface, the following steps must be taken:
Create bridge on host system and add "ether1" as bridge port:

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface bridge add name=to-ros1

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface bridge port add bridge=to-ros1 interface=ether1
Manual:Xen 718

Next, specify that virtual-ethernet should automatically get added as bridge port:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> print detail

Flags: X - disabled, A - active

0 A virtual-machine=ros1 vm-mac-addr=02:1C:AE:C1:B4:B2 type=dynamic static-interface=none dynamic-mac-addr=02:38:19:0C:F3:98 dynamic-bridge=none

[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> set 0 dynamic-bridge=to-ros1

After this virtual-ethernet interface is added as bridge port on host:

[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> /interface bridge port print

Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic

# INTERFACE BRIDGE PRIORITY PATH-COST HORIZON

0 ether1 to-ros1 0x80 10 none

1 D vif1 to-ros1 0x80 10 none

By using similar configuration, user can, for example, "pipe" all traffic through guest VM - if there are 2 physical
interfaces in host, user can create 2 bridges and bridge all traffic through guest VM (assuming that operating system
in guest is configured in such a way that ensures data forwarding between its interfaces).

Configuring Static Interfaces

To create virtual connection whose endpoint in host system will be static interface, at first create static
virtual-ethernet interface:
[admin@MikroTik] /interface virtual-ethernet> add name=static-to-ros1 disabled=no

[admin@MikroTik] /interface virtual-ethernet> print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running

# NAME MTU ARP MAC-ADDRESS

0 R vif1 1500 enabled 02:38:19:0C:F3:98

1 static-to-ros1 1500 enabled 02:3A:1B:DB:FC:CF

Next, create interface for guest VM:

[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> add virtual-machine=ros1 type=static static-interface=static-to-ros1

[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> print

Flags: X - disabled, A - active

# VIRTUAL-MACHINE TYPE VM-MAC-ADDR

0 A ros1 dynamic 02:1C:AE:C1:B4:B2

1 A ros1 static 02:DF:66:CD:E9:74

Now we can confirm that virtual-ethernet interface is active:

[admin@MikroTik] /xen interface> /interface virtual-ethernet print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running

# NAME MTU ARP MAC-ADDRESS

0 R static-to-ros1 1500 enabled 02:3A:1B:DB:FC:CF

1 R vif1 1500 enabled 02:38:19:0C:F3:98

And in guest system:

[admin@Guest] > /interface ethernet print

Flags: X - disabled, R - running, S - slave

# NAME MTU MAC-ADDRESS ARP

0 R ether1 1500 02:1C:AE:C1:B4:B2 enabled

Manual:Xen 719

1 R ether2 1500 02:DF:66:CD:E9:74 enabled

Having static interface in host system allows to use interface in configuration wherever specifying interface is
necessary, e.g. adding ip address:

[admin@MikroTik] > ip address add interface=static-to-ros1 address=1.1.1.1/24

In similar way we add IP address to appropriate interface in guest system and confirm that routing is working:

[admin@Guest] > /ip address add interface=ether2 address=1.1.1.2/24

[admin@Guest] > /ping 1.1.1.1
1.1.1.1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time=5 ms
1.1.1.1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time<1 ms
1.1.1.1 64 byte ping: ttl=64 time<1 ms
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0/1.6/5 ms

Running non-RouterOS Systems as Guests

Xen hypervisor based virtualization for x86 architectures that is used in RouterOS allow to run other operating
systems that use Linux kernel that has Xen guest support (DomU support in Xen terminology).
In order to run non-RouterOS system as guest on RouterOS host, you need:
• OS image file
• OS Linux kernel file
• optionally initial ram disk file
There are several ways how to prepare necessary files:
• using already prepared, ready to boot images (the easiest way);
• installing operating system along with necessary virtualization packages and using image from installed system
(medium complexity);
• installing operating system, taking image, recompiling Linux kernel, adjusting system to boot under Xen
hypervisor (the most complex).

Using Ready to Boot Image

If you have operational Debian GNU/Linux based system with Xen installed, you can use xen-tools scripts (http:/ /
www. xen-tools. org) to create/install images and use Xen kernel and initrd from your distribution. Another
opportunity is to use already prepared images that are available for download, for example from http:/ / jailtime. org.
Note that images do not contain the kernel itself, therefore these images can only be used after taking appropriate
kernel and initrd file from real distribution.
Additionally, here we provide some sets of files ready to use in guest VMs.
Manual:Xen 720

ClarkConnect 4.2 Community Edition SP1 Image

Image is prepared from installation ISO (ftp:/ / ftp. clarkconnect. com/ 4. 2/ iso/ community-4. 2. SP1. iso) and
additional Xen kernel package (ftp:/ / ftp. clarkconnect. com/ 4. 2/ other/ kernel-xen-2. 6. 18-8. 1. 14. 3. cc. i686.
rpm).Minimum software is installed.
Archive contains the following files:
• kernel: vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen
• initial RAM disk: clark.initrd.rgz, clark.otherinitrd.rgz (either one can be used)
• disk image: clark.img
To use this image in guest VM under RouterOS (remember that you have to upload files from archive to your
RouterOS host), use the following command:

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> add disk=hda disk-image=clark.img

initrd=clark.otherinitrd.rgz kernel=vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen
kernel-cmdline="root=/dev/hda1" memory=128 name=clark

Password for root user is rootroot.

Archive can be dowloaded here: http://www.mikrotik.com/download/clark.tar.bz2

CentOS 5.1 Image

Image is prepared using netinstall ISO (ISO file: CentOS-5.1-i386-netinstall.iso, available from mirrors listed at
http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/5/isos/i386/) and network based installation. Minimum software is installed.
Archive contains the following files:
• kernel: vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.el5xen
• inital RAM disk: centos.initrd.rgz
• disk image: centos.img
To use this image in guest VM under RouterOS (remember that you have to upload files from archive to your
RouterOS host), use the following command:

[admin@MikroTik] /xen> add disk=hda disk-image=centos.img

initrd=centos.initrd.rgz kernel=vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.el5xen
kernel-cmdline="ro root=/dev/hda1" memory=512 name=centos

Password for root user is rootroot.

Archive can be dowloaded here: http://www.mikrotik.com/download/centos.tar.bz2
Manual:Xen 721

Installing OS with Virtualization Support

One of ways to simplify OS installation is to install it in image file using some full virtualization software, like
VMWare or QEMU. This allows to produce ready to use image file and does not require any additional hardware.

Example: Preparing ClarkConnect Community Edition 4.2 SP1 Image

Below find instructions on how to get ClarkConnect 4.2 Community Edition run as guest VM. Note that
ClarkConnect installation does not provide support for virtualization by default, therefore additional tweaks will be
necessary.

Installing ClarkConnect
At first, create image where ClarkConnect will be installed:

~/xen$ qemu-img create clark.img 1Gb

Formatting 'clark.img', fmt=raw, size=1048576 kB

Next, start installation from ClarkConnect installation ISO image:

~/xen$ sudo qemu -hda clark.img -cdrom community-4.2.SP1.iso -net nic,vlan=0,macaddr=00:01:02:03:04:aa -net tap,vlan=0,ifname=tap0 -m 128 -boot d

Proceed with installation, creating one root partition and (optionally) swap space. Take into account disk size when
selecting software packages to install. In this example disk is partitioned with 800MB root partition size and the rest
of image for swap. Note that QEMU is instructed to emulate ethernet card, during installation this card is configured
with IP address 10.0.0.23/24.
ClarkConnect installation does not provide support for virtualization by default, therefore virtualization support will
have to be added manually. ClarkConnect distributes Xen-aware kernel package separately from installation,
available at: ftp://ftp.clarkconnect.com/4.2/other/kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc.i686.rpm
In order to install this package we have to put it on newly created image. To do this, boot new image:
~/xen$ sudo qemu -hda clark.img -net nic,vlan=0,macaddr=00:01:02:03:04:aa -net tap,vlan=0,ifname=tap0 -m 128

Assuming that networking with QEMU virtual machine is configured properly, we can use SCP to put on package
file:
~/xen$ scp ./kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc.i686.rpm [email protected]:/

The authenticity of host '10.0.0.23 (10.0.0.23)' can't be established.

RSA key fingerprint is 70:84:b8:c5:6d:62:37:d1:1e:96:29:d0:77:46:6a:0c.

Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

Warning: Permanently added '10.0.0.23' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

[email protected]'s password:

kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc.i686.rpm 100% 16MB 2.0MB/s 00:08

Next, connect to ClarkConnect and install kernel package. Note that this package is not entirely compatible with
ClarkConnect 4.2 SP1 system and proper installation fails, but taking into account that the only purpose of installing
this package is to get Xen enabled kernel and drivers, forced installation is fine, except that module dependency file
must be created manually:

~/xen$ ssh [email protected]

[email protected]'s password:
Last login: Tue Jun 10 07:20:34 2008
[root@server ~]# cd /
[root@server /]# rpm -i kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc.i686.rpm --force
Manual:Xen 722

--nodeps
Usage: new-kernel-pkg [-v] [--mkinitrd] [--rminitrd]
[--initrdfile=<initrd-image>] [--depmod] [--rmmoddep]
[--kernel-args=<args>] [--banner=<banner>]
[--make-default] <--install | --remove>
<kernel-version>
(ex: new-kernel-pkg --mkinitrd --depmod --install 2.4.7-2)
error: %post(kernel-xen-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc.i686) scriptlet failed, exit
status 1
[root@server /]# ls /boot
config-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img
symvers-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen.gz vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc
xen-syms-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc
config-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen memtest86+-1.26
System.map-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen
grub symvers-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.gz
System.map-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen xen.gz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.cc
[root@server /]# depmod -v 2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen -F
/boot/System.map-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen
....

Next, copy out some files from installed system:

• Xen enabled kernel (/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen)
• initial ram disk (/boot/initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img)
~/xen$ scp [email protected]:/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen ./

[email protected]'s password:

vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen 100% 2049KB 2.0MB/s 00:01

~/xen$ scp [email protected]:/boot/initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img ./

[email protected]'s password:

initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img 100% 434KB 433.8KB/s 00:00

Default ClarkConnect installation does not execute login process on Xen virtual console, so in order to have login
available on virtual console accessible from RouterOS with "/xen console <VM name>" command, virtual console
device should get made inside image (mknod /dev/xvc0 c 204 191).
Default ClarkConnect initial ram disk does not support booting from Xen virtual disk because it does not contain
driver for virtual disk. To overcome this problem initial ram disk must be updated.

Updating initrd Manually

One opportunity to make initial ram disk that would support booting from virtual disk is to manually put virtual disk
driver in initrd and update it to load this module.
At first we extract contents of initial ram disk that was copied from ClarkConnect image:
~/xen$ file initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img

initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Tue Jun 10 14:01:27 2008, max compression

~/xen$ mv initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.2.cc.img clarkinitrd.gz

~/xen$ gunzip clarkinitrd.gz

~/xen$ file clarkinitrd

clarkinitrd: ASCII cpio archive (SVR4 with no CRC)

Manual:Xen 723

~/xen$ mkdir initrd

~/xen$ cd initrd/

~/xen/initrd$ sudo cpio -idv --no-absolute-filenames < ../clarkinitrd

etc

bin

bin/insmod

bin/nash

bin/modprobe

sysroot

sys

lib

lib/sd_mod.ko

lib/libata.ko

lib/scsi_mod.ko

lib/ata_piix.ko

lib/ext3.ko

lib/jbd.ko

sbin

dev

dev/console

dev/systty

dev/tty3

dev/tty2

dev/tty4

dev/ram

dev/tty1

dev/null

init

loopfs

proc

1990 blocks

~/xen/initrd$ cat init

#!/bin/nash

mount -t proc /proc /proc

setquiet

echo Mounted /proc filesystem

echo Mounting sysfs

mount -t sysfs none /sys

echo "Loading scsi_mod.ko module"

insmod /lib/scsi_mod.ko

echo "Loading sd_mod.ko module"

insmod /lib/sd_mod.ko

echo "Loading libata.ko module"

insmod /lib/libata.ko

echo "Loading ata_piix.ko module"

Manual:Xen 724

insmod /lib/ata_piix.ko

echo "Loading jbd.ko module"

insmod /lib/jbd.ko

echo "Loading ext3.ko module"

insmod /lib/ext3.ko

echo Creating block devices

mkdevices /dev

echo Creating root device

mkrootdev /dev/root

umount /sys

echo Mounting root filesystem

mount -o defaults --ro -t ext3 /dev/root /sysroot

echo Switching to new root

switchroot /sysroot

From the above we see that init script in initrd image loads drivers for SCSI and ATA disks, as well as EXT3
filesystem modules. In order for ClarkConnect to boot under Xen we have to replace hardware drivers with Xen
virtual disk driver and EXT3 filesystem modules with appropriate modules for Xen kernel. Take these modules from
installed ClarkConnect system:

~/xen/initrd$ cd lib/
~/xen/initrd/lib$ ls
ata_piix.ko ext3.ko jbd.ko libata.ko scsi_mod.ko sd_mod.ko
~/xen/initrd/lib$ sudo rm ata_piix.ko libata.ko scsi_mod.ko sd_mod.k
~/xen/initrd/lib$ scp
[email protected]:/lib/modules/2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen/kernel/fs/jbd/jbd.ko
./
[email protected]'s password:
jbd.ko

100% 70KB 69.8KB/s

00:00
~/xen/initrd/lib$ sudo scp
[email protected]:/lib/modules/2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen/kernel/fs/ext3/ext3.ko
./
[email protected]'s password:
ext3.ko

100% 141KB 141.5KB/s

00:00
~/xen/initrd/lib$ sudo scp
[email protected]:/lib/modules/2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen/kernel/drivers/xen/blkfront/xenblk.ko
./
[email protected]'s password:
xenblk.ko

100% 22KB 22.0KB/s

00:00
Manual:Xen 725

Next, update init script so that it loads Xen virtual disk driver. Final init script should look like this:

~/xen/initrd$ cat init

#!/bin/nash

mount -t proc /proc /proc

setquiet
echo Mounted /proc filesystem
echo Mounting sysfs
mount -t sysfs none /sys
echo "Loading xenblk.ko module"
insmod /lib/xenblk.ko
echo "Loading jbd.ko module"
insmod /lib/jbd.ko
echo "Loading ext3.ko module"
insmod /lib/ext3.ko
echo Creating block devices
mkdevices /dev
echo Creating root device
mkrootdev /dev/root
umount /sys
echo Mounting root filesystem
mount -o defaults --ro -t ext3 /dev/root /sysroot
echo Switching to new root
switchroot /sysroot

Create initrd file from directory structure with modifications that have been made:

~/xen/initrd$ find * | cpio -o -H newc -O ../clarkinitrd.new

~/xen/initrd$ find . -depth | cpio -ov --format=newc > ../clark.initrd
~/xen/initrd$ cd ../
~/xen$ gzip -c -9 < clark.initrd > clark.initrd.rgz

Using mkinitrd Utility

Instead of creating initial ram disk manually as described above is possible to use mkinitrd utility available in
ClarkConnect distribution. After Xen kernel package is installed as shown above, initial ram disk can be created with
command (note that this command must be executed in ClarkConnect, e.g. running in QEMU VM):
[root@server /]# mkinitrd clark.otherinitrd.rgz 2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen --omit-scsi-modules --omit-raid-modules --omit-lvm-modules --with=xenblk

After this, newly created clark.otherinitrd.rgz must be copied from ClarkConnect image.

Adding ClarkConnect VM in RouterOS

Finally upload files (dont forget to shut down QEMU that executes image) to host RouterOS and create guest VM
entry:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print detail

Flags: X - disabled

1 X name="clark" disk=hda disk-image="clark.img" initrd="clark.otherinitrd.rgz" kernel="vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.14.3.ccxen"

kernel-cmdline="root=/dev/hda1" cpu-count=1 memory=128 weight=256 console-telnet-port=64000 state=disabled

Manual:Xen 726

Note that VM is configured with files that were made in previous steps. Also pay attention to "kernel-cmdline"
parameter that is supplied. This instructs ClarkConnect where its root file system is - as we are providing
ClarkConnect image with "disk=hda", and during installation root filesystem was made as first partition in image,
root file system is on device /dev/hda1.
On first boot of ClarkConnect, it will detect changes in hardware and also enable login on virtual console device.

Example: Preparing Centos 5.1 Image

CentOS ir RedHat Linux based Linux distribution. Distribution includes necessary software packages for
virtualization support, therefore installing CentOS image that supports virtualization is rather simple.

Installing CentOS 5.1

To create example CentOS image, we use QEMU for CentOS installation the same way as in previous ClarkConnect
example.
Create image file and start QEMU with CentOS netinstall ISO image:

~/xen$ qemu-img create centos.img 2Gb

Formatting 'centos.img', fmt=raw, size=2097152 kB
~/xen$ sudo qemu -hda centos.img -cdrom=CentOS-5.1-i386-netinstall.iso
-net nic,vlan=0,macaddr=00:01:02:03:04:aa -net tap,vlan=0,ifname=tap0
-m 256

Note that netinstall ISO image is used - sofware packages will be downloaded from network. This means that
network connectivity of QEMU VM must be configured and running.
During installation follow partition scheme as in previous example for ClarkConnect. Example image is created with
partition scheme as can be seen in image:

Also during installation select "Virtualization" sofware set:

Manual:Xen 727

When installation is complete, CentOS image does not boot under QEMU emulator because it does not support
running Xen hypervisor. Nevertheless this does not matter, because all necessary sofware for running as guest is
already installed in image. Still this forces to take different approach for extracting necessary files from image (for
ClarkConnect this got done by connecting to VM running under QEMU and copying files out).

Preparing Initial Ram Disk

To take Xen kernel from CentOS image and to prepare initrd (that would include driver for virtual disk), use the
following steps.
Mount root partition of image using loopback device (note that 1st partition in image starts with sector 63 therefore
we use offset in image file to point to beginning of partition:

# mount centos.img /mnt -o loop,offset=$[512*63]

Next, copy out kernel file:

# cp /mnt/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.el5xen ./

To prepear initrd file we use mkinitrd tool. To force it to work on mounted image, use chroot command:
# chroot /mnt /bin/sh

sh-3.1# mkinitrd centos.initrd.rgz 2.6.18-53.el5xen --omit-scsi-modules --omit-raid-modules --omit-lvm-modules --with=xenblk

sh-3.1# exit

Adding CentOS VM in RouterOS

Now files to be used for running guest VM (kernel, newly made initrd and image) have to be put on RouterOS and
appropriate VM entry should be made:
[admin@MikroTik] /xen> print detail

Flags: X - disabled

0 X name="centos" disk=hda disk-image="centos.img" initrd="centos.initrd.rgz" kernel="vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.el5xen"

kernel-cmdline="ro root=/dev/hda1" cpu-count=1 memory=256 weight=256 console-telnet-port=64000 state=disabled

Manual:Xen 728

Notice that CentOS kernel is also passed arguments of which partition should be used for root file system, similar to
ClarkConnect.

Adding Virtualization Support to Your Favourite Linux Based OS

To be able to run your favourite OS/distribution in guest VM, it must support Xen DomU, therefore enabling Xen
support most likely will involve recompiling kernel. Disk and virtual network interface devices have to be accessed
by Xen netfront and blockfront drivers, therefore you should make sure that these drivers are included in your
system, either directly in kernel or as modules. Kernel must be compiled with PAE support.
Depending on Linux kernel that your distribution uses, it is possible that kernel source does not have support for
Xen. This may mean that patching of kernel is necessary. In such cases you can refer to distributions that use similar
kernel version and have vendor patches for Xen support.
... Some time later maybe example will come...

Manual:Interface/Virtual-ethernet
Applies to RouterOS: v4.x

Summary
To connect your virtual routers to RouterOS host system you either have to assign interface for your guest (possible
only on MetaROUTER) or you can add virtual Ethernet interface that is described in this document.
May contain either static or dynamic interface. Static interfaces should be configured in virtual-ethernet menu and
then assigned to virtual machine in /kvm interface (for KVM) or /metarouter interface (for MetaROUTER).
Dynamic interfaces will be recreated automatically on each reboot and will contain new MAC address.
Note: Virtual-ethernets will be automatically removed even if configured as static in /kvm interface menu

Requirements
This menu becomes available:
• on x86 architeecture you have to have kvm packge installed
• on mipsbe architecture RouterBOARDS
• on ppc architecture RouterBOARDS, except RB333, RB600 and variants.

Virtual Ethernet creation

Menu: /interface virtual-ethernet add
Manual:Interface/Virtual-ethernet 729

Property Desciption

arp (disabled | enabled | proxy-arp | reply-only, ARP protocol resolution mode:

default: enabled) • disabled - interface is not replying to ARP requests
• enabled - interface is replaying to all ARP requests on its MAC address
• proxy-arp - interface is replying to all ARP requests even if it is not interface MAC address
• reply-only - interface replies only to known (static entries in ARP table) sources

comment (text) Short description of the item

copy-from (number) Item number to copy settings from to create new item

disabled (yes | no default: yes) identifies if entry is part of active coniguration

mac-address (MAC address MAC address of interface. If automatically generated, then this pattern will be used
default: automatically generated) 02:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

mtu (0 65536 default: 1500) maximal transmission unit of the interface

name (text default: tapX or vifX) Interface name where, if auto-generated, X is inreased if previous valid number already exists,
starts with 1. tap is on x86 vif is on RouterBOARD platform.

See Also
• KVM
• MetaROUTER

Manual:Port
Applies to RouterOS: v5+

Summary
There are many ways how to use ports on the routers. Most obvious one is to use serial port for initial
RouterOS configuration after installation(by default serial0 is used by serial-terminal).
Serial and USB ports can also be used to:
• connect 3G modems;
• connect to another device through a serial cable
• access device connected to serial cable remotely.

General
Sub-menu: /port
Menu lists all available serial, usb, ... ports on the router and allows to configure port parameters, like baud-rate,
flow-control, etc.
Below you can see default port configuration on RB493.

[admin@RB493G] /port> print

Flags: I - inactive
# NAME CHANNELS USED-BY BAUD-RATE
0 serial0 1 serial-terminal 115200
Manual:Port 730

Note: List of the ports are maintained automatically by the RouterOS.

Properties

Property Description

baud-rate (integer | auto; Default: Baud rate (speed) used by the port. If set to auto, then RouterOS tries to detect baud rate automatically.
auto)

data-bits (7 | 8; Default: ) The number of data bits in each character.

• 7 - true ASCII
• 8 - any data (matches the size of a byte)

dtr (on | off; Default: ) Whether to enable RS-232 DTR signal circuit used by flow control.

flow-control (hardware | none | method of flow control to pause and resume the transmission of data.
xon-xoff; Default: )

name (string; Default: ) Name of the port.

parity (even | none | odd; Default: ) Error detection method. If enabled, extra bit is sent to detect the communication errors. In most cases
parity is set to none and errors are handled by the communication protocol.

rts (on | off; Default: ) Whether to enable RS-232 RTS signal circuit used by flow control.

stop-bits (1 | 2; Default: ) Stop bits sent after each character. Electronic devices usually uses 1 stop bit.

Read-only properties

Property Description

channels (integer) Number of channels supported by the port.

inactive (yes | no)

line-state ()

used-by (string) Shows what is using current port. For example, by default Serial0 is used by serial-console.

Firmware
Sub-menu: /port firmware
This submenu allows to specify directory where drivers for 3g modems can be uploaded and used.

Remote Access
Sub-menu: /port remote-access
If you want to access serial device that can only talk to COM ports and is located somewhere else behind router, then
you can use remote-access.
As defined in RFC 2217 RouterOS can transfer data from/to a serial device over TCP connection.
Enabling remote access on RouterOS is very easy:

/port remote-access add port=serial0 protocol=rfc2217 tcp-port=9999

Manual:Port 731

Note: By default serial0 is used by serial-terminal. Without releasing the port, it cannot be used by
remote-access or other services

Properties

Property Description

allowed-addresses (IP address range; Range of IP addresses allowed to access port remotely.
Default: 0.0.0.0/0)

channel (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Port channel that will be used. If port has only one channel then channel number should
always be 0.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

local-address (IP address; Default: ) IP address used as source address.

log-file (string; Default: "") Name of the file, where communication will be logged. By default logging is disabled.

port (string; Default: ) Name of the port from Port list.

protocol (raw | rfc2217; Default: rfc2217) RFC 2217 defines a protocol to transfer data from/to a serial device over TCP. If set to raw,
then data is sent to serial as is.

tcp-port (integer [1..65535]; Default: 0) TCP port on which to listen for incoming connections.

Read-only properties

Property Description

active (yes | no) Whether remote access is active and ready to accept connection.

busy (yes | no) Whether port is currently busy.

inactive (yes | no)

logging-active (yes | no) Whether logging to file is currently running

remote-address (IP address) IP address of remote location that is currently connected.

See More
• Special Login
• Serial Console
• Serial Port Usage
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Special Login 732

Manual:Special Login
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5

Description
Special login can be used to access another device (like a switch, for example) that is connected through a serial
cable by opening a telnet/ssh session that will get you directly on this device (without having to login to RouterOS
first).

Setup
For demonstration we will use two RouterBoards and one PC.

Routers R1 and R2 are connected with serial cable and PC is connected to R1 via ethernet. Lets say we want to
access router R2 via serial cable from our PC. To do this you have to set up serial interface proxy on R1. It can be
done by feature called special-login.
Note: that by default console is bound to serial port.

First task is to unbind console from serial simply by disabling entry in /system console
menu:

[admin@MikroTik] /system console> print

Flags: X - disabled, U - used, F - free
Manual:Special Login 733

# PORT TERM
0 X serial0 vt102

Next step is to add new user, in this case serial, and bind it to the serial port

[admin@MikroTik] > /user add name=serial group=full

[admin@MikroTik] > /special-login add user=serial port=serial0 disabled=no
[admin@MikroTik] > /special-login print
Flags: X - disabled
# USER PORT
0 serial serial0

Now we are ready to access R2 from our PC.

maris@bumba:/$ ssh [email protected]

[Ctrl-A is the prefix key]

R2 4.0beta4
R2 Login:

[admin@R2] >

To exit special login mode press Ctrl+A and Q

[admin@MikroTik] >
[Q - quit connection] [B - send break]
[A - send Ctrl-A prefix] [R - autoconfigure rate]

Connection to 10.1.101.146 closed.

Warning: After router reboot and serial cable attached router may stuck at Bootloader main menu

To fix this problem you need to allow access bootloader main menu from <any> key to <delete>:
• enter bootloader menu
• press 'k' for boot key options
• press '2' to change key to <delete>

What do you want to configure?

d - boot delay
k - boot key
s - serial console
n - silent boot
o - boot device
u - cpu mode
f - cpu frequency
r - reset booter configuration
e - format nand
g - upgrade firmware
i - board info
p - boot protocol
Manual:Special Login 734

b - booter options
t - call debug code
l - erase license
x - exit setup
your choice: k - boot key

Select key which will enter setup on boot:

* 1 - any key
2 - <Delete> key only

your chaoice: 2

See More
• Serial Console
• Sigwatch
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:System/Serial Console
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Overview
Sub-menu: /system console, /system serial-terminal
Standards: RS-232
The Serial Console and Terminal are tools, used to communicate with devices and other systems that are
interconnected via serial port. The serial terminal may be used to monitor and configure many devices - including
modems, network devices (including MikroTik routers), and any device that can be connected to a serial
(asynchronous) port.
The Serial Console feature is for configuring direct-access configuration facilities (monitor/keyboard and serial port)
that are mostly used for initial or recovery configuration.
If you do not plan to use a serial port for accessing another device or for data connection through a modem, you can
configure it as a serial console. The first serial port is configured as a serial console, but you can choose to
unconfigure it to free it for other applications. A free serial port can also be used to access other routers' (or other
equipment, like switches) serial consoles from a MikroTik RouterOS router. A special null-modem cable is needed
to connect two hosts (like, two PCs, or two routers; not modems). Note that a terminal emulation program (e.g.,
HyperTerminal on Windows or minicom on linux) is required to access the serial console from another computer.
Several customers have described situations where the Serial Terminal (managing side) feature would be useful:
• on a mountaintop, where a MikroTik wireless installation sits next to equipment (including switches and Cisco
routers) that can not be managed in-band (by telnet through an IP network)
• monitoring weather-reporting equipment through a serial port
• connection to a high-speed microwave modem that needed to be monitored and managed by a serial connection
Manual:System/Serial Console 735

With the serial-terminal feature of the MikroTik, up to 132 (and, maybe, even more) devices can be monitored and
controlled.

Serial Console Configuration

A special null-modem cable should be used for connecting to the serial console from another computer. The Serial
Console cabling diagram for DB9 connectors is as follows:

Router Side (DB9f) Signal Direction Side (DB9f)

1, 6 CD, DSR IN 4

2 RxD IN 3

3 TxD OUT 2

4 DTR OUT 1, 6

5 GND - 5

7 RTS OUT 8

8 CTS IN 7

Note that the above diagram will not work if the software is configured to do hardware flow control, but the
hardware does not support it (e.g., some RouterBOARD models have reduced seral port functionality). If this is the
case, either turn off the hardware flow control or use a null-modem cable with loopback, which will simulate the
other device's handshake signals with it's own. The diagram for such cable is as follows:

Router Side (DB9f) Signal Direction Side (DB9f)

1, 4, 6 CD, DTR, DSR LOOP 1, 4, 6

2 RxD IN 3

3 TxD OUT 2

5 GND - 5

7, 8 RTS, CTS LOOP 7, 8

Note that although it is recommended to have 5-wire cable for this connection, in many cases it is enough to have 3
wires (for unlooped signals only), leaving both loops to exist only inside the connectors. Other connection schemes
exist as well.

Configuring Console
Sub-menu: /system console
Properties
Manual:System/Serial Console 736

Property Description

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether serial console is enabled or not.

port (string) Which port should the serial terminal listen to

term (string) Terminal type

Read-only properties

Property Description

free (yes | no) Console is ready for use.

used (yes | no) Console is in use.

vcno (integer) number of virtual console - [Alt]+[F1] represents '1', [Alt]+[F2] - '2', etc..

wedged (yes | no) Console is currently not available

Example
To disable all virtual consoles (available through the direct connection with keyboard and monitor) extept for the
first one:

[admin@MikroTik] system console> print

Flags: X - disabled, W - wedged, U - used, F - free
# PORT VCNO TERM
0 F serial0 MyConsole
1 U 1 linux
2 F 2 linux
3 F 3 linux
4 F 4 linux
5 F 5 linux
6 F 6 linux
7 F 7 linux
8 F 8 linux
[admin@MikroTik] system console> disable 2,3,4,5,6,7,8
[admin@MikroTik] system console> print
Flags: X - disabled, W - wedged, U - used, F - free
# PORT VCNO TERM
0 F serial0 MyConsole
1 U 1 linux
2 X 2 linux
3 X 3 linux
4 X 4 linux
5 X 5 linux
6 X 6 linux
7 X 7 linux
8 X 8 linux
[admin@MikroTik] system console>

To check if the configuration of the serial port:

Manual:System/Serial Console 737

[admin@MikroTik] system serial-console> /port print detail

0 name=serial0 used-by=Serial Console baud-rate=9600 data-bits=8 parity=none
stop-bits=1 flow-control=none

1 name=serial1 used-by="" baud-rate=9600 data-bits=8 parity=none stop-bits=1

flow-control=none

[admin@MikroTik] system serial-console>

Using Serial Terminal

Command: /system serial-terminal
The command is used to communicate with devices and other systems that are connected to the router via serial port.
All keyboard input is forwarded to the serial port and all data from the port is output to the connected device. Ctrl-A
is the prefix key, which means that you will enter a small "menu" by pressing this combination of keys. The Ctrl-A
character will not be sent to your device! If you need to send Ctrl-A character to remote device, press Ctrl-A twice.
After exiting with Ctrl-A and then Q, the control signals of the port are lowered. The speed and other parameters of
serial port may be configured in the /port directory of router console. No terminal translation on printed data is
performed. It is possible to get the terminal in an unusable state by outputting sequences of inappropriate control
characters or random data. Do not connect to devices at an incorrect speed and avoid dumping binary data.

Property Description

port (string; Default: ) Port name to use

The serial port to be used as a serial terminal needs to be free (e.g., there should not be any serial consoles, LCD or
other configuration). Chack the previous chapter to see how to disable serial console on a particular port. Use /port
print command to see if some other application is still using the port.
Ctrl-A have special meaning and is used to provide a possibility of exiting from nested serial-terminal sessions:
To send Ctrl-A to to serial port, press Ctrl-A Ctrl-A
Note: When rebooting a RouterBoard the bootloader (RouterBOOT) will always use the serial console
(serial0 on RouterBoards) to send out some startup messages and offer access to the RouterBOOT menu.
Having text coming out of the serial port to the connected device might confuse your attached device and get
stuck on boot loader. To avoid this you can reconfigure RouterBOOT to enter the RouterBOOT menu only
when a DEL character is received.

Example
To connect to a device connected to the serial1 port:

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] > /system serial-terminal serial0

[Ctrl-A is the prefix key]

[admin@R2] /ip address>

Manual:System/Serial Console 738

Console Screen
Sub-menu: /system console screen
This facility is created to change line number per screen if you have a monitor connected to router.

Property Description

line count (25|40|50; Default: 25) Number of lines on monitor

This parameter is applied only to a monitor, connected to the router.

Example
To set monitor's resolution from 80x25 to 80x40:

[admin@MikroTik] system console screen> set line-count=40

[admin@MikroTik] system console screen> print
line-count: 40
[admin@MikroTik] system console screen>

See More
• Special Login
• Sigwatch
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Scripting
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Scripting language manual

This manual provides introduction to RouterOS built-in powerful scripting language.
Scripting host provides a way to automate some router maintenance tasks by means of executing user-defined scripts
bounded to some event occurrence.
Scripts can be stored in Script repository or can be written directly to console. The events used to trigger script
execution include, but are not limited to the System Scheduler, the Traffic Monitoring Tool, and the Netwatch Tool
generated events.
Manual:Scripting 739

Line structure
RouterOS script is divided into number of command lines. Command lines are executed one by one until the end of
script or until runtime error occur.

Command line
RouterOS console uses following command syntax:
[prefix] [path] command [uparam] [param=[value]] .. [param=[value]]
• [prefix] - ":" or "/" character which indicates if command is ICE or path. May or may not be required.
• [path] - relative path to the desired menu level. May or may not be required.
• command - one of the commands available at the specified menu level.
• [uparam] - unnamed parameter, must be specified if command requires it.
• [params] - sequence of named parameters followed by respective values
The end of command line is represented by the token “;” or NEWLINE. Sometimes “;” or NEWLINE is not required to
end the command line.
Single command inside (), [] or {} does not require any end of command character. End of command is
determined by content of whole script

:if ( true ) do={ :put "lala" }

Each command line inside another command line starts and ends with square brackets "[ ]" (command
concatenation).

:put [/ip route get [find gateway=1.1.1.1]];

Notice that code above contains three command lines:

• :put
• /ip route get
• find gateway=1.1.1.1
Command line can be constructed from more than one physical line by following line joining rules.

Physical Line
A physical line is a sequence of characters terminated by an end-of-line (EOL) sequence. Any of the standard
platform line termination sequences can be used:
• unix – ASCII LF;
• windows – ASCII CR LF;
• mac – ASCII CR;
Standard C conventions for new line characters can be used ( the \n character).

Comments
A comment starts with a hash character (#) and ends at the end of the physical line. Whitespace or any other symbols
are not allowed before hash symbol. Comments are ignored by syntax. If (#) character appear inside string it is not
considered a comment.

# this is a comment
# bad comment
:global a; # bad comment

:global myStr "lala # this is not a comment"

Manual:Scripting 740

Line joining
Two or more physical lines may be joined into logical lines using backslash character (\). A line ending in a
backslash cannot carry a comment. A backslash does not continue a comment. A backslash does not continue a token
except for string literals. A backslash is illegal elsewhere on a line outside a string literal.

:if ($a = true \

and $b=false) do={ :put “$a $b”; }

:if ($a = true \ # bad comment

and $b=false) do={ :put “$a $b”; }

# comment \
continued – invalid (syntax error)

Whitespace between tokens

Whitespace can be used to separate tokens. Whitespace is necessary between two tokens only if their concatenation
could be interpreted as a different token. Example:

{
:local a true; :local b false;
# whitespace is not required
:put (a&&b);
# whitespace is required
:put (a and b);
}

Whitespace are not allowed

• between '<parameter>='
• between 'from=' 'to=' 'step=' 'in=' 'do=' 'else='
Example:

#incorrect:
:for i from = 1 to = 2 do = { :put $i }
#correct syntax:
:for i from=1 to=2 do={ :put $i }
:for i from= 1 to= 2 do={ :put $i }

#incorrect
/ip route add gateway = 3.3.3.3
#correct
/ip route add gateway=3.3.3.3
Manual:Scripting 741

Scopes
Variables can be used only in certain regions of the script. These regions are called scopes. Scope determines
visibility of the variable. There are two types of scopes - global and local. A variable declared within a block is
accessible only within that block and blocks enclosed by it, and only after the point of declaration.

Global scope
Global scope or root scope is default scope of the script. It is created automatically and can not be turned off.

Local scope
User can define its own groups to block access to certain variables, these scopes are called local scopes. Each local
scope is enclosed in curly braces ("{ }").

{
:local a 3;
{
:local b 4;
:put ($a+$b);
}
#line below will generate error
:put ($a+$b);
}

In code above variable b has local scope and will not be accessible after closed curly brace.
Note: Each line written in terminal is treated as local scope

So for example, defined local variable will not be visible in next command line and will generate
syntax error

[admin@MikroTik] > :local myVar a;

[admin@MikroTik] > :put $myVar
syntax error (line 1 column 7)

Warning: Do not define global variables inside local scopes.

Note that even variable can be defined as global, it will be available only from its scope unless it is
not already defined.

{
:local a 3;
{
:global b 4;
}
:put ($a+$b);
}

Code above will generate an error.

Manual:Scripting 742

Keywords
The following words are keywords and cannot be used as variable and function names:

and or not in

Delimiters
The following tokens serve as delimiters in the grammar:

() [] {} : ; $ /

Data types
RouterOS scripting language has following data types:

Type Description

number - 64bit signed integer, possible hexadecimal input;

boolean - values can bee true or false;

string - character sequence;

IP - IP address;

internal ID - hexadecimal value prefixed by '*' sign. Each menu item has assigned unique number - internal ID;

time - date and time value;

array - sequence of values organized in an array;

nil - default variable type if no value is assigned;

Constant Escape Sequences

Following escape sequences can be used to define certain special character within string:

\" Insert double quote

\\ Insert backslash

\n Insert newline

\r Insert carriage return

\t Insert horizontal tab

\$ Output $ character. Otherwise $ is used to link variable.

\? Output ? character. Otherwise ? is used to print "help" in console.

\_ - space

\a - BEL (0x07)

\b - backspace (0x08)

\f - form feed (0xFF)

\v Insert vertical tab

\xx Print character from hex value. Hex number should use capital letters.

:put "\48\45\4C\4C\4F\r\nThis\r\nis\r\na\r\ntest";

which will show on display

HELLO
Manual:Scripting 743

This
is
a
test

Operators

Arithmetic Operators
Usual arithmetic operators are supported in RouterOS scripting language

Opearator Description Example

"+" binary addition :put (3+4);

"-" binary subtraction :put (1-6);

"*" binary multiplication :put (4*5);

"/" binary division :put (10 / 2); :put ((10)/2)

"-" unary negation { :local a 1; :put (-a); }

Note: for division to work you have to use braces or spaces around dividend so it is not mistaken as IP
address

Relational Operators

Opearator Description Example

"<" less :put (3<4);

">" greater :put (3>4);

"=" equal :put (2=2);

"<=" less or equal

">=" greater or equal

"!=" not equal

Logical Operators
Manual:Scripting 744

Opearator Description Example

“!” , “not” logical NOT :put (!true);

“&&” , “and” logical AND :put (true&&true)

“||” , “or” logical OR :put (true||false);

“in” :put (1.1.1.1/32 in 1.0.0.0/8);

Bitwise Operators
Bitwise operators are working on number and ip address data types.

Opearator Description Example

“~” bit inversion :put

(~0.0.0.0)

“|” bitwise OR. Performs logical OR operation on each pair of corresponding bits. In each pair the result is “1” if one
of bits or both bits are “1”, otherwise the result is “0”.

“^” bitwise XOR. The same as OR, but the result in each position is “1” if two bits are not equal, and “0” if bits are
equal.

“&” bitwise AND. In each pair the result is “1” if first and second bit is “1”. Otherwise the result is “0”.

“<<” left shift by given amount of bits

“>>” right shift by given amount of bits

Concatenation Operators

Opearator Description Example

“.” concatenates two strings :put (“concatenate” . “ “ . “string”);

“,” concatenates two arrays or adds element to array :put ({1;2;3} , 5 );

It is possible to add variable values to strings without concatenation operator:

:global myVar "world";

:put ("Hello " . $myVar);

# next line does the same as above
:put "Hello $myVar";

By using $[] and $() in string it is possible to add expressions inside strings:

:local a 5;
:local b 6;
:put " 5x6 = $($a * $b)";

:put " We have $[ :len [/ip route find] ] routes";

Manual:Scripting 745

Other Operators

Opearator Description Example

“[]” command substitution. Can contain only single command line :put [ :len "my test string"; ];

“()” sub expression or grouping operator :put ( "value is " . (4+5));

“$” substitution operator :global a 5; :put $a;

“~” binary operator that matches value against POSIX extended regular Print all routes which gateway ends with 202
expression /ip route print where gateway~"^[0-9
\\.]*202"

“->” Get an array element by key [admin@x86] >:global aaa {a=1;b=2}

[admin@x86] > :put ($aaa->"a")
1
[admin@x86] > :put ($aaa->"b")
2

Variables
Scripting language has two types of variables:
• global - accessible from all scripts created by current user, defined by global keyword;
• local - accessible only within the current scope, defined by local keyword.
Note: Starting from v6.2 there can be undefined variables. When variable is undefined parser will try to look
for variables set, for example, by DHCP lease-script or Hotspot on-login

Every variable, except for built in RouterOS variables, must be declared before usage by local or
global keywords. Undefined variables will be marked as undefined and will result in compilation
error. Example:

# following code will result in compilation error, because myVar is used without declaration
:set myVar "my value";
:put $myVar

Correct code:

:local myVar;
:set myVar "my value";
:put $myVar;

Exception is when using variables set, for example, by DHCP lease-script

/system script
add name=myLeaseScript policy=\
ftp,reboot,read,write,policy,test,winbox,password,sniff,sensitive,api \
source=":log info \$leaseActIP\r\
\n:log info \$leaseActMAC\r\
\n:log info \$leaseServerName\r\
\n:log info \$leaseBound"

/ip dhcp-server set myServer lease-script=myLeaseScript

Valid characters in variable names are letters and digits. If variable name contains any other character, then variable
name should be put in double quotes. Example:
Manual:Scripting 746

#valid variable name

:local myVar;
#invalid variable name
:local my-var;
#valid because double quoted
:global "my-var";

If variable is initially defined without value then variable data type is set to nil, otherwise data type is determined
automatically by scripting engine. Sometimes conversion from one data type to another is required. It can be
achieved using data conversion commands. Example:

#convert string to array

:local myStr "1,2,3,4,5";
:put [:typeof $myStr];
:local myArr [:toarray $myStr];
:put [:typeof $myArr]

Variable names are case sensitive.

:local myVar "hello"

# following line will generate error, because variable myVAr is not defined
:put $myVAr
# correct code
:put $myVar

Set command without value will un-define the variable (remove from environment, new in v6.2)

#remove variable from environment

:global myVar "myValue"
:set myVar;

Commands
Every global command should start with ":" token, otherwise it will be treated as variable.

Command Syntax Description Example

/ go to root menu

.. go back by one menu level

? list all available menu commands and brief

descriptions

global :global <var> define global variable :global myVar "something"; :put
[<value>] $myVar;

local :local <var> define local variable { :local myLocalVar "I am

[<value>] local"; :put $myVar; }

beep :beep <freq> beep built in speaker

<length>

delay :delay <time> do nothing for a given period of time

put :put <expression> put supplied argument to console

len :len <expression> return string length or array element count :put [:len "length=8"];

typeof :typeof <var> return data type of variable :put [:typeof 4];
Manual:Scripting 747

pick :pick <var> return range of elements or substring. If end :put [:pick "abcde" 1 3]
<start>[<end>] position is not specified, will return only one
element from an array.

log :log <topic> write message to system log. Available topics are :log info "Hello from script";
<message> "debug, error, info and warning"

time :time <expression> return interval of time needed to execute :put [:time {:for i from=1 to=10
command do={ :delay 100ms }}];

set :set <var> assign value to declared variable. :global a; :set a true;
[<value>]

find :find <arg> <arg> return position of substring or array element :put [:find "abc" "a" -1];
<start>

environment :environment print print initialized variable information :global myVar true; :environment
<start> print;

terminal terminal related commands

error :error <output> Generate console error and stop executing the
script

parse :parse parse string and return parsed console :global myFunc [:parse ":put
<expression> commands. Can be used as function. hello!"];
$myFunc;

resolve :resolve <arg> return IP address of given DNS name :put [:resolve
"www.mikrotik.com"];

toarray :toarray <var> convert variable to array

tobool :tobool <var> convert variable to boolean

toid :toid <var> convert variable to internal ID

toip :toip <var> convert variable to IP address

toip6 :toip6 <var> convert variable to IPv6 address

tonum :tonum <var> convert variable to integer

tostr :tostr <var> convert variable to string

totime :totime <var> convert variable to time

Menu specific commands

Following commands available from most sub-menus:

Command Syntax Description

add add add new item

<param>=<value>..<param>=<value>

remove remove <id> remove selected item

enable enable <id> enable selected item

disable disable <id> disable selected item

set set <id> change selected items parameter, more than one parameter can be specified at the
<param>=<value>..<param>=<value> time. Parameter can be unset by specifying '!' before parameter.
Example:
/ip firewall filter add chain=blah action=accept
protocol=tcp port=123 nth=4,2
print
set 0 !port chain=blah2 !nth protocol=udp
Manual:Scripting 748

get get <id> <param>=<value> get selected items parameter value

print print <param><param>=[<value>] print menu items. Output depends on print parameters specified. Most common
print parameters are described here

export export [file=<value>] export configuration from current menu and its sub-menus (if present). If file
parameter is specified output will be written to file with extension '.rsc', otherwise
output will be printed to console. Exported commands can be imported by import
command

edit edit <id> <param> edit selected items property in built-in text editor

find find <expression> find items by given expression.

import
Import command is available from root menu and is used to import configuration from files created by export
command or written manually by hand.

print parameters
Several parameters are available for print command:

Parameter Description Example

append

as-value print output as array of parameters and its values :put [/ip address print
as-value]

brief print brief description

detail print detailed description, output is not as readable as brief output, but may
be useful to view all parameters

count-only print only count of menu items

file print output to file

follow print all current entries and track new entries until ctrl-c is pressed, very /log print follow
useful when viewing log entries

follow-only print and track only new entries until ctrl-c is pressed, very useful when /log print follow-only
viewing log entries

from print parameters only from specified item /user print from=admin

interval continuously print output in selected time interval, useful to track down /interface print interval=2
changes where follow is not acceptable

terse show details in compact and machine friendly format

value-list show values one per line (good for parsing purposes)

without-paging If output do not fit in console screen then do not stop, print all information
in one piece

where expressions followed by where parameter can be used to filter out matched /ip route print where
entries interface="ether1"

More than one parameter can be specified at a time, for example, /ip route print count-only
interval=1 where interface="ether1"
Manual:Scripting 749

Loops and conditional statements

Command Syntax Description

do..while :do { <commands> } while=( <conditions> ); :while ( execute commands until given
<conditions> ) do={ <commands> }; condition is met.

for :for <var> from=<int> to=<int> step=<int> do={ <commands> } execute commands over a given
number of iterations

foreach :foreach <var> in=<array> do={ <commands> }; execute commands for each elements
in list

Command Syntax Description

if :if(<condition>) do={<commands>} If a given condition is true then execute commands in the do block,
else={<commands>} <expression> otherwise execute commands in the else block if specified.

Example:

{
:local myBool true;
:if ($myBool = false) do={ :put "value is false" } else={ :put "value is true" }
}

Functions
Scripting language does not allow to create functions directly, however you could use :parse command as a
workaround.
Starting from v6.2 new syntax is added to easier define such functions and even pass parameters. It is also possible
to return function value with :return command.
See examples below:

#define function and run it

:global myFunc do={:put "hello from function"}
$myFunc

output:
hello from function

#pass arguments to the function

:global myFunc do={:put "arg a=$a"; :put "arg '1'=$1"}
$myFunc a="this is arg a value" "this is arg1 value"

output:
arg a=this is arg a value
arg '1'=this is arg1 value

Notice that there are two ways how to pass arguments:

• pass arg with specific name ("a" in our example)
• pass value without arg name, in such case arg "1", "2" .. "n" are used.
Return example
Manual:Scripting 750

:global myFunc do={ :return ($a + $b)}

:put [$myFunc a=6 b=2]

output:
8

You can even clone existing script from script environment and use it as function.

#add script
/system script add name=myScript source=":put \"Hello $myVar !\""

:global myFunc [:parse [/system script get myScript source]]

$myFunc myVar=world

output:
Hello world !

Warning: If function contains defined global variable which name matches the name of passed parameter,
then globally defined variable is ignored, for compatibility with scripts written for older versions. This feature
can change in future versions. Avoid using parameters with same name as global variables.

For example:

:global my2 "123"

:global myFunc do={ :global my2; :put $my2; :set my2 "lala"; :put $my2 }
$myFunc my2=1234
:put "global value $my2"

Output will be:

1234
lala
global value 123

Catch run-time errors

Starting from v6.2 scripting has ability to catch run-time errors.
For example, [code]:reslove[/code] command if failed will throw an error and break the script.

[admin@MikroTik] > { :put [:resolve www.example.com]; :put "lala";}

failure: dns name does not exist

Now we want to catch this error and proceed with our script:

:do {
:put [:resolve www.example.com];
} on-error={ :put "resolver failed"};
:put "lala"

output:
Manual:Scripting 751

resolver failed
lala

Script repository
Sub-menu level: /system script
Contains all user created scripts. Scripts can be executed in several different ways:
• on event - scripts are executed automatically on some facility events ( scheduler, netwatch, VRRP)
• by another script - running script within script is allowed
• manually - from console executing run command or in winbox

Property Description

name (string; Default: "Script[num]") name of the script

policy (string; Default: ) list of applicable policies:

• api - api permissions
• ftp - can log on remotely via ftp and send and retrieve files from the router
• local - can log on locally via console
• password - change passwords
• policy - manage user policies, add and remove user
• read - can retrieve the configuration
• reboot - can reboot the router
• sensitive - see passwords and other sensitive information
• sniff - can run sniffer, torch etc
• ssh - can log on remotely via secure shell
• telnet - can log on remotely via telnet
• test - can run ping, traceroute, bandwidth test
• web - can log on remotely via http
• winbox - winbox permissions
• write - can retrieve and change the configuration
Read more detailed policy descriptions here

source (string;) Script source code

Read only status properties:

Property Description

last-started (date) Date and time when the script was last invoked.

owner (string) User who created the script

run-count (integer) Counter that counts how many times script has been executed

Menu specific commands

Command Description

run (run [id|name]) Execute specified script by ID or name

Manual:Scripting 752

Environment
Sub-menu level:
• /system script environment
• /environment
Contains all user defined variables and their assigned values.

[admin@MikroTik] > :global example;

[admin@MikroTik] > :set example 123
[admin@MikroTik] > /environment print
"example"=123

Read only status properties:

Property Description

name (string) Variable name

user (string) User who defined variable

value () Value assigned to variable

Job
Sub-menu level: /system script job
Contains list of all currently running scripts.
Read only status properties:

Property Description

owner (string) User who is running script

policy (array) List of all policies applied to script

started (date) Local date and time when script was started
Manual:Scripting-examples 753

Manual:Scripting-examples
CMD Scripting examples
This section contains some useful scripts and shows all available scripting features. Script examples used in this
section were tested with the latest 3.x version.

Create a file
In v3.x it is not possible to create file directly, however there is a workaround

/file print file=myFile

/file set myFile.txt contents=""

Check if IP on interface have changed

Sometimes provider gives dynamic IP addresses. This script will compare if dynamic IP address is changed.

:global currentIP;

:local newIP [/ip address get [find interface="ether1"] address];

:if ($newIP != $currentIP) do={

:put "ip address $currentIP changed to $newIP";
:set currentIP $newIP;
}

Strip netmask
This script is useful if you need ip address without netmask (for example to use it in firewall), but "/ip address
get [id] address" returns ip address and netmask.
Code:

:global ipaddress 10.1.101.1/24

:for i from=( [:len $ipaddress] - 1) to=0 do={

:if ( [:pick $ipaddress $i] = "/") do={
:put [:pick $ipaddress 0 $i]
}
}

Another much more simple way:

:global ipaddress 10.1.101.1/24

:put [:pick $ipaddress 0 [:find $ipaddress "/"]]
Manual:Scripting-examples 754

Resolve host-name
Many users are asking feature to use dns names instead of IP address for radius servers, firewall rules, etc.
So here is an example how to resolve RADIUS server's IP.
Lets say we have radius server configured:

/radius
add address=3.4.5.6 comment=myRad

And here is a script that will resolve ip address, compare resolved ip with configured one and replace if not equal:

/system script add name="resolver" source= {

:local resolvedIP [:resolve "server.example.com"];

:local radiusID [/radius find comment="myRad"];
:local currentIP [/radius get $radiusID address];

:if ($resolvedIP != $currentIP) do={

/radius set $radiusID address=$resolvedIP;
/log info "radius ip updated";
}

Add this script to scheduler to run for example every 5 minutes

/system scheduler add name=resolveRadiusIP on-event="resolver" interval=5m

Write simple queue stats in multiple files

Lets consider queue namings are "some text.1" so we can search queues by last number right after the dot.

:local entriesPerFile 10;

:local currentQueue 0;
:local queuesInFile 0;
:local fileContent "";
#determine needed file count
:local numQueues [/queue simple print count-only] ;
:local fileCount ($numQueues / $entriesPerFile);
:if ( ($fileCount * $entriesPerFile) != $numQueues) do={
:set fileCount ($fileCount + 1);
}

#remove old files

/file remove [find name~"stats"];

:put "fileCount=$fileCount";

:for i from=1 to=$fileCount do={

#create file
/file print file="stats$i.txt";
Manual:Scripting-examples 755

#clear content
/file set [find name="stats$i.txt"] contents="";

:while ($queuesInFile < $entriesPerFile) do={

:if ($currentQueue < $numQueues) do={
:set currentQueue ($currentQueue +1);
:put $currentQueue ;
/queue simple
:local internalID [find name~"\\.$currentQueue\$"];
:put "internalID=$internalID";
:set fileContent ($fileContent . [get $internalID target-address] . \
" " . [get $internalID total-bytes] . "\r\n");
}
:set queuesInFile ($queuesInFile +1);

}
/file set "stats$i.txt" contents=$fileContent;
:set fileContent "";
:set queuesInFile 0;

Generate backup and send it by e-mail

This script generates backup file and sends it to specified e-mail address. Mail subject contains router's name, current
date and time.
Note that smtp server must be configured before this script can be used. See /tool e-mail for configuration
options.
Script:
/system backup save name=email_backup

/tool e-mail send file=email_backup.backup to="[email protected]" body="See attached file" \

subject="$[/system identity get name] $[/system clock get time] $[/system clock get date] Backup")

Note: backup file contains sensitive information like passwords. So to get access to generated backup file,
script or scheduler must have 'sensitive' policy.

Use string as function

Code:

:global printA [:parse ":local A; :put \$A;" ];

$printA
Manual:Scripting-examples 756

Check bandwidth and add limitations

This script checks if download on interface is more than 512kbps, if true then queue is added to limit speed to
256kbps.
Code:
:foreach i in=[/interface find] do={

/interface monitor-traffic $i once do={

:if ($"received-bits-per-second" > 0 ) do={

:local tmpIP [/ip address get [/ip address find interface=$i] address] ;

# :log warning $tmpIP ;

:for j from=( [:len $tmpIP] - 1) to=0 do={

:if ( [:pick $tmpIP $j] = "/") do={

/queue simple add name=$i max-limit=256000/256000 dst-address=[:pick $tmpIP 0 $j] ;

Block access to specific websites

This script is useful if you want to block certain web sites but you don't want to use web proxy.
This example looks entries "rapidshare" and "youtube" in dns cache and adds IPs to address list named "restricted".
Before you begin, you must set up router to catch all dns requests:

/ip firewall nat

add action=redirect chain=dstnat comment=DNS dst-port=53 protocol=tcp to-ports=53
add action=redirect chain=dstnat dst-port=53 protocol=udp to-ports=53

and add firewall

/ip firewall filter

add chain=forward dst-address-list=restricted action=drop

Now we can write a script and schedule it to run, lets say, every 30 seconds.
Script Code:
:foreach i in=[/ip dns cache find] do={

:local bNew "true";

:local cacheName [/ip dns cache all get $i name] ;

# :put $cacheName;

:if (([:find $cacheName "rapidshare"] != 0) || ([:find $cacheName "youtube"] != 0)) do={

:local tmpAddress [/ip dns cache get $i address] ;

# :put $tmpAddress;

# if address list is empty do not check

:if ( [/ip firewall address-list find ] = "") do={

:log info ("added entry: $[/ip dns cache get $i name] IP $tmpAddress");
Manual:Scripting-examples 757

/ip firewall address-list add address=$tmpAddress list=restricted comment=$cacheName;

} else={

:foreach j in=[/ip firewall address-list find ] do={

:if ( [/ip firewall address-list get $j address] = $tmpAddress ) do={

:set bNew "false";

:if ( $bNew = "true" ) do={

:log info ("added entry: $[/ip dns cache get $i name] IP $tmpAddress");

/ip firewall address-list add address=$tmpAddress list=restricted comment=$cacheName;

Parse file to add ppp secrets

This script requires that entries inside the file is in following format:
username,password,local_address,remote_address,profile,service
For example:

janis,123,1.1.1.1,2.2.2.1,ppp_profile,myService
juris,456,1.1.1.1,2.2.2.2,ppp_profile,myService
aija,678,1.1.1.1,2.2.2.3,ppp_profile,myService

Code:

:global content [/file get [/file find name=test.txt] contents] ;

:global contentLen [ :len $content ] ;

:global lineEnd 0;
:global line "";
:global lastEnd 0;

:do {
:set lineEnd [:find $content "\r\n" $lastEnd ] ;
:set line [:pick $content $lastEnd $lineEnd] ;
:set lastEnd ( $lineEnd + 2 ) ;

:local tmpArray [:toarray $line] ;

:if ( [:pick $tmpArray 0] != "" ) do={
:put $tmpArray;
/ppp secret add name=[:pick $tmpArray 0] password=[:pick $tmpArray 1] \
local-address=[:pick $tmpArray 2] remote-address=[:pick $tmpArray 3] \
profile=[:pick $tmpArray 4] service=[:pick $tmpArray 5];
}
} while ($lineEnd < $contentLen)
Manual:Scripting-examples 758

Detect new log entry

This script is checking if new log entry is added to particular buffer.
In this example we will use pppoe logs:

/system logging action

add name="pppoe"
/system logging
add action=pppoe topics=pppoe,info,!ppp,!debug

Log buffer will look similar to this one:

[admin@mainGW] > /log print where buffer=pppoe

13:11:08 pppoe,info PPPoE connection established from 00:0C:42:04:4C:EE

Now we can write a script to detect if new entry is added.

Code:
:global lastTime;

:global currentBuf [ :toarray [ /log find buffer=pppoe ] ] ;

:global currentLineCount [ :len $currentBuf ] ;
:global currentTime [ :totime [/log get [ :pick $currentBuf ($currentLineCount -1) ] time ] ];

:global message "";

:if ( $lastTime = "" ) do={

:set lastTime $currentTime ;
:set message [/log get [ :pick $currentBuf ($currentLineCount-1) ] message];

} else={
:if ( $lastTime < $currentTime ) do={
:set lastTime $currentTime ;
:set message [/log get [ :pick $currentBuf ($currentLineCount-1) ] message];
}
}

After new entry is detected, it is saved in "message" variable, which you can use later to parse log message, for
example, to get pppoe clients mac address.

Allow use of ntp.org pool service for NTP

This script resolves the hostnames of two NTP servers, compares the result with the current NTP settings and
changes the addresses if they're different. This script is required as RouterOS does not allow hostnames to be used in
the NTP configuration. Two scripts are used. The first defines some system variables which are used in other scripts
and the second does the grunt work:

# System configuration script - "GlobalVars"

:put "Setting system globals";

# System name
Manual:Scripting-examples 759

:global SYSname [/system identity get name];

# E-mail address to send notifications to

:global SYSsendemail "[email protected]";

# E-mail address to send notifications from

:global SYSmyemail "[email protected]";

# Mail server to use

:global SYSemailserver "1.2.3.4";

# NTP pools to use (check www.pool.ntp.org)

:global SYSntpa "0.uk.pool.ntp.org";
:global SYSntpb "1.uk.pool.ntp.org";

# Check and set NTP servers - "setntppool"

# We need to use the following globals which must be defined here even
# though they are also defined in the script we call to set them.
:global SYSname;
:global SYSsendemail;
:global SYSmyemail;
:global SYSmyname;
:global SYSemailserver;
:global SYSntpa;
:global SYSntpb;

# Load the global variables with the system defaults

/system script run GlobalVars

# Resolve the two ntp pool hostnames

:local ntpipa [:resolve $SYSntpa];
:local ntpipb [:resolve $SYSntpb];

# Get the current settings

:local ntpcura [/system ntp client get primary-ntp];
:local ntpcurb [/system ntp client get secondary-ntp];

# Define a variable so we know if anything's changed.

:local changea 0;
:local changeb 0;

# Debug output
:put ("Old: " . $ntpcura . " New: " . $ntpipa);
:put ("Old: " . $ntpcurb . " New: " . $ntpipb);

# Change primary if required

:if ($ntpipa != $ntpcura) do={
Manual:Scripting-examples 760

:put "Changing primary NTP";

/system ntp client set primary-ntp="$ntpipa";
:set changea 1;
}

# Change secondary if required

:if ($ntpipb != $ntpcurb) do={
:put "Changing secondary NTP";
/system ntp client set secondary-ntp="$ntpipb";
:set changeb 1;
}

# If we've made a change, send an e-mail to say so.

:if (($changea = 1) || ($changeb = 1)) do={
:put "Sending e-mail.";
/tool e-mail send \
to=$SYSsendemail \
subject=($SYSname . " NTP change") \
from=$SYSmyemail \
server=$SYSemailserver \
body=("Your NTP servers have just been changed:\n\nPrimary:\nOld: " . $ntpcura . "\nNew: " \
. $ntpipa . "\n\nSecondary\nOld: " . $ntpcurb . "\nNew: " . $ntpipb);
}

Scheduler entry:

/system scheduler add \

comment="Check and set NTP servers" \
disabled=no \
interval=12h \
name=CheckNTPServers \
on-event=setntppool \
policy=read,write,test \
start-date=jan/01/1970 \
start-time=16:00:00

Auto upgrade script

• Auto_upgrade_script_V3.x

Other scripts known to work with latest v3.x

• Dynamic_DNS_Update_Script_for_EveryDNS
• Dynamic_DNS_Update_Script_for_ChangeIP.com
• UPS Script

LUA Scripting examples

NOTE!
After RouterOS v4.0beta4, Lua support is removed until further notice
Manual:Scripting-examples 761

In v4.0beta3 Lua scripting language is integrated in console. This integration allows users to create their own
functions and bypass several command line scripting limitations.
All examples below require at least basic knowledge of Lua scripting language. Good tutorials can be found here [1]
as a starting point.

Print function
As stated in Lua documentation, 'print' command is not available in RouterOS compared to standard Lua release.
This example will show you how to get back 'print' command

-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Print function
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
function print (...)
local strPrintResult = ""
if ... then
local targs = {...}
for i,v in ipairs(targs) do
strPrintResult = strPrintResult .. tostring(v) .. " "
end
strPrintResult = strPrintResult .. "\r\n"
io.write(strPrintResult)
end
end

Now you can include this custom function to other scripts and use this cool custom print function :)
You can also modify this function to write messages in RouterOS log.

Read and write large files

Many users requested ability to work with files. Now you can do it without limitations.
Create and write to file:

:global newContent "new file content\r\nanother line\r\n";

[/lua "local f=assert(io.open('/test.txt', 'w+')); f:write(newContent); f:close()" ];

Read file content to variable:

:global cnt ""

[/lua "local f=assert(io.open('/test.txt', 'r')); cnt=f:read('*all'); f:close()" ];
:put $cnt
Manual:Scripting-examples 762

Include custom function in another script

This example will show where to store and how to include your cool custom created functions into another scripts

• In router's file root directory create subdirectory named 'lua'

• On your PC create new file named customprint.lua and write this function in it.
• Upload newly created file in router's 'lua' directory that we made in first step
• Now you can test your custom lua function

[:lua "require 'customprint'\n print('hello from custom print function')"]

References
[1] http:/ / lua-users. org/ wiki/ TutorialDirectory

Manual:Lua
Summary
• Version 4.0beta3 introduces preliminary support for Lua scripting language [1]. Integration with console is still in
progress.
• RouterOS v4 RC1 removes Lua support indefinetly

Changes in console
• ':' and '/' namespaces are merged. Lookup rules have been changed so as not to affect existing scripts:
• Without leading ':' or '/' names are looked up starting from the current path.
• With leading ':' and '/' names are looked up starting from the root of the hierarchy.
• With leading '/' current path of all subcommands is set to the path of command.
• With leading ':' current path of subcommands is kept the same as the current path of command.
Example:

/ip address { #changes current path

print #/ip address print
:queue simple print where interface=[get 0 interface]
#this 'get' is '/ip address get', because
#leading ':' does not change current path
#for subcommands
}

• Value of type 'nothing' is gone.

• Command 'nothing' returns same value as the empty command '[]'. It is kept for compatibility with earlier
versions.
• Value of type 'error' is gone, console error handling is unified with the Lua error hadling.
• 'error' command now immedeately raises an exception.
• New value type 'lua', holds arbitrary Lua values.
• New command 'lua' that returns lua function created from the given source string.
• Command can now also be a variable substitution, an expression or a command substitution. Result is evaluated.
Example:
Manual:Lua 763

global a [parse "/interface print"]; $a

($a)
[parse "/interface print"]
[lua "io.write 'this works\\n'"]

• Global variables are shared between Lua and console scripts.

• There is no ':log' command anymore, it is replace by four commands 'log info', 'log error', 'log warning', 'log
debug'. This change was necessary because of the root namespace merge. It preserves compatibility with previous
scripts, but note that name of log topic cannot be a result of an expression.
• '/system script' items has new property 'language' that can be either 'cmd' or 'lua'. 'cmd' is for console scripts, 'lua'
is for Lua scripts.
• New operator '%' that computes remainder.
• Logical operators now treat all values except nil and 'false' as 'true'. Note that empty string, empty array, number
0, IP address 0.0.0.0 and similar values are treated as a 'true', this is consistent with the Lua behaviour. Previously
values of non-boolean type were causing an error.
• Logical 'and' and 'or' operators ('&&' and '||') now use shortcut evaluation. If left hand value is sufficient for
computing the operation, it is returned and the right hand value is not computed. Otherwise, operation returns the
right hand value. Example:

put (9 or (1 / 0)) #prints 9, division is not computed

Changes in Lua compared to the standard release

• Lua base version is 5.1.4
• Number type is 64 bit signed integer. Floating point constants are not supported. Exponentiation does not work
with negative exponents.
• Following patches are applied:
• Byte swapping for loading bytecode [2].
• Patch by Thierry Grellier that adds '&' '|' '^^' '<<' '>>' '~' bitwise operators. Integer division operator is not
included. [3]
• Following libraries are included:
• bitlib [4], adapted for 64 bit integer numbers.
• md5 1.1.2 [5]
• lpeg 0.9 [6]
• Following features of standard libraries are not available:
• 'io.popen', 'io.pclose', 'io.tmpfile'.
• 'os.execute', 'os.tmpname', 'os.getenv', 'os.setlocale', 'os.exit'.
• 'debug' library.
• All functions and constants from 'math', except 'math.abs', 'math.ceil', 'math.floor', 'math.max', 'math.min' and
'math.random'.
• 'print'
• Following changes are made to standard functions:
• 'pairs' now calls "__pairs" metamethod of it's argument, and falls back to 'rawpairs' call. Original 'pairs' is now
renamed to 'rawpairs'. These changes allow simple way of implementing default iteration behaviour for
objects, by providing "__pairs" metamethod.
• math.random without arguments can return any 64 bit integer number. All bits of the result are random.
• "/LIB" is a virtual path that contains additional libraries. This path is not accessible for file operations.
Manual:Lua 764

References
[1] http:/ / www. lua. org/
[2] http:/ / lua-users. org/ lists/ lua-l/ 2006-02/ msg00507. html
[3] http:/ / lua-users. org/ wiki/ LuaPowerPatches
[4] http:/ / luaforge. net/ projects/ bitlib
[5] http:/ / www. keplerproject. org/ md5
[6] http:/ / www. inf. puc-rio. br/ ~roberto/ lpeg/ lpeg. html

Manual:System/SSH client
Overview
RouterOS provides SSH client that supports SSHv2 logins to SSH servers reachable from the router.

Requirements
For this command to be available router has to have system and security packages installed.

Available features
Simple log-in to remote host
It is able to connect to remote host and initiate ssh session. IP address supports both IPv4 and IPv6.

/system ssh 192.168.88.1

/system ssh 2001:db8:add:1337::beef

In this case user name provided to remote host is one that has logged into the router. If other value is required, then
user=<username> has to be used.

/system ssh 192.168.88.1 user=lala

/system ssh 2001:db8:add:1337::beef user=lala

Log-in from certain IP address of the router

For testing or security reasons it may be required to log-in to other host using certain source address of the
connection. In this case src-address=<ip address> argument has to be used. Note that IP address in this case
supports both, IPv4 and IPv6.

/system ssh 192.168.88.1 src-address=192.168.89.2

/system ssh 2001:db8:add:1337::beef src-address=2001:db8:bad:1000::2

in this case, ssh client will try to bind to address specified and then initiate ssh connection to remote host.
Manual:System/SSH client 765

Log-in using certificate

For this to work user has to set up public key on remote end where ssh will connect to. How to do that on RouterOS
you can read here. On local end router, public and private keys have to be uploaded to be used in /user ssh-keys
private when adding private key and user name that will be able to use this key.
Warning: User with full rights on the router can change 'user' attribute value under /user ssh-keys privte

Here private key is created for use for user lala

/user ssh-keys private import private-key-file=id_dsa public-key-file=id_dsa.pub user=lala

Executing remote commands

To execute remote command it has to be supplied at the end of log-in line

/system ssh 192.168.88.1 "/ip address print"

/system ssh 192.168.88.1 command="/ip address print"
/system ssh 2001:db8:add:1337::beef "/ip address print"
/system ssh 2001:db8:add:1337::beef command="/ip address print"

Warning: If server does not support pseudo-tty (ssh -T or ssh host command), like mikrotik ssh server, then
it is not possible to send multiline commands via SSH

For example, sending command "/ip address \n add address=1.1.1.1/24" to

Mikrotik router will fail.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:IP/SSH 766

Manual:IP/SSH
Applies to RouterOS: v5

Summary
This menu controls if ssh server behaviour regarding port forward and authentication methods.

Settings
Property Desciption

forwarding-enabled (no|yes default:no) controls ssh port forwarding

always-allow-password-login (no|yes controls ssh authentication methods, if set to yes, does not remove form allowed methods
default:no) password_login

Example
To use this feature from Linux host using OpenSSH client this command can be used:

ssh reamoteuser@remotehost -L port:remotehost:remoteport

where:
• remoteuser - user of router
• remotehost - router address (if host name is used in -L settings, router should be able to resolve this name)
• port - local port that your host will listen on
• remoteport - port on the router
If user requires telnet to router, but you do not want to allow it to be plain text, Following can be done:

ssh [email protected] -L 3000:192.168.88.1:23

now when user uses telnet localhost 3000" it will log in the router using telnet over encrypted tcp connection.
[1]
Note: we fully support SFTP v3 as described in draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-02.txt other versions can cause
problems

References
[1] http:/ / tools. ietf. org/ wg/ secsh/ draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer/ draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-02. txt
Manual:System/Log 767

Manual:System/Log
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
RouterOS is capable of logging various system events and status information. Logs can be saved in routers memory
(RAM), disk, file, sent by email or even sent to remote syslog server (RFC 3164).

Log messages
Sub-menu level: /log
All messages stored in routers local memory can be printed from /log menu. Each entry contains time and date
when event occurred, topics that this message belongs to and message itself.
[admin@ZalaisKapots] /log> print
jan/02/1970 02:00:09 system,info router rebooted
sep/15 09:54:33 system,info,account user admin logged in from 10.1.101.212 via winbox
sep/15 12:33:18 system,info item added by admin
sep/15 12:34:26 system,info mangle rule added by admin
sep/15 12:34:29 system,info mangle rule moved by admin
sep/15 12:35:34 system,info mangle rule changed by admin
sep/15 12:42:14 system,info,account user admin logged in from 10.1.101.212 via telnet
sep/15 12:42:55 system,info,account user admin logged out from 10.1.101.212 via telnet
01:01:58 firewall,info input: in:ether1 out:(none), src-mac 00:21:29:6d:82:07, proto UDP,
10.1.101.1:520->10.1.101.255:520, len 452

If logs are printed at the same date when log entry was added, then only time will be shown. In example above you
can see that second message was added on sep/15 current year (year is not added) and the last message was added
today so only the time is displayed.
Note: print command accepts several parameters that allows to detect new log entries, print only necessary
messages and so on. For more information about parameters refer to scripting manual

For example following command will print all log messages where one of the topics is info and
will detect new log entries until Ctrl+C is pressed

[admin@ZalaisKapots] /log > print follow where topics~".info"

12:52:24 script,info hello from script
-- Ctrl-C to quit.

If print is in follow mode you can hit 'space' on keyboard to insert separator:

[admin@ZalaisKapots] /log > print follow where topics~".info"

12:52:24 script,info hello from script

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Manual:System/Log 768

-- Ctrl-C to quit.

Logging configuration
Sub-menu level: /system logging

Property Description

action (name; Default: memory) specifies one of the system default actions or user
specified action listed in actions menu

prefix (string; Default: ) prefix added at the beginning of log messages

topics (account, async, backup, bgp, calc, critical, ddns, debug, dhcp, e-mail, error, log all messages that falls into specified topic or list of
event, firewall, gsm, hotspot, igmp-proxy, info, ipsec, iscsi, isdn, l2tp, ldp, manager, topics.
mme, mpls, ntp, ospf, ovpn, packet, pim, ppp, pppoe, pptp, radius, radvd, raw, read, '!' character can be used before topic to exclude messages
rip, route, rsvp, script, sertcp, state, store, system, telephony, tftp, timer, ups, warning, falling under this topic. For example, we want to log NTP
watchdog, web-proxy, wireless, write; Default: info) debug info without too much details:
/system logging add
topics=ntp,debug,!packet

Actions
Sub-menu level: /system logging action

Property Description

bsd-syslog (yes|no; Default: ) whether to use bsd-syslog as defined in RFC 3164

disk-file-count (integer [1..65535]; Default: 2) specifies number of files used to store log messages, applicable
only if action=disk

disk-file-name (string; Default: log) name of the file used to store log messages, applicable only if
action=disk

disk-lines-per-file (integer [1..65535]; Default: 100) specifies maximum size of file in lines, applicable only if
action=disk

disk-stop-on-full (yes|no; Default: no) whether to stop to save log messages to disk after the specified
disk-lines-per-file and disk-file-count number is reached,
applicable only if action=disk

email-to (string; Default: ) email address where logs are sent, applicable only if
action=email

memory-lines (integer [1..65535]; Default: 100) number of records in local memory buffer, applicable only if
action=memory

memory-stop-on-full (yes|no; Default: no) whether to stop to save log messages in local buffer after the
specified memory-lines number is reached

name (string; Default: ) name of an action

remember (yes|no; Default: ) whether to keep log messages, which have not yet been
displayed in console, applicable if action=echo

remote (IP/IPv6 Address[:Port]; Default: 0.0.0.0:514) remote logging server's IP/IPv6 address and UDP port,
applicable if action=remote

src-address (IP address; Default: 0.0.0.0) source address used when sending packets to remote server

syslog-facility (auth, authpriv, cron, daemon, ftp, kern, local0, local1,

local2, local3, local4, local5, local6, local7, lpr, mail, news, ntp, syslog, user,
uucp; Default: daemon)
Manual:System/Log 769

syslog-severity (alert, auto, critical, debug, emergency, error, info, notice, Severity level indicator defined in RFC 3164:
warning; Default: auto) • Emergency: system is unusable
• Alert: action must be taken immediately
• Critical: critical conditions
• Error: error conditions
• Warning: warning conditions
• Notice: normal but significant condition
• Informational: informational messages
• Debug: debug-level messages

target (disk, echo, email, memory, remote; Default: memory) storage facility or target of log messages
• disk - logs are saved to the hard drive more>>
• echo - logs are displayed on the console screen
• email - logs are sent by email
• memory - logs are stored in local memory buffer
• remote - logs are sent to remote host

Note: default actions can not be deleted or renamed.

Topics
Each log entry have topic which describes the origin of log message. There can be more than one
topic assigned to log message. For example, OSPF debug logs have four different topics: route,
ospf, debug and raw.

11:11:43 route,ospf,debug SEND: Hello Packet 10.255.255.1 -> 224.0.0.5 on lo0

11:11:43 route,ospf,debug,raw PACKET:
11:11:43 route,ospf,debug,raw 02 01 00 2C 0A FF FF 03 00 00 00 00 E7 9B 00 00
11:11:43 route,ospf,debug,raw 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF 00 0A 02 01
11:11:43 route,ospf,debug,raw 00 00 00 28 0A FF FF 01 00 00 00 00

List of Facility independent topics

Topic Description

critical Log entries marked as critical, these log entries are printed to console each time you log in.

debug Debug log entries

error Error messages

info Informative log entry

packet Log entry that shows contents from received/sent packet

raw Log entry that shows raw contents of received/sent packet

warning Warning message.

Topics used by various RouterOS facilities

Manual:System/Log 770

Topic Description

account Log messages generated by accounting facility.

async Log messages generated by asynchronous devices

backup Log messages generated by backup creation facility.

bfd Log messages generated by Manual:Routing/BFD protocol

bgp Log messages generated by Manual:Routing/BGP protocol

calc Routing calculation log messages.

ddns Log messages generated by Manual:Tools/Dynamic DNS tool

dhcp DHCP client, server and relay log messages

e-mail Messages generated by Manual:Tools/email tool.

event Log message generated at routing event. For example, new route have been installed in routing table.

firewall Firewall log messages generated when action=log is set in firewall rule

gsm Log messages generated by GSM devices

hotspot Hotspot related log entries

igmp-proxy IGMP Proxy related log entries

ipsec IpSec log entries

iscsi

isdn

l2tp Log entries generated by Manual:Interface/L2TP client and server

ldp Manual:MPLS/LDP protocol related messages

manager User manager log messages.

mme MME routing protocol messages

mpls MPLS messages

ntp sNTP client generated log entries

ospf Manual:Routing/OSPF routing protocol messages

ovpn OpenVPN tunnel messages

pim Multicast PIM-SM related messages

ppp ppp facility messages

pppoe PPPoE server/client related messages

pptp PPTP server/client related messages

radius Log entries generated by RADIUS Client

radvd IPv6 radv deamon log messages.

read SMS tool messages

rip RIP routing protocol messages

route Routing facility log entries

rsvp Resource Reservation Protocol generated messages.

script Log entries generated from scripts

sertcp Log messages related to facility responsible for "/ports remote-access"

simulator
Manual:System/Log 771

state DHCP Client and routing state messages.

store Log entries generated by Store facility

system Generic system messages

telephony

tftp TFTP server generated messages

timer Log messages that are related to timers used in RouterOS. For example bgp keepalive logs

12:41:40 route,bgp,debug,timer KeepaliveTimer expired

12:41:40 route,bgp,debug,timer RemoteAddress=2001:470:1f09:131::1

ups Messages generated by UPS monitoring tool

watchdog Watchdog generated log entries

web-proxy Log messages generated by web proxy

wireless M:Interface/Wireless log entries.

write SMS tool messages.

Logging to file
To log everything to file, add new log action:

/system logging action add name=file target=disk disk-file-name=log

and then make everything log using this new action:

/system logging action=file

You can log only errors there by issuing command:

/system logging topics=error action=file

This will log into files log.0.txt and log.1.txt.

You can specify maximum size of file in lines by specifying disk-lines-per-file. <file>.0.txt is active file were new
logs are going to be appended and once it size will reach maximum it will become <file>.1.txt, and new empty
<file>.0.txt will be created.
You can log into USB flashes or into MicroSD/CF (on Routerboards) by specifying it's directory name before file
name. For example, if you have accessible usb flash as usb1 directory under /files, you should issue following
command:

/system logging action add name=usb target=disk disk-file-name=usb1/log

Manual:System/Log 772

Example:Webproxy logging
These two screenshots will show you how to configure the RouterOS logging facility to send Webrpoxy logs to a
remote syslog server, in this example, located at 192.168.100.12. The syslog server can be any software that supports
receiving syslogs, for example Kiwi syslog.

•
Add a new logging action, with "remote" and the IP of the remote server. Call it whatever you like
Manual:System/Log 773

•
Then add a new logging rule with the topic "webproxy" and then newly created action. Note that you must have
webproxy running on this router already, for this to work. To test, you can temporary change the action to "memory"
and see the "log" window if the webproxy visited websites are logged. If it works, change it back to your new remote
action
Note: it's a good idea to add another topic in the same rule: !debug. This would be to ensure you don't get any debug
stuff, only the visited sites.
Manual:System/UPS 774

Manual:System/UPS
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /system ups
Standards: APC Smart Protocol [1]
The UPS monitor feature works with APC UPS units that support “smart” signaling over serial RS232 or USB
connection. This feature enables the network administrator to monitor the UPS and set the router to ‘gracefully’
handle any power outage with no corruption or damage to the router. The basic purpose of this feature is to ensure
that the router will come back online after an extended power failure. To do this, the router will monitor the UPS and
set itself to hibernate mode when the utility power is down and the UPS battery is has less than 10% of its battery
power left. The router will then continue to monitor the UPS (while in hibernate mode) and then restart itself after
when the utility power returns. If the UPS battery is drained and the router loses all power, the router will power
back to full operation when the ‘utility’ power returns.
The UPS monitor feature on the MikroTik RouterOS supports
• hibernate and safe reboot on power and battery failure
• UPS battery test and run time calibration test
• monitoring of all "smart" mode status information supported by UPS
• logging of power changes
The serial APC UPS (BackUPS Pro or SmartUPS) requires a special serial cable (unless connected with USB). If no
cable came with the UPS, a cable may be ordered from APC or one can be made "in-house". Use the following
diagram:

Router Side (DB9f) Signal Direction UPS Side (DB9m)

2 Receive IN 2

3 Send OUT 1

5 Ground 4

7 CTS IN 6

General Properties
Manual:System/UPS 775

Property Description

alarm-setting (delayed | immediate | UPS sound alarm setting:

low-battery | none; Default: immediate) • delayed - alarm is delayed to the on-battery event
• immediate - alarm immediately after the on-battery event
• low-battery - alarm only when the battery is low
• none - do not alarm

min-runtime (time; Default: 5m) Minimal run time remaining. After a 'utility' failure, the router will monitor the runtime-left value.
When the value reaches the min-runtime value, the router will go to hibernate mode.
• 0 - the router will go to hibernate mode when the "battery low" signal is sent indicating that the
battery power is below 10%

offline-time (time; Default: 5m) How long to work on batteries. The router waits that amount of time and then goes into hibernate
mode until the UPS reports that the 'utility' power is back
• 0 - the router will go into hibernate mode according the min-runtime setting and 10% of battery
power event. In this case, the router will wait until the UPS reports that the battery power is
below 10%

port (string; Default: ) Communication port of the router.

Read-only properties:

Property Description

load (percent) The UPS's output load as a percentage of full rated load in Watts. The typical accuracy of this
measurement is ±3% of the maximum of 105%

manufacture-date (string) UPS's date of manufacture in the format "mm/dd/yy" (month, day, year).

model (string) Less than 32 ASCII character string consisting of the UPS model name (the words on the front of the UPS
itself)

nominal-battery-voltage UPS's nominal battery voltage rating (this is not the UPS's actual battery voltage)
(integer)

offline-after (time) When will the router go offline

serial (string) A string of at least 8 characters directly representing the UPS's serial number as set at the factory. Newer
SmartUPS models have 12-character serial numbers

version (string) UPS version, consists of three fields: SKU number, firmware revision, country code. The county code
may be one of the following:
• I - 220/230/240 Vac
• D - 115/120 Vac
• A - 100 Vac
• M - 208 Vac
• J - 200 Vac

Note: In order to enable UPS monitor, the serial port should be available.

Example
To enable the UPS monitor for port serial1:

[admin@MikroTik] system ups> add port=serial1 disabled=no

[admin@MikroTik] system ups> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
0 name="ups" port=serial1 offline-time=5m min-runtime=5m
alarm-setting=immediate model="SMART-UPS 1000" version="60.11.I"
Manual:System/UPS 776

serial="QS0030311640" manufacture-date="07/18/00"
nominal-battery-voltage=24V
[admin@MikroTik] system ups>

Runtime Calibration
Command: /system ups rtc <id>
The rtc command causes the UPS to start a run time calibration until less than 25% of full battery capacity is
reached. This command calibrates the returned run time value.
Note: The test begins only if the battery capacity is 100%.

Monitoring
Command: /system ups monitor <id>

Property Description

battery-charge () the UPS's remaining battery capacity as a percent of the fully charged condition

battery-voltage () the UPS's present battery voltage. The typical accuracy of this measurement is ±5% of the maximum
value (depending on the UPS's nominal battery voltage)

frequency () when operating on-line, the UPS's internal operating frequency is synchronized to the line within
variations within 3 Hz of the nominal 50 or 60 Hz. The typical accuracy of this measurement is ±1%
of the full scale value of 63 Hz

line-voltage () the in-line utility power voltage

load () the UPS's output load as a percentage of full rated load in Watts. The typical accuracy of this
measurement is ±3% of the maximum of 105%

low-battery (yes | no) only shown when the UPS reports this status

on-battery (yes | no) Whether UPS battery is supplying power

on-line (yes | no) whether power is being provided by the external utility (power company)

output-voltage () the UPS's output voltage

overloaded-output (yes | no) only shown when the UPS reports this status

replace-battery (yes | no) only shown when the UPS reports this status

runtime-calibration-running only shown when the UPS reports this status

(yes | no)

runtime-left (time) the UPS's estimated remaining run time in minutes. You can query the UPS when it is operating in the
on-line, bypass, or on-battery modes of operation. The UPS's remaining run time reply is based on
available battery capacity and output load

smart-boost-mode (yes | no) only shown when the UPS reports this status

smart-ssdd-mode () only shown when the UPS reports this status

transfer-cause (string) the reason for the most recent transfer to on-battery operation (only shown when the unit is
on-battery)
Manual:System/UPS 777

Example
When running on utility power:

[admin@MikroTik] system ups> monitor 0

on-line: yes
on-battery: no
RTC-running: no
runtime-left: 20m
battery-charge: 100%
battery-voltage: 27V
line-voltage: 226V
output-voltage: 226V
load: 45%
temperature: 39C
frequency: 50Hz
replace-battery: no
smart-boost: no
smart-trim: no
overload: no
low-battery: no

[admin@MikroTik] system ups>

When running on battery:

[admin@MikroTik] system ups> monitor 0

on-line: no
on-battery: yes
transfer-cause: "Line voltage notch or spike"
RTC-running: no
runtime-left: 19m
offline-after: 4m46s
battery-charge: 94%
battery-voltage: 24V
line-voltage: 0V
output-voltage: 228V
load: 42%
temperature: 39C
frequency: 50Hz
replace-battery: no
smart-boost: no
smart-trim: no
overload: no
low-battery: no

[admin@MikroTik] system ups>

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:System/UPS 778

References
[1] http:/ / www. exploits. org/ nut/ library/ protocols/ apcsmart. html

Manual:System/LCD
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5+

Summary
Sub-menu: /system lcd
Package: lcd
LCDs are used to display system information.
The MikroTik RouterOS supports the following LCD hardware.
• 16x2 characters (Baud Rate:9600)
• 16x4 characters (Baud Rate:9600)
• 20x2 characters (Baud Rate:9600)
• 20x4 characters (Baud Rate:9600)
• 24x2 characters (Baud Rate:9600)
• 24x4 characters (Baud Rate:9600)
• ax89063 (Baud Rate:9600)
• ax93304 (Baud Rate:9600)
• ax93304n (Baud Rate:9600)
• cfa-631 (Baud Rate:115200)
• cfa-633 (Baud Rate:19200)
• cfa-635 (Baud Rate:115200)
• mtb-134 (Baud Rate:2400)
• nexcom (Baud Rate:9600)
• tw-rc (Baud Rate:9600)
• vitek-vc2025-1 (Baud Rate:9600)
• vitek-vc2025-2 (Baud Rate:9600)
Manual:System/LCD 779

• Crystalfontz (http://www.crystalfontz.com) Intelligent Serial LCD Module 632 (16x2 characters) and 634
(20x4 characters)
• Powertip (http://www.powertip.com.tw) PC1602 (16x2 characters), PC1604 (16x4 characters), PC2002 (20x2
characters), PC2004 (20x4 characters), PC2402 (24x2 characters) and PC2404 (24x4 characters)
• Portwell (http://www.portwell.com.tw) EZIO-100 (16x2 characters)
• Townet (http://www.townet.it/prodotti/remote-control/tw-rc.html) TW-RC REMOTE CONTROL (16x2)
• ax93304n (serial port) new ax93304 model with smaller screen buffer (since v5.8)
• nexcom (parallel port) (since v5.8)

Properties

Property Description

contrast (integer [0..255]; Default: 0) Contrast setting, sent to the LCD, if it contrast regulation is
supported

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Turn the LCD on/off

port (string | parallel; Default: parallel) Name of the port where the LCD is connected. May be either
one of the serial ports, or the first parallel port

type (16x2 | 16x4 | 20x2 | 20x4 | 24x2 | 24x4 | ax89063 | ax93304 | ax93304n | Sets the type of the LCD
cfa-631 | cfa-633 | cfa-635 | mtb-134 | tw-rc | vitek-vc2025-1 | vitek-vc2025-2; • cfa-631/633/635 - Crystalfontz
Default: 24x4) • mtb-134 - Portwell EZIO-100
• tw-rc - TowNet TW-RC
• vitek-vc2025-1/2 - Vitek parallel port LCDs
• ax89063/ax93304/ax93304n - Axiomtek LCDs

Example
To enable Powertip parallel port LCD:

[admin@MikroTik] system lcd> print

enabled: no
type: 24x4
port: parallel
contrast: 0
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd> set enabled=yes
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd> print
enabled: yes
type: 24x4
port: parallel
contrast: 0
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd>

To enable Crystalfontz serial LCD on serial1:

[admin@MikroTik] system lcd> set port=serial1

[admin@MikroTik] system lcd> print
enabled: yes
type: 24x4
port: serial1
contrast: 0
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd>
Manual:System/LCD 780

LCD Information Display Configuration

Sub-menu: /system lcd page
The submenu is used to configure LCD information display: what pages and how long they will be shown. You
cannot neither add your own pages (they are created dynamically depending on the configuration) nor change pages'
description.
Pages will be displayed for specified amount of time starting from the first one.

Example
To display all the pages:

[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page> print

Flags: X - disabled
# DISPLAY-TIME DESCRIPTION
0 X 5s System date and time
1 X 5s System resources - cpu and memory load
2 X 5s System uptime
3 X 5s Aggregate traffic in packets/sec
4 X 5s Aggregate traffic in bits/sec
5 X 5s Software version and build info
6 X 5s ether1
7 X 5s prism1
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page> enable [find]
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page> print
Flags: X - disabled
# DISPLAY-TIME DESCRIPTION
0 5s System date and time
1 5s System resources - cpu and memory load
2 5s System uptime
3 5s Aggregate traffic in packets/sec
4 5s Aggregate traffic in bits/sec
5 5s Software version and build info
6 5s ether1
7 5s prism1
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page>

To set "System date and time" page to be displayed for 10 seconds:

[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page> set 0 display-time=10s

[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page> print
Flags: X - disabled
# DISPLAY-TIME DESCRIPTION
0 10s System date and time
1 5s System resources - cpu and memory load
2 5s System uptime
3 5s Aggregate traffic in packets/sec
4 5s Aggregate traffic in bits/sec
5 5s Software version and build info
6 5s ether1
Manual:System/LCD 781

7 5s prism1
[admin@MikroTik] system lcd page>

Troubleshooting
LCD doesn't work, cannot be enabled by the '/system lcd set enabled=yes' command.
Probably the selected serial port is used by PPP client or server, or by the serial console. Check the availability
and use of the ports by examining the output of the /port print command. Alternatively, select another port for
connecting the LCD, or free up the desired port by disabling the related resource
LCD doesn't work, does not show any information.
Probably none of the information display items have been enabled. Use the /system lcd page set command to
enable the display.

See Also
• LCD Touch Screen control
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:LCD TouchScreen
Applies to RouterOS: v5.19 +

Summary
RouterBOARD 2011U and CCR series devices are equipped with a resistive touchscreen, for quick
access to device stats and simple configuration options. Touchscreen requires pressure against the surface to register
a touch, therefore light swipes and quick/short taps might not get registered (as opposed to a capacitive touchscreen
commonly found on phones). If you find trouble operating the screen with your finger, you can also try a stylus, or
opposite end of a pen.

General Configuration
Sub-menu: /lcd
LCD touchscreen is configurable from the /lcd console menu.

Property Description

enabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Turns LCD touchscreen on/off. When off, it stops and resets stat gathering and closes
the LCD program.

backlight (yes | no; Default: depends on LCD status) Turns on/off LCD touchscreen backlight, LCD program remains working.

backlight-timeout (time interval: 5m..2h | never; Time after which LCD touchscreen is turned off
Default: 30m)

current-interface (string; Default: ) Physical interface which is displayed first in Stats screen

read-only-mode (yes | no; Default: yes) Enables or disables Read-Only mode

time-interval (min | hour | daily | weekly; Default: Time interval of current-interface statistics in Stats screen
min)

Available functions:
• recalibrate - Starts LCD Touchscreen Calibration process;
Manual:LCD TouchScreen 782

• take-screenshot - Creates image of currently displayed LCD screen.

LCD Touchscreen Calibration

Before the LCD touchscreen can be used, it needs to be calibrated at least once. After the first successful calibration,
data is stored on the router. If no calibration values are present, calibration process will start automatically.
During the calibration/recalibration you must touch 4 points drawn on the screen. Three of the points are used to
calculate calibration variables and the 4th point is used to test whether the calibration was successful. If calibration is
unsuccessful, calibration variables are not saved. At the end (after touching 4th point) a message is displayed with
the calibration result.

Take LCD Screenshot

Take-screenshot function allows to create BMP image of currently displayed LCD screen and saves it in File List
with specified name. Screenshots without file name are not saved, screenshots with an existing file name are
overwritten.
Example:

[admin@MikroTik] /lcd take-screenshot file-name=screen-1

Screenshot taken
[admin@MikroTik] >

LCD Interfaces
Sub-menu: /lcd interface
Interfaces menu provide configuration for physical interface display timing in Stat Slideshow.

Property Description

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Sets whether interface is shown in Stat Slideshow

timeout (time interval: 1s..1m; Default: 10s) Time of displaying interface slide

LCD Informative Screens

Sub-menu: /lcd screen
Screens menu provide configuration for slide display timing in Informative Slideshow.

Property Description

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is ignored or used in Informative Slideshow

timeout (time interval: 1s..1m; Default: 10s) Time of displaying informative slide
Manual:LCD TouchScreen 783

LCD PIN Code

Sub-menu: /lcd pin
PIN code number allows to protect sensitive menus on the LCD screen.
The PIN number will be asked if Read-Only mode is disabled and you
add an IP address, reset or reboot the router. Default PIN is 1234

Pin code request

Property Description

pin-number (number; Default: 1234) PIN protection code

hide-pin-number (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to show the typed digits on the LCD screen or hide them with asterisks

LCD screens/modes
Since v6.0, LCD has a menu structure. Menu screens consist of buttons that are used to navigate the menus. A
scrollbar is shown on the right side of the screen if it does not fit on the actual display. The screen can be dragged up
or down to access more options if they are available. At the top of each menu screen is a "Back" button that jumps to
the previous screen.

Startup

If the router has default configuration - user named "admin" with no

password, then a warning on LCD will appear. This screen shows IP's
assigned to the interfaces which could be used to connect to the router.
Otherwise the Main menu screen is displayed after booting up.

Interfaces

Interfaces menu displays all the Ethernet and Wireless interfaces.

Bandwidth usage is shown similar to the All interface graph screen.
From the Interfaces screen you can choose a specific interface to look at.
The following options are available: Startup Screen

• Info - menu which shows information about the interface;

• Registration Table (only for wireless) - menu which shows all the registered clients for the wireless interface and
their respective signal strengths;
• Addresses - menu which lists all the addresses assigned to the interface;
• Stats - menu which allows to jump to the selected interface in the "Stats" screen. You can directly choose to show
Bandwidth or Packets.
Manual:LCD TouchScreen 784

Info Registration Table Addresses Stats selection

Stats
Stats screen shows single interface graphs for RX and TX. Values are updated from right to left (newest to oldest).
Info that is shown: RX/TX rate and packets.
Interface name is shown at the top right, it is trimmed if it's too long
(last characters are cut off). The top right corner shows the time interval
for the values. Following time values are available:
• Min (Minute) - shows values for the last minute. Unit = second.
Vertical line separates first 30 seconds. Total values: 30 + 24;
• Hour - shows values for the last hours. Unit = 5 minutes. Vertical
lines separate 1 hour. Total values: 12 + 12 + 3;
• Daily - shows values for the last days. Unit = hour. Vertical lines
separate 1 day. Total values: 12 + 12 + 3;
Interface Stats
• Weekly - shows values for the last weeks. Unit = day. Vertical lines
separate 1 week. Total values: 7 + 7 + 4;

Motions:
• Tap - tapping the finger against the touch screen without moving it too much.
• If a tap lands into the top right corner of the screen (square box 1/4 of the screen height), info time interval is
changed: Min -> Hour -> Daily -> Weekly -> Min...
• Otherwise a tap cycles through graph info: rate -> packets -> rate...
• Swipe/Drag - while holding the finger down, move in any direction. The changes should be highlighted during the
drag.
• Up - Go to Main menu
• Down - Select All Interface graph screen
• Left - Next interface
• Right - Previous interface
Manual:LCD TouchScreen 785

All Interface Graph Screen

All interface graph screen shows the RX/TX bandwidth usage about all
interfaces. The max values are calculated like this - for Ethernet
interfaces it's the negotiated rate or set speed. For wireless interfaces it's
calculated from used band, channel-width and chain count using the
theoretical values. The goal of this screen is to see how values are
related to each other for a single interface.
Motions:
• Swipe/drag changes are highlighted.
• Up - Back (to Stats screen).
All Interface Stats

Stat Slideshow
Stat Slideshow screen is similar to the "Stats" screen, but the interfaces are switched after they timeout. Settings for
slideshow are stored in RouterOS submenu /lcd interface

Informative Slideshow
Submenu /lcd screen Informative Slideshow screen cycles through screens with various system information:
• Aggregate traffic;
• Aggregate packets;
• Resources;
• System;
• Health;
• Date & time.

System Resources Health

Manual:LCD TouchScreen 786

Log

The Log screen shows 5 last log entries where log action=echo.

Reboot and Reset Configuration

These screens are only available when Read-Only mode is disabled. To

access any of the screens, the Pin number must be entered. If the Pin
authentication is successful, the user must confirm the desired action by
pressing the "Yes" button, or cancel by pressing - "No".

See Also
Log Screen
• Other LCD Display Support

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:System/GPS
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /system gps
Standards: GPS, NMEA 0183, Simple Text Output Protocol [1]
Global Positioning System (GPS) is used for determining precise location of a GPS receiver.

Configuration Properties
Property Description

channel (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Port channel used by device

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether GPS is enabled

port (string; Default: ) Name of the USB/Serial port where GPS receiver is connected

set-system-time (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to set router's date and time to one received from GPS.
Manual:System/GPS 787

Monitoring Status
Command: /system gps monitor
This command is used for monitoring the data received from a GPS receiver
Parameters:

Property Description

date-and-time (date) Date and time received from GPS

latitude (none | string) Latitude in DM (Degrees Minute decimal) format

longitude (none | string) Longitude in DM (Degrees Minute decimal) format

speed (none | string) Current moving speed of the GPS unit

bearing (none | string) The compass direction toward which a GPS is moving

valid (yes | no)

satellites (integer) Number of satellites seen by the device.

Note: The time is not stratum 1 as RouterBOARD devices do not have PPS [2] implemented

Basic examples
Adjust port settings specific for your device
[admin@MikroTik] /port> set 0 baud-rate=4800 parity=odd

[admin@MikroTik] /port> print detail

Flags: I - inactive

0 name="usb1" used-by="GPS" channels=1 baud-rate=4800 data-bits=8 parity=odd stop-bits=1 flow-control=none

Enable GPS

[admin@MikroTik] /system gps> set enable=yes port=usb1

[admin@MikroTik] /system gps> print
enabled: yes
port: usb1
channel: 0
set-system-time: no

Monitor status

[admin@MikroTik] /system gps> monitor

date-and-time: sep/05/2011 07:28:54
latitude: N 56 57' 32.568''
longitude: E 24 9' 11.568''
altitude: -23.600000m
speed: 0.000000 km/h
bearing: none
valid: yes
satellites: 3

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Manual:System/GPS 788

References
[1] http:/ / www8. garmin. com/ support/ text_out. html
[2] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Pulse_per_second

Manual:IP/Traffic Flow
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip traffic-flow
MikroTik Traffic-Flow is a system that provides statistic information about packets which pass through the router.
Besides network monitoring and accounting, system administrators can identify various problems that may occur in
the network. With help of Traffic-Flow, it is possible to analyze and optimize the overall network performance. As
Traffic-Flow is compatible with Cisco NetFlow, it can be used with various utilities which are designed for Cisco's
NetFlow.
Traffic-Flow supports the following NetFlow formats:
• version 1 - the first version of NetFlow data format, do not use it, unless you have to
• version 5 - in addition to version 1, version 5 has possibility to inlude BGP AS and flow sequence number
information. Currently RouterOS does not include BGP AS numbers.
• version 9 - a new format which can be extended with new fields and record types thank's to its template-style
design

General
Sub-menu: /ip traffic-flow
This section lists the configuration properties of Traffic-Flow.

Property Description

interfaces (string | all; Default: all) Names of those interfaces which will be used to gather statistics for traffic-flow. To specify more than
one interface, separate them with a comma.

cache-entries (128k | 16k | 1k | 256k | Number of flows which can be in router's memory simultaneously.
2k | ... ; Default: 4k)

active-flow-timeout (time; Default: Maximum life-time of a flow.

30m)

inactive-flow-timeout (time; How long to keep the flow active, if it is idle. If connection does not see any packet within this
Default: 15s) timeout, then traffic-flow will send packet out as new flow. If this timeout is too small it can create
significant amount of flows and overflow the buffer.
Manual:IP/Traffic Flow 789

Note: Starting 6.0rc14 release setting interface will show RX and TX for the interface. Previously traffic-flow
reported only RX fraffic for the interface and to see bidirecional data it was required to set up more interfaces.

Targets
Sub-menu: /ip traffic-flow target
With Traffic-Flow targets we specify those hosts which will gather the Traffic-Flow information from router.

Property Description

address (IP:port; Default: ) IP address and port (UDP) of the host which receives Traffic-Flow statistic packets from the
router.

v9-template-refresh (integer; Default: Number of packets after which the template is sent to the receiving host (only for NetFlow
20) version 9)

v9-template-timeout (time; Default: ) After how long to send the template, if it has not been sent.

version (1 | 5 | 9; Default: ) Which version format of NetFlow to use

Notes
By looking at packet flow diagram you can see that traffic flow is at the end of input, forward and output chain stack.
It means that traffic flow will count only traffic that reaches one of those chains.
For example, you set up mirror port on switch, connect mirror port to router and set traffic flow to count mirrored
packets. Unfortunately such setup will not work, because mirrored packets are dropped before they reach input
chain.
Other interfaces will appear in report if traffic is passing thorugh them and monitored interface.

Examples
This example shows how to configure Traffic-Flow on a router
Enable Traffic-Flow on the router:

[admin@MikroTik] ip traffic-flow> set enabled=yes

[admin@MikroTik] ip traffic-flow> print
enabled: yes
interfaces: all
cache-entries: 1k
active-flow-timeout: 30m
inactive-flow-timeout: 15s
[admin@MikroTik] ip traffic-flow>

Specify IP address and port of the host, which will receive Traffic-Flow packets:

[admin@MikroTik] ip traffic-flow target> add address=192.168.0.2:2055 \

\... version=9
[admin@MikroTik] ip traffic-flow target> print
Flags: X - disabled
# ADDRESS VERSION
0 192.168.0.2:2055 9
[admin@MikroTik] ip traffic-flow target>
Manual:IP/Traffic Flow 790

Now the router starts to send packets with Traffic-Flow information.

Some screenshots from NTop program [1], which has gathered Traffic-Flow information from our router and displays
it in nice graphs and statistics. For example, where what kind of traffic has flown:
Manual:IP/Traffic Flow 791

See more
• NetFlow Fundamentals [2]
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / www. ntop. org/ download. html
[2] http:/ / etutorials. org/ Networking/ network+ management/ Part+ II+ Implementations+ on+ the+ Cisco+ Devices/ Chapter+ 7. + NetFlow/
Fundamentals+ of+ NetFlow/

Manual:SNMP
Applies to RouterOS: v5

Overview
Standards: RFC 1157 RFC 3414 RFC 3416
Package: system
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP
networks. SNMP can be used to graph various data with tools such as CACTI, MRTG or The Dude [1]
SNMP write support is only available for some OIDs. For supported OIDs SNMP v1, v2 or v3 write is supported

Quick Configuration
To enable SNMP in RouterOS:

[admin@MikroTik] /snmp> print

enabled: no
contact:
location:
engine-id:
trap-community: (unknown)
trap-version: 1
[admin@MikroTik] /snmp> set enabled yes
Manual:SNMP 792

You can also specify administrative contact information in the above settings. All SNMP data will be available to
communities configured in community menu.

General Properties
Sub-menu: /snmp
This sub menu allows to enable SNMP and to configure general settings.

Property Description

contact (string; Default: "") Contact information

enabled (yes | no; Default: no) Used to disable/enable SNMP service

engine-id (string; Default: "") for SNMP v3, used as part of identifier. You can configure suffix part of engine id using this argument. If
SNMP client is not capable to detect set engine-id value then this prefix hex have to be used 0x80003a8c04

location (string; Default: "") Location information

trap-community (string; Default: Which communities configured in community menu to use when sending out the trap.
public)

trap-generators (interfaces | What action will generate traps:

start-trap; Default: ) • interfaces - interface changes;
• start-trap - snmp server starting on the router

trap-interfaces (string | all; List of interfaces that traps are going to be sent out.
Default: )

trap-target (list of IP/IPv6; IP (IPv4 or IPv6) addresses of SNMP data collectors that have to receive the trap
Default: 0.0.0.0)

trap-version (1|2|3; Default: 1) Version of SNMP protocol to use for trap

Note: engine-id field holds the suffix value of engine-id, usually SNMP clients should be able to detect the
value, as SNMP values, as read from the router. However there is a possibility that this is not the case. In
which case, the engine-ID value has to be set according to this rule: <engine-id prefix> + <hex-dump suffix>,
so as an example, if you have set 1234 as suffix value you have to provide 80003a8c04 + 31323334,
combined hex (the result) is 80003a8c0431323334

Community
Sub-menu: /snmp community
This sub-menu allows to set up access rights for the SNMP data.
There is little security in v1 and v2c, just Clear text community string („username“) and ability for Limiting access
by IP adress.
Since SNMP v3, better options have been introduced - Authorisation (User + Pass) with MD5/SHA1, Encryption
with DES.

[admin@MikroTik] /snmp community> print value-list

name: public
address: 0.0.0.0/0
security: none
read-access: yes
write-access: no
authentication-protocol: MD5
Manual:SNMP 793

encryption-protocol: DES
authentication-password: *****
encryption-password: *****

Warning: Default settings only have one community named public without any additional security settings.
These settings should be considered insecure and should be adjusted according required security profile.

Properties

Property Description

address (IP/IPv6 address; Default: 0.0.0.0/0) Addresses from which connections to SNMP server is allowed

authentication-password (string; Default: "") Password used to authenticate connection to the server (SNMPv3)

authentication-protocol (MD5 | SHA1; Default: MD5) Protocol used for authentication (SNMPv3)

encryption-password (string; Default: "") password used for encryption (SNMPv3)

encryption-protocol (DES; Default: DES) encryption protocol to be used to encrypt the communication (SNMPv3)

name (string; Default: )

read-access (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether read access is enabled for this community

security (authorized | none | private; Default: none)

write-access (yes | no; Default: no) Whether write access is enabled for this community. Read more >>

Management information base (MIB)

The Management Information Base (MIB) is the database of information maintained by the agent that the manager
can query. You can download the latest MikroTik RouterOS MIB [1] file.
MIBs used in RouterOS v5.x:
• MIKROTIK-MIB
• MIB-2
• HOST-RESOURCES-MIB
• IF-MIB
• IP-MIB
• IP-FORWARD-MIB
• IPV6-MIB
• BRIDGE-MIB
• DHCP-SERVER-MIB
• CISCO-AAA-SESSION-MIB
• ENTITY-MIB
• UPS-MIB
• SQUID-MIB
Manual:SNMP 794

Object identifiers (OID)

Each OID identifies a variable that can be read via SNMP. Although the MIB file contains all the needed OID
values, you can also print individual OID information in the console with the print oid command at any menu level:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface> print oid

Flags: D - dynamic, X - disabled, R - running, S - slave

0 R name=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.1 mtu=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.4.1
mac-address=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.6.1 admin-status=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.7.1
oper-status=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8.1 bytes-in=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.10.1
packets-in=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.11.1 discards-in=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.13.1
errors-in=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.14.1 bytes-out=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.16.1
packets-out=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.17.1 discards-out=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.19.1
errors-out=.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.20.1

Traps
SNMP traps enable router to notify data collector of interface changes and SNMP service status changes by sending
traps. It is possible to send out traps with security features to support SNMPv1 (no security). SNMPv2 and variants
and SNMPv3 with encryption and authorization.
For SNMPv2 and v3 you have to set up appropriately configured community as a trap-community to enable required
features (password or encryption/authorization)

SNMP write
Since RouterOS v3, SNMP write is supported for some functions. SNMP write allows to change router configuration
with SNMP requests. Consider to secure access to router or to router's SNMP, when SNMP and write-access are
enabled.
To change settings by SNMP requests, use the command below to allow SNMP write for the selected community,
Write-access option for SNMP is available from v3.14,

/snmp community set <number> write-access=yes

System Identity
It's possible to change router system identity by SNMP set command,

snmpset -c public -v 1 192.168.0.0 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.5.0 s New_Identity

• snmpset - SNMP application used for SNMP SET requests to set information on a network entity;
• public - router's community name;
• 192.168.0.0 - IP address of the router;
• 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.5.0 - SNMP value for router's identity;
SNMPset command above is equal to the RouterOS command,

/system identity set identity=New_Identity

Manual:SNMP 795

Reboot
It's possible to reboot the router with SNMP set commamd, you need to set value for reboot SNMP settings, which is
not equal to 0,

snmpset -c public -v 1 192.168.0.0 1.3.6.1.4.1.14988.1.1.7.1.0 s 1

• 1.3.6.1.4.1.14988.1.1.7.1.0, SNMP value for the router reboot;

• s 1, snmpset command to set value, value should not be equal to 0;
Reboot snmpset command is equal to the RouterOS command,

/system reboot

Run Script
SNMP write allows to run scripts on the router from system script menu, when you need to set value for SNMP
setting of the script,

snmpset -c public -v 1 192.168.0.0 1.3.6.1.4.1.14988.1.1.8.1.1.3.X s 1

• X, script number, numeration starts from 1;

• s 1, snmpset command to set value, value should not be equal to 0;
The same command on RouterOS,

/system script> print

Flags: I - invalid
0 name="kaka" owner="admin" policy=ftp,reboot,read,write,policy,
test,winbox,password,sniff last-started=jan/01/1970
01:31:57 run-count=23 source=:beep

/system script run 0

See Also
• SNMP MRTG
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / mikrotik. com/ download/ Mikrotik. mib
Manual:Tools/Graphing 796

Manual:Tools/Graphing
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5 +

Summary
Graphing is a tool to monitor various RouterOS parameters over time and put collected data in nice graphs.
The Graphing tool can display graphics for:
• Routerboard health (voltage and temperature)
• Resource usage (CPU, Memory and Disk usage)
• Traffic which is passed through interfaces
• Traffic which is passed through simple queues
Graphing consists of two parts - first part collects information and other part displays data in a Web page. To access
the graphics, type http://[Router_IP_address]/graphs/ and choose a graphic to display in your Web browser.
Example of memory graphs:
Manual:Tools/Graphing 797

General
Sub-menu /tool graphing
Common graphing configuration can be set in this submenu.
Properties

Property Description

store-every (24hours | 5min | hour; Default: 5min) How often to write collected data to system drive.

page-refresh (integer | never; Default: 300) How often graph page is refreshed

Interface graphing
Sub-menu /tool graphing interface
Sub-menu allows to configure on which interfaces graphing will collect bandwidth usage data.
Properties

Property Description

allow-address (IP/IPv6 prefix; Default: IP address range from which is allowed to access graphing information
0.0.0.0/0)

comment (string; Default: ) Description of current entry

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is used

interface (all | interface name; Default: all) Defines which interface will be monitored. all means that all interfaces on router will be
monitored.

store-on-disk (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether to store collected information on system drive.

Queue graphing
Sub-menu /tool graphing queue
Sub-menu allows to configure about which simple queues graphing will collect bandwidth usage data.
Properties

Property Description

allow-address (IP/IPv6 prefix; Default: IP address range from which is allowed to access graphing information
0.0.0.0/0)

allow-target (yes | no; Default: yes) Whether to allow access to graphs from queue's target-address

comment (string; Default: ) Description of current entry

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is used

simple-queue (all | queue name; Default: all) Defines which queues will be monitored. all means that all queues on router will be
monitored.

store-on-disk (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether to store collected information on system drive.
Manual:Tools/Graphing 798

Note: If simple queue has target-address set to 0.0.0.0/0 everyone will be able to access queue graphs even if
allow address is set to specific address. This happens because by default queue graphs are accessible also
from target address.

Resource graphing
Sub-menu /tool graphing resource
Sub-menu allows to enable graphing of system resources. Graphing collects data of:
• CPU usage
• Memory usage
• Disk usage
Properties

Property Description

allow-address (IP/IPv6 prefix; Default: 0.0.0.0/0) IP address range from which is allowed to access graphing information

comment (string; Default: ) Description of current entry

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Defines whether item is used

store-on-disk (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether to store collected information on system drive.
Manual:Tools/Graphing 799

Graphing graphics in WinBox

Winbox allows to view the same collected information as in web page. Open Tools->Graphing window. Double
click on entry of which you want to see graphs.
Image below shows winbox graphs of memory usage:

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Tools/Profiler 800

Manual:Tools/Profiler
Applies to RouterOS: v5beta7 +

Summary
Command: /tool profile
Standards:
Profiler tool shows CPU usage for each process running in RouterOS. It helps to identify which process is using
most of the CPU resources.

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] > /tool profile

NAME USAGE
sstp 9%
ppp 0.5%
ethernet 0%
queue-mgmt 0%
console 0.5%
dns 0%
winbox 0%
logging 0%
management 1.5%
ospf 0%
idle 87.5%
profiling 0.5%
queuing 0%
routing 0%
bridging 0%
unclassified 0.5%

CPU usage on multi-core systems

On multi-core systems tool allows to specify per core CPU usage. For example, to view CPU usage on second core
use following command:

[admin@x86-test] > /tool profile cpu=2

NAME CPU USAGE
ethernet 1 0%
kvm 1 2.5%
management 1 0.5%
idle 1 96.5%
profiling 1 0%
unclassified 1 0.5%

"cpu" parameter allows to specify integer number which represents a core or two of predefined values all and total
• total - this value sets to show sum of all core usages;
Manual:Tools/Profiler 801

• all - value sets to show cpu usages separately for every available core
Example with both values on two core system:

[admin@x86-test] > /tool profile cpu=all

NAME CPU USAGE
ethernet 1 0%
kvm 0 0%
kvm 1 4.5%
management 0 0%
management 1 0.5%
idle 0 100%
idle 1 93%
profiling 0 0%
profiling 1 2%

[admin@x86-test] > /tool profile cpu=total

NAME CPU USAGE
ethernet all 0%
console all 0%
kvm all 2.7%
management all 0%
idle all 97.2%
profiling all 0%
bridging all 0%

Tool is also available in winbox:

Manual:Tools/Profiler 802

Classifiers
Profile classifies processes in several classifiers. Most of them are self explanatory and does not require detailed
explanation.
• idle - shows unused CPU. Typically idle=100%-(sum of all process cpu usages).
• ppp
• pppoe
• ppp-compression
• ppp-mppe
• ethernet - cpu used by ethernets when sending/receiving packets
• bridging
• encrypting - cpu used by packet encryption
• ipsec - IP security
• queuing - packet queuing
• firewall - packet processing in Ip firewall
• l7-matcher - cpu used by Layer7 matcher.
• p2p-matcher - Peer-to-peer traffic matcher in ip firewall
• gre - Gre tunnels
• eoip - EoIP tunnels
• m3p - MikroTik Packet Packer Protocol
• radius
• ip-pool
• routing
• sniffing
• traffic-accounting
• traffic-flow
• console
• telnet
• ssh
• ftp
• tfpt
• www
• dns
• snmp
• socks
• web-proxy
• winbox
• metarouter-fs
• metarouter-net
• kvm
• profiling - cpu used by Profiler tool itself
• btest - bandwidth test tool
• logging
• flash - cpu usage when writing to NAND
• disk - cpu usage when wiring to Disk
• serial
• usb
• firewall-mgmt
Manual:Tools/Profiler 803

• queue-mgmt
• e-mail
• fetcher
• backup
• graphing
• health
• isdn
• dhcp
• hotspot
• radv - IPv6 route advertisement
• ntp - NTP server/client
• ldp
• mpls
• pim - Multicast routing protocol
• igmp-proxy
• bgp
• ospf
• rip
• mme
• synchronous - cpu usage by synchronous cards
• gps
• user-manager
• wireless
• dude
• supout.rif - cpu used by supout.rif file creator.
• management - RouterOS management processes that do not fall into any other classifier. For example, when
routes added to kernel, internal messaging exchange between RouterOS applications, etc.
• unclassified - any other processes that were not classified.
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 804

Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer
Applies to RouterOS: v5.8+

Summary
Sub-menu: /tool sniffer
Packages required: system
Packet sniffer is a tool that can capture and analyze packets that are going to, leaving or going through the router
(except the traffic that passes only through the switch chip).

Packet Sniffer Configuration

Sub-menu: /tool sniffer
Propertyfile-limit (integer 10..4294967295[KiB]; Default: 1000KiB)file-name (string; Default:
)filter-ip-address (ip/mask[,ip/mask] (max 16 items); Default: )filter-mac-address
(mac/mask[,mac/mask] (max 16 items); Default: )filter-port ([!]port[,port] (max 16 items); Default:
)filter-ip-protocol ([!]protocol[,protocol] (max 16 items); Default: )filter-mac-protocol
([!]protocol[,protocol] (max 16 items); Default: )filter-stream (yes | no; Default:
yes)filter-direction (any | rx | tx; Default: )interface (all | name; Default: all)memory-limit
(integer 10..4294967295[KiB]; Default: 100KiB)memory-scroll (yes | no; Default: yes)only-headers (yes
| no; Default: no)streaming-enabled (yes | no; Default: no)streaming-server (IP; Default:
0.0.0.0)DescriptionFile size limit. Sniffer will stop when limit is reached.Name of the file where sniffed packets will
be saved.Up to 16 ip addresses used as a filterUp to 16 MAC addresses and MAC address masks used as a filterUp
to 16 comma separated entries used as a filterUp to 16 comma separated entries used as a filter IP protocols (instead
of protocol names, protocol number can be used)
• ipsec-ah - IPsec AH protocol
• ipsec-esp - IPsec ESP protocol
• ddp - datagram delivery protocol
• egp - exterior gateway protocol
• ggp - gateway-gateway protocol
• gre - general routing encapsulation
• hmp - host monitoring protocol
• idpr-cmtp - idpr control message transport
• icmp - internet control message protocol
• icmpv6 - internet control message protocol v6
• igmp - internet group management protocol
• ipencap - ip encapsulated in ip
• ipip - ip encapsulation
• encap - ip encapsulation
• iso-tp4 - iso transport protocol class 4
• ospf - open shortest path first
• pup - parc universal packet protocol
Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 805

• pim - protocol independent multicast

• rspf - radio shortest path first
• rdp - reliable datagram protocol
• st - st datagram mode
• tcp - transmission control protocol
• udp - user datagram protocol
• vmtp - versatile message transport
• vrrp - virtual router redundancy protocol
• xns-idp - xerox xns idp
• xtp - xpress transfer protocol
Up to 16 comma separated entries used as a filter. Mac protocols (instead of protocol names, protocol number can be
used):
• arp - Address Resolution Protocol
• ip - Internet Protocol
• ipv6 - Internet Protocol next generation
• ipx - Internetwork Packet Exchange
• rarp - Reverse Address Resolution Protocol
Sniffed packets that are devised for sniffer server are ignoredSpecifies om which direction filtering will be
applied.Interface name on which sniffer will be running. all indicates that sniffer will sniff packets on all
interfaces.Memory amount used to store sniffed data.Whether to rewrite older sniffed data when memory limit is
reached.Save in the memory only packet's headers not the whole packet.Defines whether to send sniffed packets to
streaming serverTazmen Sniffer Protocol (TZSP) stream receiver

Example
In the following example streaming-server will be added, streaming will be enabled, file-name will be set to test
and packet sniffer will be started and stopped after some time:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> set streaming-server=192.168.0.240 \

\... streaming-enabled=yes file-name=test.pcap
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> print
interface: all
only-headers: no
memory-limit: 100KiB
memory-scroll: yes
file-name: test.pcap
file-limit: 1000KiB
streaming-enabled: yes
streaming-server: 192.168.0.240
filter-stream: yes
filter-mac-address:
filter-mac-protocol:
filter-ip-address:
filter-ip-protocol:
filter-port:
filter-direction: any
running: no
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> start
Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 806

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> stop

Running Packet Sniffer

Commands: /tool sniffer start, /tool sniffer stop, /tool sniffer save
The commands are used to control runtime operation of the packet sniffer. The start command is used to start/reset
sniffering, stop - stops sniffering. To save currently sniffed packets in a specific file save command is used.
It is also possible to use quick mode.

Example
In the following example the packet sniffer will be started and after some time - stopped:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> start

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> stop

Below the sniffed packets will be saved in the file named test:

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> save file-name=test

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer> /file print
# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 test unknown 1350 apr/07/2003 16:01:52
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer>

Sniffed Packets
Sub-menu: /tool sniffer packet
This sub-menu allows to see the list of sniffed packets.
[admin@SXT test] /tool sniffer packet> print

# TIME INTERFACE SRC-ADDRESS DST-ADDRESS

120 1.993 ether1 10.5.101.1:646 224.0.0.2:646 >

121 2.045 ether1 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox) 10.5.101.10:36771 >

122 2.046 ether1 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox) 10.5.101.10:36771 >

123 2.255 ether1 fe80::20c:42ff:fe49:fcec ff02::5 >

Property Description

data (read-only: text) Specified data inclusion in packets

direction (read-only: in | out) Indicates whether packet is entering

(in) or leaving (out) the router

dscp (read-only: integer) IP DSCP field value

dst-address (read-only: IP address) Destination IP address

fragment-offset (read-only: integer) IP fragment offset

identification (read-only: integer) IP identification

interface (read-only: name) Name of the interface the packet has

been captured on

ip-header-size (read-only: integer) The size of IP header

ip-packet-size (read-only: integer) The size of IP packet

Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 807

ip-protocol (read-only: ddp | egp | encap | ggp | gre | hmp | icmp | icmpv6 | dpr-cmt | igmp | ip | The name/number of IP protocol
ipencap | ipip | ipsec-ah | ipsec-esp | iso-tp4 | ospf | pim | pup | rdp | rspft | st | tcp | udp | vmtp | vrrp |
xns-idp | xtp)

protocol (read-only: ip | arp | rarp | ipx | ipv6) The name/number of ethernet

protocol

size (read-only: integer) Size of packet

src-address (read-only: IP address) Source IP address

src-mac (read-only: MAC address) Source MAC address

data (read-only: string) IP data

tcp-flags (read-only: ack | cwr | ece | fin | psh | rst | syn | urg) TCP flags

time (read-only: time) Time when packet arrived

ttl (read-only: integer) IP Time To Live

vlan-id (read-only: integer) VLAN-ID of the packet

vlan-priority (read-only: integer) VLAN-Priority of the packet

Packet Sniffer Protocols

Sub-menu: /tool sniffer protocol
In this submenu you can see all sniffed protocols and their share of the whole sniffed amount.
[admin@SXT test] /tool sniffer protocol> print
# PROTOCOL IP-PROTOCOL PORT PACKETS BYTES SHARE
0 802.2 1 60 0.05%
1 ip 215 100377 99.04%
2 arp 2 120 0.11%
3 ipv6 6 788 0.77%
4 ip tcp 210 99981 98.65%
5 ip udp 3 228 0.22%
6 ip ospf 2 168 0.16%
7 ip tcp 8291 (winbox) 210 99981 98.65%
8 ip tcp 36771 210 99981 98.65%
9 ip udp 646 3 228 0.22%

Property Description

bytes (read-only: integer) Total number of data bytes

ip-protocol (read-only: ddp | egp | encap | ggp | gre | hmp | icmp | icmpv6 | dpr-cmt | igmp | ip | ipencap | IP protocol
ipip | ipsec-ah | ipsec-esp | iso-tp4 | ospf | pim | pup | rdp | rspft | st | tcp | udp | vmtp | vrrp | xns-idp | xtp)

packets (read-only: integer) The number of packets

port (read-only: integer) The port of TCP/UDP protocol

protocol (read-only: ip | arp | rarp | ipx | ipv6) The name/number of the

protocol

share (read-only: decimal) Specific type of traffic compared

to all traffic in bytes
Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 808

Packet Sniffer Host

Sub-menu: /tool sniffer host
The submenu shows the list of hosts that were participating in data excange you've sniffed.

[admin@SXT test] /tool sniffer host> print

# ADDRESS RATE PEEK-RATE TOTAL
0 10.5.101.3 0bps/0bps 0bps/720bps 0/90
1 10.5.101.10 0bps/0bps 175.0kbps/19.7kbps 61231/7011
2 10.5.101.13 0bps/0bps 0bps/608bps 0/76
3 10.5.101.14 0bps/0bps 0bps/976bps 0/212
4 10.5.101.15 0bps/0bps 19.7kbps/175.0kbps 7011/61231
5 224.0.0.2 0bps/0bps 608bps/0bps 76/0
6 224.0.0.5 0bps/0bps 1440bps/0bps 302/0
[admin@SXT test] /tool sniffer host>

Property Description

address (read-only: IP address) IP address of the host

peek-rate (read-only: integer/integer) The maximum data-rate received/transmitted

rate (read-only: integer/integer) Current data-rate received/transmitted

total (read-only: integer/integer) Total packets received/transmitted

Packet Sniffer Connections

Sub-menu: /tool sniffer connection
Here you can get a list of the connections that have been watched during the sniffing time.

[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer connection> print

Flags: A - active
# SRC-ADDRESS DST-ADDRESS BYTES RESENDS MSS
0 A 10.0.0.241:1839 10.0.0.181:23 (telnet) 6/42 60/0 0/0
1 A 10.0.0.144:2265 10.0.0.181:22 (ssh) 504/252 504/0 0/0
[admin@MikroTik] tool sniffer connection>

Property Description

active (read-only: yes | no) Indicates whether connection is active or not

bytes (read-only: integer/integer) Bytes in the current connection

dst-address (read-only: IP address:port) Destination address

mss (read-only: integer/integer) Maximum segment size

resends (read-only: integer/integer) The number of packets resends in the current connection

src-address (read-only: IP address:port) Source address

Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 809

Quick mode
Quick mode will display results as they are filtered out with limited size buffer for packets. There are several
attributes that can be set up filtering. If no attributes are set current configuration will be used.
Propertydurationfreeze-frame-intervalinterfaceip-addressip-protocolmac-addressmac-protocolpo
of the test in secondstime between data printoutintarface name or allup to 16 addresses to filter one of listed
protocols, up to 16 entries
• ipsec-ah - IPsec AH protocol *ipsec-esp - IPsec ESP protocol
• ddp - datagram delivery protocol
• egp - exterior gateway protocol
• ggp - gateway-gateway protocol
• gre - general routing encapsulation
• hmp - host monitoring protocol
• idpr-cmtp - idpr control message transport
• icmp - internet control message protocol
• icmpv6 - internet control message protocol v6
• igmp - internet group management protocol
• ipencap - ip encapsulated in ip
• ipip - ip encapsulation
• encap - ip encapsulation
• iso-tp4 - iso transport protocol class 4
• ospf - open shortest path first
• pup - parc universal packet protocol
• pim - protocol independent multicast
• rspf - radio shortest path first
• rdp - reliable datagram protocol
• st - st datagram mode
• tcp - transmission control protocol
• udp - user datagram protocol
• vmtp - versatile message transport
• vrrp - virtual router redundancy protocol
• xns-idp - xerox xns idp
• xtp - xpress transfer protocol
up to 16 MAC addresses to filterup 16 entries
• arp - Address Resolution Protocol
• ip - Internet Protocol
• ipv6 - Internet Protocol next generation
• ipx - Internetwork Packet Exchange
• rarp - Reverse Address Resolution Protocol
up to 16 entries to filter by
[admin@SXT test] /tool sniffer> quick interface=ether1
INTERFACE TIME NUM DI SRC-MAC DST-MAC VLAN SRC-ADDRESS
ether1 3.145 210 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.145 211 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
ether1 3.183 212 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.184 213 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 810

ether1 3.195 214 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)

ether1 3.195 215 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
ether1 3.195 216 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.217 217 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.218 218 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
ether1 3.22 219 <- 00:0C:42:49:FC:EC 33:33:00:00:00:05 fe80::20c:42ff:fe49:fcec
ether1 3.255 220 <- 00:0C:42:A1:6E:47 01:00:5E:00:00:05 192.168.15.6
ether1 3.256 221 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.259 222 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.294 223 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
ether1 3.325 224 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
ether1 3.325 225 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)
ether1 3.326 226 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.35 227 <- 00:0C:42:A8:ED:C2 33:33:00:00:00:01 fe80::20c:42ff:fea8:edc2
ether1 3.391 228 <- 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 10.5.101.10:36771
ether1 3.392 229 -> 00:0C:42:CB:DE:62 00:24:1D:17:81:F7 10.5.101.15:8291 (winbox)

Download Sniffer Results

Sub-menu: /tool sniffer
Packet Sniffer results could be downloaded and viewed as file by specific program (for example Wireshark [1]).

Property Description

file-name (string; Default: "") The name of the file where the sniffed packets will be saved to

To save sniffed result to file set,

[admin@MikroTik] /tool sniffer set file-name=example

Run sniffer with required settings,

[admin@MikroTik] /tool sniffer start

Do not forget to stop sniffer after sniffing is done,

[admin@MikroTik] /tool sniffer stop

Sniffed results could be downloaded from /file by FTP client or Windows Drag-n-Drop (do not forget to use binary
mode, when file is downloaded by FTP).

[admin@MikroTik] /file print

# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 example file 44092 jan/02/2010 01:11:59

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer 811

References
[1] http:/ / www. wireshark. org/

Manual:Grounding
Introduction
The installation infrastructure (towers and masts), as well as antennas and
the router itself must be properly grounded, and lightning arrestors must
be installed on all external antenna cables (near the antennas or on the
antennas themselves) to prevent equipment damage and human injury.
Note that lightning arrestors will not have any effect if not grounded.
Use 1 AWG (7mm in diameter) wire with corrosion-resistant connectors
for grounding. Be sure to check that the grounding infrastructure you use
is indeed functional (as opposed to decorative-only grounding present on
some sites). For smaller devices you can use thinner wire.
1. Only shielded and outdoor usage Ethernet cables should be used,
magnetic shield should be grounded via shielded RJ-45 connector or
via additional wire that is soldered to RJ45 or ground wire.
2. Grounding wire should be connected to RouterBOARD (to the
mounting point where board is fastened to the outdoor box), this wire
is connected to bottom of the tower and connection to the tower is
according to the standards. Antenna grounding wire is connected near
RouterBOARD Outdoor case, this wire could be connected to the same
RouterBOARD grounding wire.
3. Ethernet port ligthing protectors are not recommended, as most of
them are not intended to use for PoE (they are shortening PoE supply).
If protectors are used, they could be placed at the outdoor case, where
RouterBOARD and grounding pads are connected.
Example grounding wire attachment screw on an outdoor case: Shielded cable
Manual:Grounding 812

ESD Protection on RouterBOARD devices

1. Three arrows mark the grounding inside the ethernet port, the shielded cable connects it's shield to these two
grounding pins via the metallic ethernet connector.
2. The middle arrow points to the metal plate inside the port, which connects the grounding pins to the board. The
board needs to be grounded at the mounting hole (put grounding wire on the screw when you mount the board
inside a case). Any surges will go from the grounding pins, to the grounding plate, to the board, and then to the
grounding installation.
3. The two separate arrows show the ESD protection chips on the board - in case there was no shielded cable, to
protect the CPU and other parts of the board.
The protection is not too effective if you only use shielded cable, and don't ground the board itself. You need to do
both things to be successful. See below for possible methods, option 1 is recommended.

Grounding RouterBOARD installations

There are two methods, one of them more effective than the other.
1. Using a Shielded cable + Board is grounded: If you connect
grounding to the mounting point of the RB711 (or the mounting
loop inside SXT door), you don't necessary need to ground the
device at other end of the shielded cable. Just using a shielded cable
is enough. Special PoE is also not needed. This is the best option to
protect against all ESD damage.
2. Using only shielded cable: If you can't ground the
RB711/SXT/other device itself, you can ground the device on the
other end of your shielded cable (switch, router, etc). If you need to
use PoE, the injector with a metal shielding around connectors will
be required, because it allows shielded cable to be used. This
PoE with shielded connectors
method is not recommended, better ground the board itself also
(option 1).
Manual:Grounding 813

Illustrations of the above methods

Method #1 (shielded cable + grounding of the device):

Method #2 (only shielded cable):

Manual:Grounding 814

Note! Even if you don't ground the outdoor wireless device, and only use a shielded cable, you should still ground
the device it's connected to (indoors). Ie. the switch, routerboard or PC.

Manual:Wireless card diagnostics

R52, R52Hn and R52H Power Amplifier damage
If the cards are becoming too hot to touch, when inserted in a RouterBOARD, but are disabled - the PA might be
damaged. This could be caused by user, or by manufacturing problem. To determine, must return to RMA for close
inspection.

R52, R52Hn and R52H ESD damage

Improper grounding can cause ESD damage to wireless cards during storms or other ESD situations. To test if your
R52 or R52H card is malfunctioning due to lightning/storm electrostatic damage, use a multimeter. In case the test
fails with this method, the warranty doesn't cover it:
Damaged card:

Normal card:
Manual:Wireless card diagnostics 815

Testing area close-up:

R52Hn card chain 0:

Manual:Wireless card diagnostics 816

R52Hn chain 1:
Manual:Wireless card diagnostics 817

R52n antenna circuit damage test

These images show how to test for antenna circuit damage. If the resistance between shown points is lower than
infinity (shown as OL on multimeter), the card is damaged by lightning, and the damage will not be repaired by
warranty (don't send to RMA).
This chain is damaged:

This chain is OK:

Manual:Wireless card diagnostics 818

Close-up of testing area:

Manual:Wireless card diagnostics 819

DC shorted antennas
Also make sure that your antenna is DC shorted:
DC shorted antenna. This antenna doesn't need a Coax lightning arrestor:

NOT DC shorted antenna. This antenna needs a Coax lightning arrestor to avoid sudden wireless card damage. Note
the OL (Open Loop) in the multimeter:
Manual:Wireless card diagnostics 820

Manual:RouterBOARD bad blocks

Every once in a while, one can notice a number of bad blocks
appearing in the RouterBOARD resource page. A bad block indicates a
problem to write in one part of the NAND storage device, but it doesn't
affect the performance of your router, and it doesn't give any indication
of quality. According to the manufacturer of NAND chips, up to 5
blocks can be bad when NAND is manufactured, and up to 80 bad
blocks could develop during operation, but it will not disturb the
operation of your router, because complex workaround mechanisms
are in place, that will copy the data to another block and attempt to fix
the bad block.

• Note! If more than a 100 bad blocks (more than 5% in new

versions) should develop in the NAND chip of a RouterBOARD
device, you should try to reinstall RouterOS with Netinstall, and it will reduce the number of bad blocks
Since RouterOS v5.18, NAND is refreshed every few minutes which increases sector writes by ~32 per refresh. This
is to ensure evenly distributed NAND wear, to increase protection against data loss as compared to previous
versions. As the manufacturer of the NAND chip guarantees 100'000 write cycles to the NAND sectors, 32 sector
writes per refresh would mean NAND life is about 100'000 weeks.
If you are planning to use the RouterBOARD as an active caching or logging server, an external drive or a
replaceable memory card could be a better alternative than keeping them on the NAND chip. Note that several
RouterBOARD models support USB external drives and different types of memory cards.
Manual:RouterBOARD bad blocks 821

Important! As you can see in the screenshot above, RouterOS shows you writes per NAND TOTAL, not writes per
sector. This is different than the given 100'000 write guarantee per sector.

Manual:Password reset
RouterOS password can only be reset by reinstalling the router, or using the reset button (or jumper hole) in case the
hardware is RouterBOARD.
For X86 devices, only complete reinstall will clear the password, along with other configuration. For RouterBOARD
devices, several methods exist, depending on our model.

Button reset
Most RouterBOARD devices are fitted with a reset button.
Using: unplug the device power, hold the button, apply power and wait until the USER LED starts flashing. Now
release the button to clear configuration.
Note: If you wait until LED stops flashing, and only then release the button - this will instead launch Netinstall
mode, to reinstall RouterOS.
Manual:Password reset 822

Jumper hole reset

All RouterBOARD current models are also fitted with a reset jumper hole. Some devices might need opening of the
enclosure, RB750/RB951/RB751 have the jumper hole under one of the rubber feet of the enclosure.
Using: Close the jumper with a metal screwdriver, and boot the board until the configuration is cleared.
Manual:Password reset 823

Jumper reset for older models

The below image shows the location of the Reset Jumper on older RouterBOARDs like RB133C:

Note: Don't forget to remove the jumper after configuration has been reset, or it will be reset every time you reboot.
Manual:Flashfig 824

Manual:Flashfig
Applies to RouterOS: v4

Description
Flashfig is an application for mass router configuration. It can be used by MikroTik distributors, ISPs or any other
companies who need to apply RouterOS configuration to many routers in shortest possible time.
Flashfig applies MikroTik RouterOS configuration to any RouterBOARD within 3 seconds. You can "flashfig"
batch of routers, the only thing you need - connect RouterBOARD to network and power it.
Flashfig runs on a Windows computer, Flashfig is available within Netinstall [1].
Flashfig is supported by all RouterBOARDs [2]. It works between computer with Flashfig and RouterBOARD in the
same broadcast domain (direct Ethernet network connection is required).
Flashfig support is enabled on every new RouterBOARD by default from factory (RouterBOARDs manufactured
after March 2010). For older models, Flashfig can be enabled via RouterBOOT or from MikroTik RouterOS console.
After Flashfig is used once on a brand new RouterBOARD, it is disabled to avoid unwanted reconfiguation at later
time. To use Flashfig a second time on the same router, you need to enable it in Bootloader settings.
If RouterOS reset-configuration command is used later, Flashfig configuration is not loaded, but RouterOS default
configuration.

Flashfig diagram shows the procedure of Flashfig,

Manual:Flashfig 825

Flashfig Example
This is a step by step example of how to use Flashfig to set typical MikroTik RouterOS configuration to
RouterBOARD.

Introduction
Flashfig is available from Netinstall,

Requirements
The Windows computer must be equipped with the following ports and contain the following files:
• Ethernet port;
• The .rsc file(s) with MikroTik RouterOS configuration (the same as export/import file);
• The latest NetInstall/Flashfig program available from the downloads [3] page;
The RouterBOARD:
• Flashfig is supported by first boot of RouterBOARD;
Manual:Flashfig 826

Pre-Configuration

Windows Computer
• Run Flashfig;
• Prepare .rsc file, .rsc file is regular/import file, it accepts valid MikroTik RouterOS CLI commands. You can
create .rsc file by any text-editor program (Notepad, Texteditor, TextEdit, Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Writer);

• Assign Boot Client Address, which should be address from the same subnet as configured on laptop Ethernet
interface,

• Browse for .rsc MikroTik RouterOS configuration file to apply to RouterBOARD, highlight the file and Select to
approve it,
Manual:Flashfig 827

• Activate Flashfig server, now it is ready to Flashfig. Note, any RouterBOARD will be flashfiged within the
network, which is powered on with boot-device configured to flash-boot or flash-boot-once-then-nand,
Manual:Flashfig 828

RouterBOARD
• Flashfig mode is enabled on every RouterBOARD from factory by default, which means no configuration is
required on RouterBOARD.
• If Flashfig is not enabled on your router, access the RouterBOARD with Winbox/Console and set the
configuration,

/system routerboard settings set boot-device=flash-boot

or use more preferable option,

/system routerboard settigs set boot-device=flash-boot-once-then-nand

Your router is now ready for Flashfig.

Connect
Connect RouterBOARD and Flashfig computer to the same Local Area Network.

Run Flashfig
• Plug power for RouterBOARD
• Check the status on Flashfig program,

Log shows "RouterBOARD Flashfigged" and RouterBOARD should make sound/LED signal, now it is safe to
unplug the router.
• Flashig configuration was applied to the RouterBOARD and it is ready to be used in production.
Manual:Flashfig 829

References
[1] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download/ netinstall-4. 5b. zip
[2] http:/ / www. routerboard. com
[3] http:/ / www. mikrotik. com/ download. html

Manual:Bootloader upgrade
This page shows how to upgrade the Bootloader firmware of a RouterBOARD device.

Simple Upgrade
• Run command /system routerboard upgrade
• Reboot your router to apply the upgrade (/system reboot)]
Note! If you need to install a different version than included in your "routerboard.npk - Upload the latest
RouterBOOT firmware to your router's FTP, the latest firmware is available on routerboard.com [2] and then follow
above steps.

Checking RouterBOOT version

This command shows the current RouterBOOT version of your device, and available upgrade which is either
included in routerboard.npk package, or if you uploaded a FWF file corresponding to device model:

[admin@MikroTik] > system routerboard print

routerboard: yes
model: "750"
serial-number: "1FC201DD513B"
current-firmware: "2.18"
upgrade-firmware: "2.20"
[admin@MikroTik] >

In this case you see, that there is a newer version of the Bootloader firmware available already inside your current
RouterOS version.

Xmodem Method
If there is no IP connectivity with your RouterBOARD, you can also use the Serial Console XMODEM transfer to
send the FWF file to the router, while connected via Serial Console. From the Bootloader menu it's possible to
upgrade the firmware with this method. This method is the last resort, and should be used only if the first two
methods are not available.
Manual:System/Certificates 830

Manual:System/Certificates
Applies to RouterOS: v6.0 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /certificate
Package required: security
Standards: RFC 5280, draft-nourse-scep-22
Certificate manager is used to collect all certificates inside router, to manage and create serlf-signed certificates and
to control and set SCEP related configuration.
Note: Starting from v6 certificate validity is shown using local time zone offset. In previous versions it was
UTF.

Warning: RSA Key length must be at least 472 bits if certificate is used by SSTP. Shorter keys are
considered as security threats.

Starting from v6rc10, CRL will be automatically renewed every hour for certificates which have
"trusted=yes" using http protocol (ldap and ftp is currently unsupported). Segmented CRL is also
currently unsupported.

RouterOS allows to manage and create self-signed CAs. Implementation was made based on RFC 5280 and all
certificates are X.509 v3.
All certificate fingerprints are SHA1. All private keys and CA export passphrase are stored encrypted with hardware
ID. CA CRL renewal happens at every certificate revocation and after 24hours.
Note: Time and date on routers MUST be correct

General Menu
Sub-menu: /certificate
General menu is used to manage certificates, add templates, issue certificates and manage SCEP Clients.
Note: Certificate templates are deleted right after certificate issue or certificate request command is executed
Manual:System/Certificates 831

Note: If CA certificate is removed then all issued certificates in chain are also removed

Properties

Property Description

common-name (string; Default: )

country (string; Default: )

days-valid (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: )

email (string; Default: )

key-size (1024 | 1536 | 2048 | 4096 | 8192; Default: )

key-usage (list of [digital-signature | content-commitment | key-encipherment | data-encipherment |

key-agreement | key-cert-sign | crl-sign | encipher-only | decipher-only]; Default: )

locality (string; Default: )

name (string; Default: ) Name of the certificate. Name can be

edited.

organization (string; Default: )

state (string; Default: )

trusted (yes | no; Default: ) If set to yes certificate is included "in

trusted certificate chain"

unit (string; Default: )

Read-only Properties

Property Description

authority ()

ca ()

ca-crl-host ()

ca-fingerprint ()

crl ()

dsa (yes | no)

expired (yes | no) Set to true if certificate is expired

fingerprint ()

invalid-after (date) The date after which certificate wil be invalid.

invalid-before (date) The date before which certificate is invalid.

issued ()

issuer (string)

private-key (yes | no)

req-fingerprint ()

revoked ()

scep-url (string)
Manual:System/Certificates 832

serial-number (string)

smart-card-key (string)

status ()

Commands

Command Description

add () Adds new certificate template.

add-scep (name on-smart-card scep-url template) Add scep client. Command takes four parameters:
• name - display name of scep client
• on-smart-card - whether to use smart card
• scep-url -
• template - which template to use from template list

ca-set-passphrase ()

card-reinstall ()

card-verify ()

create-certificate-request () Create certificate request from specified template.

export () Export certificate to file. When export-passphrase is specified, certificate will

be exported with encrypted key.

import (file-name) File name of certificate or key to be imported.

issued-revoke () Revoke issued certificate

scep-renew ()

sign-ca () Sign CA certificate from created template. When signing CA you can specify
ca-crl-host if crl should be used.

sign-certificate-request (ca, days-valid, Generates certificate and key, except that standard parameters are taken from certificate
file-name, key-bits) request. Command takes four parameters:
• ca - name of the CA certificate
• days-valid - validity period
• file-name - certificate request filename
• key-bits - RSA key bits

sign-issued () Sign issued certificate (client, server..etc) from CA and template

SCEP
Sub-menu: /certificate
Standards: draft-nourse-scep-22
Simple Certificate Enrollment protocol (SCEP) was developed based on draft-nourse-scep-22.
The protocol is designed so that any user can request certificate as simple as possible. The protocol allows to issue
and revoke certificates.
How SCEP works
Topology: CL ---- RA ---- CA
• CL - client
• RA - registration authority (proxy)
• CA - certification authority (server)
Manual:System/Certificates 833

SCEP is using HTTP protocol and base64 encoded GET requests. Most of requests are without authentication and
cipher, however important ones can be protected if necessary (ciphered or signed using received public key).
SCEP client in RouterOS will:
• get CA certificate from CA server or RA (if used);
• user should compare fingerprint of the CA certificate or if it comes from the right server;
• generate self-signed certificate with temporary key;
• sends certificate request to the server;
• if server respond with status x, then client keeps requesting until server sends an error or approval.
SCEP server supports issue of one certificate only. RouterOS supports also renew and next-ca options:
• renew - possibility to renew old certificate automatically with the same CA.
• next-ca - possibility to change current CA certificate to the new one. Client polls the server for any changes, if
server advertise that next-ca is available, then client may request next CA or wait until CA almost expires and
then request next-ca.
RouterOS Server also supports POST operation, 3DES cipher and SHA1 hashing. If client does not support these
features then http GET, DES' cipher and MD5 hashing is used.
RouterOS client by default will try to use POST, 3DES and SHA1 if server advertises that.

Client
Sub-menu: /certificate scep client
Properties

Property Description

ca-identity (string; Default:

DummyCAIdentity)

challenge-password (string; Default: "") OTP password on the server used to grant certificate automatically after request.

common-name (string; Default: )

country (string; Default: )

disabled (yes | no; Default: no)

email (string; Default: )

fingerprint-algorithm (md5 | sha1;

Default: sha1)

key-bits (1024 | 2048 | 4096; Default: 1024)

locality (string; Default: )

name (string; Default: ) Short descriptive name of an item

organziation (string; Default: )

path (string; Default: ) Path of certificate located on the server. If server is RouterOS then you should add "scep/"+path
since certificates on server are stored in "scep" dir.

serial-number (string; Default: )

server (IP | IPv6; Default: ) IP or IPv6 address of the SCEP server

state (string; Default: )

store-name (string; Default: ) Name of the certificate which will be used after importing into certificate store.

unit (string; Default: )

Manual:System/Certificates 834

Status Properties

Property Description

ca-fingerprint (string)

req-fingerprint (string)

status (string) Shows the current status of the client. Idle, pending, requesting etc.

Commands

Command Description

renew (ca_client_name) Renew Ca certificate of specified CA client Name.

Server
Sub-menu: /certificate scep server

OTP
Sub-menu: /certificate scep server otp

Transactions
Sub-menu: /certificate scep server transactions
[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Create Certificates
Following is a step-by-step guide to creating your own CA (Certificate Authority) with openssl on Linux.

Generate certificates
Note: Starting from v5.15 RouterOS supports pkcs8 key format. If you are using older versions, to import
keys in pkcs8 format run command:
openssl rsa -in myKey.key -text and write key output to new file. Upload new file to RouterOS
and import

• First step is to build the CA private key and CA certificate pair.

openssl genrsa -des3 -out ca.key 4096

openssl req -new -x509 -days 3650 -key ca.key -out ca.crt

During the process you will have to fill few entries (Common Name (CN), Organization, State or province .. etc).
Created CA certificate/key pair will be valid for 10 years (3650 days).
• Now create private-key/certificate pair for the server
openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 4096
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in server.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -set_serial 01 -out server.crt
Manual:Create Certificates 835

Warning: RSA Key length must be at least 472 bits if certificate is used by SSTP. Shorter keys
are considered as security threats.
And again during the process you will have to fill some entries. When filling CN remember that
it must not match on CA and server certificate otherwise later naming collision will occur.

Note: Common Name (CN) in server certificate should match the the IP address of your server
otherwise you will get "domain mismatch" message and for example Windows SSTP client will
not be able to connect to the server. If clients are only Windows machines then CN can be a DNS
name, too.

Note: If you are using "My ID user FQDN" in IpSec config then "subjectaltname" extension
should be set on certificate, and must match the value set on remote peers "My ID user FQDN".
• Client key/certificate pair creation steps are very similar to server. Remember to Specify unique
CN.

openssl genrsa -des3 -out client.key 4096

openssl req -new -key client.key -out client.csr

openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in client.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -set_serial 01 -out client.crt

To examine certificate run following command:

openssl x509 -noout -text -in server.crt -purpose

Import certificates
To import newly created certificates to your router, first you have to upload server.crt and server.key files to the
router via FTP. Now go to /certificate submenu and run following commands:

[admin@test_host] /certificate> import file-name=server.crt

passphrase:
certificates-imported: 1
private-keys-imported: 0
files-imported: 1
decryption-failures: 0
keys-with-no-certificate: 0
[admin@test_host] /certificate> import file-name=server.key
passphrase:
certificates-imported: 0
private-keys-imported: 1
files-imported: 1
decryption-failures: 0
keys-with-no-certificate: 0

If everything is imported properly then certificate should show up with KR flag.

[admin@test_host] /certificate> print

Flags: K - decrypted-private-key, Q - private-key, R - rsa, D - dsa
Manual:Create Certificates 836

0 KR name="cert1" subject=C=LV,ST=RI,L=Riga,O=MT,CN=server,[email protected]
issuer=C=LV,ST=RI,L=Riga,O=MT,CN=MT CA,[email protected] serial-number="01"
[email protected] invalid-before=jun/25/2008 07:24:33
invalid-after=jun/23/2018 07:24:33 ca=yes

Note: If you want to use server certificates for OVPN or SSTP and use client certificate verification, then CA
certificate must be imported, too.

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator
Applies to RouterOS: v5 +

Summary
Traffic Generator is a tool that allows to evaluate performance of DUT (Device Under Test) or SUT (System Under
Test).
Tool can generate and send RAW packets over specific ports. It also collects latency and jitter values, tx/rx rates,
counts lost packets and detects Out-of-Order (OOO) packets.
Traffic Generator can be used similar to bandwidth test tool as well as generate packets that will be routed back to
packet generator for advanced status collection.

General
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator
This menu allows to set general traffic generator properties and contains commands to quickly start and stop the tool.
Properties

Property Description

latency-distribution-scale (integer [0..28]; Default: 10)

test-id (integer [0..255]; Default: 0)

Read-Only Properties
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 837

Property Description

latency-distribution-samples (integer)

latency-distribution-measure-interval (time)

running (yes | no) Shows whether traffic generator tool is started.

Commands

Property Description

quick This command allows to quickly start packet generator and print the stats output to the terminal. Command also accept several
() parameters that overrides settings in packet template and stream settings. Accepted parameters are duration, entries-to-show,
freeze-frame-interval, mbps, num, packet-size, port, pps, stream, test-id, tx-template
• duration - how long to run the test
• entries-to-show - how many status lines print to the terminal
• freeze-frame-interval - how often to update status to the terminal
The rest of the parameters are not command specific and are described elsewhere. Parameters specified when running quick command
overrides configured values. In case if parameter is specified only for one header then value is multiplied for all the other headers (if
required).

start Commands starts the traffic generator tool in the background. It accepts one parameter test-id
()

stop () Command stops the started traffic generator tool by start command.

Packet Template
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator packet-template
This sub menu allows to build packet based on provided parameters. Based on parameters you can build ip packet
with vlan tags and set udp ports. Raw packet template is generated based on provided parameters.
If you require more low level packet or take full advantage of traffic generator, then please use raw-packet-template
builder to build the packet.
If same type of header is present in packet more than once then header field values are passed as comma separated
list. (For example if there are two ip headers then source addresses are given like "ip-src=1.1.1.1,2.2.2.2").
For quicker header construction many of the header field values are assumed. For example if header stack is
"mac,ip" then traffic generator can assume that mac-protocol value is "ip". Or if "port" or "interface" setting is
specified traffic generator can assume "mac-src" to be MAC address of interface). Assumed values have distinct
names that start with "assumed-" and are read only. Manually specified values override assumed ones.
Note: Assumed values are not automatically updated. New values are assumed after template edit.
"packet-template set 0" is enough to trigger new assumed values

Properties
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 838

Property Description

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of packet you are building.

data (incrementing | random | Specifies how packet payload will be filled:

specific-byte | uninitialized; Default: • uninitialized - packets data (after header) is uninitialized, but not zero. Fastest.
uninitialized) • specific-byte - works together with setting data-byte
• incrementing - packets data filled with "00 01 02 03" and so on
• random - packets data filled with random bytes. Slowest.

data-byte (hex [0..FF]]; Default: Byte that will be used to fill packet payload.
0)

interface (string; Default: ) Optional parameter of packet template. This is mutually exclusive with "port" setting. Specifying
"interface" allows user not to create a port entry for interface in port menu. In fact a port entry is created
dynamically. This is useful for running quick tests.

ip-dscp (list of integer[0..255] Single DSCP or list of DSCP values that will be set in IP header
(max 16 times); Default: )

ip-dst (list of IP/Netmask (max 16 List of destination IP addresses that will be used when generating IP headers.
times); Default: )

ip-frag-off (list of List of fragmentation offsets in IP header.

integer[0..65535] (max 16 times);
Default: )

ip-gateway (IP; Default: ) In situations when sender and receiver is the same device, it is impossible to determine nexthop
automatically from ip-dst. If ip-gateway is specified packet template will assume destination mac address
based on resolved ip-gateway.

ip-id (list of integer [0..65535];

Default: )

ip-protocol (list of IP protocols

(max 16 times); Default: )

ip-src (list of IP/Mask (max 16

times); Default: )

ip-ttl (list of integer [0..255] (max

16 times); Default: )

mac-dst (list of MAC/MASK (max

16 times); Default: )

mac-protocol (list of mac

protocols (max 16 times); Default: )

mac-src (list of MAC/MASK (max

16 times); Default: )

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the template.

port (string; Default: ) Optional parameter of packet template. This suggests a port through which packets generated using this
template should be sent out. Port can also be specified in other places such as in stream settings. This is
mutually exclusive with interface setting.

raw-header (string (max 16 times); Raw packet header as string in hexadecimal format.
Default: )

udp-dst-port (list of port

[0..65535]/mask [0..FFFF] (max 16
times); Default: )

udp-src-port (list of port

[0..65535]/mask [0..FFFF] (max 16
times); Default: )
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 839

vlan-id (; Default: )

vlan-priority (; Default: )

vlan-protocol (; Default: )

header-stack (list of ip | mac | Sequence of headers that a generated packet should have.
raw | udp | vlan (max 16 times); Currently supports:
Default: ip)
• mac - Ethernet header (14 bytes)
• vlan - Ethernet VLAN tag (4 bytes)
• ip - IPv4 header (20 bytes)
• udp - UDP header (8 bytes)
• raw - arbitrary bytes specified as hex string
Most header types can be present in header multiple times. There can be only 2 ip headers and 1 udp header
per packet. Some limitations are imposed on possible sequences of headers based on our practical
experience with network protocols (for example vlan header can follow only a mac header or other vlan
header).
Traffic generator suggests first header for a packet template (in port menu). But it is not enforced.

Port Configuration
Sub-menu /tool packet-generator port
This menu allows to configure ports that will be associated to specific interface and will be used to receive/send
generated packets.
Properties

Property Description

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether port is disabled and does not participate in receiving/sending of the packets

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the port

interface (string; Default: ) Name of the interface associated with the port.

Read-Only Properties

Property Description

dynamic (yes | no) Whether port configuration is generated automatically.

first-header (ip | mac | raw | Shows suggested first header for packets to be sent out of specified interface. This is information can be
udp | vlan) used when creating packet templates.

inactive (yes | no) Whether port is inactive and can't participate in tx/rx of the packets.

Stats
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator stats
If traffic generator is not running in quick mode then all statistics about the test is stored in this menu.

Latency Distribution
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator stats latency-distribution
This sub-menu shows how many packets are received in specific latency range. Latency range can be viewed by
streams or by sequences (for example, print stream-num=3, print seq=10)
Here is an example output of the latency graph:
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 840

[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator stats latency-distribution> print

# LATENCY COUNT SHARE GRAPH
0 0-15.5us 0 0%
1 15.5us-31us 0 0%
2 31us-46.5us 0 0%
3 46.5us-62.1us 0 0%
4 62.1us-77.6us 0 0%
5 77.6us-93.1us 0 0%
6 93.1us-109us 0 0%
7 109us-124us 0 0%
8 124us-140us 0 0%
9 140us-155us 0 0%
10 155us-171us 0 0%
11 171us-186us 4 0% *
12 186us-202us 29 0% *
13 202us-217us 90 0.001% *
14 217us-233us 302 0.004% *
15 233us-248us 630 0.009% *
16 248us-264us 789 0.011% *
17 264us-279us 1 384 0.021% -*
18 279us-295us 1 990 0.03% --*
19 295us-310us 2 966 0.045% ---*
20 310us-326us 4 089 0.062% -----*
21 326us-341us 4 958 0.075% ------*
22 341us-357us 6 059 0.091% -------*
23 357us-372us 6 660 0.101% --------*
24 372us-388us 8 320 0.126% ----------*
25 388us-403us 9 988 0.151% -------------*
26 403us-419us 11 781 0.178% ---------------*
27 419us-434us 12 512 0.189% ----------------*
28 434us-450us 13 836 0.21% -----------------*
29 450us-465us 15 681 0.238% --------------------*
30 465us-481us 17 740 0.269% ----------------------*
31 481us-496us 19 913 0.302% --------------------------*
32 496us-512us 21 106 0.32% ---------------------------*
33 512us-528us 22 848 0.346% -----------------------------*
34 528us-543us 25 059 0.38% --------------------------------*
35 543us-559us 26 593 0.403% ----------------------------------*
36 559us-574us 27 663 0.419% -----------------------------------*
37 574us-590us 29 351 0.445% -------------------------------------*
38 590us-605us 31 265 0.474% ----------------------------------------*
39 605us-621us 33 224 0.504% -------------------------------------------*
40 621us-636us 34 464 0.523% --------------------------------------------*
41 636us-652us 35 630 0.54% ----------------------------------------------*
42 652us-667us 37 245 0.565% ------------------------------------------------*
43 667us-683us 38 158 0.579% -------------------------------------------------*
44 683us-698us 38 626 0.586% --------------------------------------------------*
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 841

45 698us-714us 38 985 0.591% --------------------------------------------------*

46 714us-729us 39 061 0.592% --------------------------------------------------*
47 729us-745us 39 750 0.603% ---------------------------------------------------*
48 745us-760us 39 145 0.594% --------------------------------------------------*
49 760us-776us 39 162 0.594% --------------------------------------------------*
50 776us-791us 38 197 0.579% -------------------------------------------------*
51 791us-807us 37 811 0.573% -------------------------------------------------*
52 807us-822us 37 364 0.567% ------------------------------------------------*
53 822us-838us 36 770 0.558% -----------------------------------------------*
54 838us-853us 35 831 0.543% ----------------------------------------------*
55 853us-869us 35 380 0.536% ----------------------------------------------*
56 869us-884us 34 472 0.523% --------------------------------------------*
57 884us-900us 33 672 0.511% -------------------------------------------*
58 900us-915us 33 799 0.513% --------------------------------------------*
59 915us-931us 32 754 0.497% ------------------------------------------*
60 931us-946us 32 339 0.49% ------------------------------------------*
61 946us-962us 32 419 0.492% ------------------------------------------*
62 962us-977us 32 107 0.487% -----------------------------------------*
63 977us-993us 31 552 0.478% -----------------------------------------*
64 0-993us 1 221 523 18.54%

Properties

Property Description

count (integer) Number of packets in current latency range

graph (string) graphical representation of share

latency (string) latency range

share (precent) Percentage of packets falling in this latency range.

Stream Stats
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator stats stream
This sub-menu stores statistics sorted by streams. Output is the same as in quick mode.

[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator stats stream> print

# SEQ NUM TX-PACKET TX-RATE RX-PACKET RX-RATE LOST-PACKET LOST-RATE
0 1 3 43 064 499.5Mbps 25 180 292.0Mbps 17 884 207.4Mbps
1 1 4 43 062 499.5Mbps 39 946 463.3Mbps 3 116 36.1Mbps
2 1 TOT 86 126 999.0Mbps 65 126 755.4Mbps 21 000 243.6Mbps
3 2 3 43 544 505.1Mbps 30 449 353.2Mbps 13 095 151.9Mbps
4 2 4 43 543 505.0Mbps 42 982 498.5Mbps 561 6.5Mbps
5 2 TOT 87 087 1010.2... 73 431 851.7Mbps 13 656 158.4Mbps

...

59 20 TOT 87 277 1012.4... 73 755 855.5Mbps 13 522 156.8Mbps

60 21 3 43 546 505.1Mbps 30 605 355.0Mbps 12 941 150.1Mbps
61 21 4 43 546 505.1Mbps 42 682 495.1Mbps 864 10.0Mbps
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 842

62 21 TOT 87 092 1010.2... 73 287 850.1Mbps 13 805 160.1Mbps

63 TOT 3 913 942 504.8Mbps 629 210 347.5Mbps 284 732 157.2Mbps
64 TOT 4 913 939 504.8Mbps 898 374 496.2Mbps 15 565 8.5Mbps
65 TOT TOT 1 827 881 1009.6... 1 527 584 843.8Mbps 300 297 165.8Mbps

[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator stats stre

Port Stats
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator stats port
This sub-menu stores statistics sorted by rx/tx ports.
[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator stats port> print
# SEQ PORT RX-UNK-PACKET RX-UNK-BYTE RX-UNK... TX-PACKET TX-RATE RX-PACKET
0 1 port0:et... 0 0 0bps 43 064 499.5Mbps 39 946
1 1 port1:et... 0 0 0bps 43 062 499.5Mbps 25 180
2 1 TOT 0 0 0bps 86 126 999.0Mbps 65 126
3 2 port0:et... 0 0 0bps 43 544 505.1Mbps 42 982
4 2 port1:et... 0 0 0bps 43 543 505.0Mbps 30 449
5 2 TOT 0 0 0bps 87 087 1010.2... 73 431
6 3 port0:et... 0 0 0bps 43 540 505.0Mbps 42 615
7 3 port1:et... 0 0 0bps 43 540 505.0Mbps 30 191
8 3 TOT 0 0 0bps 87 080 1010.1... 72 806

Raw Stats
Sub-menu /tool traffic-generator stats raw
This sub-menu stores raw statistics data.
[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator stats raw> print
# SEQ PORT NUM TX-PACKET TX-RATE RX-PACKET RX-RATE LOST-PACKET LOST-RATE
0 1 port0:e... 3 43 064 499.5Mbps 0 0bps 43 064 499.5Mbps
1 1 port1:e... 3 0 0bps 25 180 292.0Mbps -25 180 292.0Mbps
2 1 TOT 3 43 064 499.5Mbps 25 180 292.0Mbps 17 884 207.4Mbps
3 1 port0:e... 4 0 0bps 39 946 463.3Mbps -39 946 463.3Mbps
4 1 port1:e... 4 43 062 499.5Mbps 0 0bps 43 062 499.5Mbps
5 1 TOT 4 43 062 499.5Mbps 39 946 463.3Mbps 3 116 36.1Mbps
6 1 port0:e... TOT 43 064 499.5Mbps 39 946 463.3Mbps 3 118 36.1Mbps
7 1 port1:e... TOT 43 062 499.5Mbps 25 180 292.0Mbps 17 882 207.4Mbps
8 2 port0:e... 3 43 544 505.1Mbps 0 0bps 43 544 505.1Mbps
9 2 port1:e... 3 0 0bps 30 449 353.2Mbps -30 449 353.2Mbps
10 2 TOT 3 43 544 505.1Mbps 30 449 353.2Mbps 13 095 151.9Mbps
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 843

Streams
Properties

Property Description

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether stream is disabled

mbps (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Value in Mega bits per second that stream will try to generate.

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the stream.

num (integer [0..15]; Default: 0)

packet-size (integer[1..65535] Generated size of the packets in bytes. Can be set as the range for random packet size
[-integer[1..65535]]; Default: 0) generation.

port (string; Default: ) Name of the port from Port menu that will be used to transmit packets.

pps (integer [0..4294967295]; Default: 0) Packets per second that stream will try to generate.

tx-template (string; Default: ) Name of the packet template from packet-template or raw-packet-template menus used as
the packet content source.

Configuration Examples

IpSec tunnel performance test

Consider following test setup

System Under Test (SUT) consists of two routers connected to traffic generator server. Connection between both
SUT routers are IPSec encrypted.
Traffic generator will run two streams:
• in direction from 1.1.1.0/24 network to 2.2.2.0/24 network
• in direction from 2.2.2.0/24 network to 1.1.1.0/24 network.
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 844

R1 routing and ipsec setup

/ip address
add address=192.168.33.1/30 interface=ether1
add address=1.1.1.2/24 interface=ether2

/ip route
add dst-address=2.2.2.0/24 gateway=192.168.33.2

/ip ipsec proposal

set default enc-algorithms=aes-128

/ip ipsec peer

add address=192.168.33.2 secret=123

/ip ipsec policy

add sa-src-address=192.168.33.1 sa-dst-address=192.168.33.2 \
src-address=1.1.1.0/24 dst-address=2.2.2.0/24 tunnel=yes

R2 routing and ipsec setup

/ip address
add address=192.168.33.2/30 interface=ether1
add address=2.2.2.2/24 interface=ether2

/ip route
add dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 gateway=192.168.33.1

/ip ipsec proposal

set default enc-algorithms=aes-128

/ip ipsec peer

add address=192.168.33.1 secret=123

/ip ipsec policy

add sa-src-address=192.168.33.2 sa-dst-address=192.168.33.1 \
src-address=2.2.2.0/24 dst-address=1.1.1.0/24 tunnel=yes

Traffig generator server setup

/ip address
add address=1.1.1.1/24 interface=ether2
add address=2.2.2.1/24 interface=ether3

First we will define which ports will be used as traffic generator tx/rx ports

/tool traffic-generator port

add disabled=no interface=ether2 name=port0
add disabled=no interface=ether3 name=port1

To construct actual packet that will be generated, packet-template is used.

Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 845

/tool traffic-generator packet-template

add header-stack=mac,ip,udp ip-dst=2.2.2.1/32 ip-gateway=1.1.1.2 ip-src=1.1.1.1/32 \
name=routing-1 port=port0
add header-stack=mac,ip,udp ip-dst=1.1.1.1/25 ip-gateway=2.2.2.2 ip-src=2.2.2.1/32 \
name=routing-2 port=port1

Notice that mac addresses was not specified since template generator can assume next-hop mac address
automatically by sending ARP messages. Since we are doing routing and destination IP is not directly reachable, we
have set ip-gateway parameter to determine next-hop mac-address.
When running print you can see all assumed (detected) values including mac addresses.

[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator packet-template> print

0 name="routing-1" header-stack=mac,ip,udp port=port0
assumed-mac-dst=00:0C:42:00:38:9D assumed-mac-src=00:0C:42:40:94:25
assumed-mac-protocol=ip assumed-ip-dscp=0 assumed-ip-id=0
assumed-ip-frag-off=0 assumed-ip-ttl=64 assumed-ip-protocol=udp
ip-src=1.1.1.1/32 ip-dst=2.2.2.1/32 assumed-udp-src-port=100
assumed-udp-dst-port=200 ip-gateway=1.1.1.2 data=uninitialized data-byte=0

1 name="routing-2" header-stack=mac,ip,udp port=port1

assumed-mac-dst=00:0C:42:00:38:D1 assumed-mac-src=00:0C:42:40:94:26
assumed-mac-protocol=ip assumed-ip-dscp=0 assumed-ip-id=0
assumed-ip-frag-off=0 assumed-ip-ttl=64 assumed-ip-protocol=udp
ip-src=2.2.2.1/32 ip-dst=1.1.1.1/32 assumed-udp-src-port=100
assumed-udp-dst-port=200 ip-gateway=2.2.2.2 data=uninitialized data-byte=0

For example if any router in SUT change, assumed mac-addresses will not be updated automatically. To update
packet templates simply issue command :
/tool traffic-generator packet-template set [find]
Last part is to configure streams

/tool traffic-generator stream

add disabled=no mbps=500 name=str1 num=3 packet-size=1450 port=port0 pps=0 \
tx-template=routing-1
add disabled=no mbps=500 name=str3 num=4 packet-size=1450 port=port1 pps=0 \
tx-template=routing-2

Notice that each stream has unique num value. This value identifies stream packets, otherwise traffic generator will
not work.
Now we are ready to run the test. In this case quick mode will be used:
[admin@test-host] /tool traffic-generator> quick mbps=450
SEQ NUM TX-PACKET TX-RATE RX-PACKET RX-RATE RX-OOO LOST-PACKET LOST-RATE
37 4 39 488 458.0Mbps 39 270 455.5Mbps 15 509 218 2.5Mbps
37 TOT 78 976 916.1Mbps 76 485 887.2Mbps 22 529 2 491 28.8Mbps
38 3 38 957 451.9Mbps 37 657 436.8Mbps 7 078 1 300 15.0Mbps
38 4 38 958 451.9Mbps 38 402 445.4Mbps 14 763 556 6.4Mbps
38 TOT 77 915 903.8Mbps 76 059 882.2Mbps 21 841 1 856 21.5Mbps
39 3 38 816 450.2Mbps 37 893 439.5Mbps 7 307 923 10.7Mbps
Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator 846

39 4 38 815 450.2Mbps 38 642 448.2Mbps 15 110 173 2.0Mbps

39 TOT 77 631 900.5Mbps 76 535 887.8Mbps 22 417 1 096 12.7Mbps
40 3 39 779 461.4Mbps 37 415 434.0Mbps 7 136 2 364 27.4Mbps
40 4 39 780 461.4Mbps 39 567 458.9Mbps 15 908 213 2.4Mbps
40 TOT 79 559 922.8Mbps 76 982 892.9Mbps 23 044 2 577 29.8Mbps
41 3 39 218 454.9Mbps 37 089 430.2Mbps 7 075 2 129 24.6Mbps
41 4 39 218 454.9Mbps 38 663 448.4Mbps 15 752 555 6.4Mbps
41 TOT 78 436 909.8Mbps 75 752 878.7Mbps 22 827 2 684 31.1Mbps
42 3 39 188 454.5Mbps 37 906 439.7Mbps 6 729 1 282 14.8Mbps
42 4 39 187 454.5Mbps 38 954 451.8Mbps 15 565 233 2.7Mbps
42 TOT 78 375 909.1Mbps 76 860 891.5Mbps 22 294 1 515 17.5Mbps
TOT 3 1 645 468 454.4Mbps 1 568 201 433.1Mbps 280 174 77 267 21.3Mbps
TOT 4 1 645 464 454.4Mbps 1 626 896 449.3Mbps 627 480 18 568 5.1Mbps
TOT TOT 3 290 932 908.9Mbps 3 195 097 882.4Mbps 907 654 95 835 26.4Mbps

Stats shows throughput of each stream and total throughput of both streams, Out-of-order packet count, Lost rate,
latency and jitter.
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Manual:Tools/Bandwidth Test
Applies to RouterOS: v2.9, v3, v4+

Summary
Sub-menu: /tool
Packages required: system
The Bandwidth Tester can be used to measure the throughput to another MikroTik router (either wired or wireless)
and thereby help to discover network "bottlenecks".
The TCP test uses the standard TCP protocol with acknowledgments and follows the TCP algorithm on how many
packets to send according to latency, dropped packets, and other features in the TCP algorithm. Please review the
TCP protocol for details on its internal speed settings and how to analyze its behavior. Statistics for throughput are
calculated using the entire size of the TCP data stream. As acknowledgments are an internal working of TCP, their
size and usage of the link are not included in the throughput statistics. Therefore this statistic is not as reliable as the
UDP statistic when estimating throughput.
The UDP tester sends 110% or more packets than currently reported as received on the other side of the link. To see
the maximum throughput of a link, the packet size should be set for the maximum MTU allowed by the links which
is usually 1500 bytes. There is no acknowledgment required by UDP; this implementation means that the closest
approximation of the throughput can be seen.
Manual:Tools/Bandwidth Test 847

Warning: Bandwidth Test uses all available bandwidth (by default) and may impact network usability.

Note: Bandwidth Test uses a lot of resources. If you want to test real throughput of a router, you should run
bandwidth test through the tested router not from or to it. To do this you need at least 3 routers connected in
chain: the Bandwidth Server, the router being tested and the Bandwidth Client.

Note: If you use UDP protocol then Bandwidth Test counts IP header+UDP header+UDP data. In case if you
use TCP then Bandwidth Test counts only TCP data (TCP header and IP header are not included).

Bandwidth Test Server

Sub-menu: /tool bandwidth-server

Property Description

allocate-udp-ports-from (integer 1000..64000; Default: 2000) Beginning of UDP port range

authenticate (yes | no; Default: yes) Communicate only with authenticated clients

enabled (yes | no; Default: yes) Defines whether bandwidth server is enabled or not

max-sessions (integer 1..1000; Default: 100) Maximal simultaneous test count

Bandwidth Server:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server> print

enabled: yes
authenticate: yes
allocate-udp-ports-from: 2000
max-sessions: 100
[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server>

Active sessions:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server session> print

# CLIENT PROTOCOL DIRECTION USER
0 35.35.35.1 udp send admin
1 25.25.25.1 udp send admin
2 36.36.36.1 udp send admin
[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server session>

To enable bandwidth-test server without client authentication:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server> set enabled=yes authenticate=no

[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server> print
enabled: yes
authenticate: no
allocate-udp-ports-from: 2000
Manual:Tools/Bandwidth Test 848

max-sessions: 100
[admin@MikroTik] /tool bandwidth-server>

Bandwidth Test Client

Command name: /tool bandwidth-test

Property Description

address (IP address | IPv6 IP address of host

prefix[%interface]; Default:)

direction (both | receive | transmit; Direction of data flow

Default: receive)

duration (time; Default: ) Duration of the test

interval (time: 20ms..5s; Default: Delay between reports (in seconds)

1s)

local-tx-speed (integer Transfer test maximum speed (bits per second)

0..4294967295; Default: )

local-udp-tx-size (integer: Local transmit packet size in bytes

28..64000)

password (string; Default: "") Password for the remote user

protocol (udp | tcp; Default: udp) Protocol to use

random-data (yes | no; Default: no) If random-data is set to yes, the payload of the bandwidth test packets will have incompressible random
data stream so that links that use data compression will not distort the results (this is CPU intensive and
random-data should be set to no for low speed CPUs)

remote-tx-speed (integer Receive test maximum speed (bits per second)

0..4294967295; Default: )

remote-udp-tx-size (integer: Remote transmit packet size in bytes

28..64000)

tcp-connection-count (integer Number of TCP connections to use

1..100; Default: 20)

user (string; Default: "") Remote user

Example
To run 15-second long bandwidth-test to the 10.0.0.32 host sending and receiving 1000-byte UDP packets and using
username admin to connect:

[admin@MikroTik] /tool> bandwidth-test 10.0.0.32 duration=15s \

\... direction=both local-udp-tx-size=1000 protocol=udp \
\... remote-udp-tx-size=1000 user=admin
status: done testing
duration: 15s
tx-current: 272.8Mbps
tx-10-second-average: 200.3Mbps
tx-total-average: 139.5Mbps
rx-current: 169.6Mbps
rx-10-second-average: 164.8Mbps
rx-total-average: 117.0Mbps
Manual:Tools/Bandwidth Test 849

lost-packets: 373
random-data: no
direction: both
tx-size: 1000
rx-size: 1000
[admin@MikroTik] /tool>

Link-local IPv6 example:

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] > /tool bandwidth-test fe80::34:23ff:fe6a:570c%local

status: running
duration: 5s
rx-current: 23.9Mbps
rx-10-second-average: 15.1Mbps
rx-total-average: 15.1Mbps
lost-packets: 0
random-data: no
direction: receive
rx-size: 1500

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:System/LEDS
Applies to RouterOS: v5 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /system leds
Standards:
RouterOS allows to configure each leds activity the way that user wishes. It is possible to configure the leds to
display wireless strength, blink the leds on interface traffic activity and many other options.
For example default led configuration on Groove

[admin@MikroTik] /system leds> print

Flags: X - disabled
# TYPE INTERFACE LEDS
0 wireless-signal-strength led1
led2
led3
led4
led5
1 interface-activity ether1 user-led
Manual:System/LEDS 850

RB Groove uses five leds for wireless strength and one for ethernet activity monitoring.

Configuration Properties
Property Description

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether item is disabled

interface (string; Default: ) Name of the interface which will be used for led status.
Applicable only if type is interface specific.

modem-signal-treshold (integer [-113..-51]; Default: ) Applicable if type is modem-signal

leds (list of leds; Default: ) List of led names used for status report. For example wireless
signal strength will require more than one led.

type (flash-access | interface-activity | interface-receive | interface-status | Type of the status:

interface-transmit | modem-signal | wireless-signal-strength | wireless-status; • flash-access - blink the led on flash access
Default: ) • interface-activity - blink the led on interface
(traffic) activity
• interface-receive - blink the led on interface received
traffic
• interface-status - light the led on interface status
change
• interface-transmit - blink the led on interface
transmitted traffic
• modem-signal - blink the led on 3G modem signal (eiher
USB or miniPCIe)
• wireless-signal-strength - light the leds displaying
wireless signal (requires more than one led)
• wireless-status - light the led on wireless status
change.

Basic examples
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:System/Note 851

Manual:System/Note
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4, v5

Summary
Sub-menu level: /system note
System note feature allows you to assign arbitrary text notes or messages that will be displayed on each login right
after banner. For example, you may distribute warnings between system administrators this way, or describe what
does that particular router actually do. To configure system note, you may upload a plain text file named sys-note.txt
on the router's FTP server, or, additionally, edit the settings in this menu

Properties
Property Description

note (string; Default: ) Note that will be displayed.

show-at-login (yes | no; Default: yes) whether to show system note on each login

Example
It is possible to add multi-line notes using embedded text editor ( /system note edit note), for example add ASCII art
to your home router:

[admin@RB493G] /system note> edit note

( )
( )
( )
( )
) )
( ( /\
(_) / \ /\
________[_]________ /\/ \/ \
/\ /\ ______ \ / /\/\ /\/\
/ \ //_\ \ /\ \ /\/\/ \/ \
/\ / /\/\ //___\ \__/ \ \/
/ \ /\/ \//_____\ \ |[]| \
/\/\/\/ //_______\ \|__| \
/ \ /XXXXXXXXXX\ \
\ /_I_II I__I_\__________________\
I_I| I__I_____[]_|_[]_____I
I_II I__I_____[]_|_[]_____I
I II__I I XXXXXXX I
Manual:System/Note 852

~~~~~" "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

C-c quit C-o save&quit C-u undo C-k cut line C-y paste F5 repaint

Save changes by pressing Ctrl+o. Now next time you log in, console will print your piece of art:

MMMM MMMM KKK TTTTTTTTTTT KKK

MMM MMMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MM MMM III KKKKK RRR RRR OOO OOO TTT III KKKKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRRRRR OOO OOO TTT III KKK KKK
MMM MMM III KKK KKK RRR RRR OOOOOO TTT III KKK KKK

MikroTik RouterOS 5.3 (c) 1999-2011 http://www.mikrotik.com/

( )
( )
( )
( )
) )
( ( /\
(_) / \ /\
________[_]________ /\/ \/ \
/\ /\ ______ \ / /\/\ /\/\
/ \ //_\ \ /\ \ /\/\/ \/ \
/\ / /\/\ //___\ \__/ \ \/
/ \ /\/ \//_____\ \ |[]| \
/\/\/\/ //_______\ \|__| \
/ \ /XXXXXXXXXX\ \
\ /_I_II I__I_\__________________\
I_I| I__I_____[]_|_[]_____I
I_II I__I_____[]_|_[]_____I
I II__I I XXXXXXX I
~~~~~" "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[admin@RB493G] >

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Manual:System/File 853

Manual:System/File
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu level: /file
File menu shows all user space files on the router. It is possible to see and edit file content or delete file. file creation
is not possible from this menu, to create files see scripting examples for workaround.
If RouterOS ".npk" package is uploaded, file menu will also show package specific information, like architecture,
build date and time, etc.
File content example:
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /file> print
# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
0 autosupout.rif .rif file 357368 oct/05/2010 09:47:01
1 sample.txt .txt file 230 oct/11/2010 12:14:43
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /file> set 1 contents=Hello

[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /file> print detail where name~"sample"

1 name="sample.txt" type=".txt file" size=5 creation-time=oct/11/2010 12:15:38 contents=Hello
[admin@dzeltenais_burkaans] /file>

Package example:
[admin@493G] /file> print detail
0 name="multicast-5.0rc2-mipsbe.npk" type="package" size=245643 creation-time=jan/05/1970 21:44:25
package-name="multicast" package-version="5.0rc2" package-build-time=oct/11/2010 06:34:02
package-architecture="mips"

Properties
Property Description

contents (string; Default: ) Actual content of the file.

Read-only properties
Manual:System/File 854

Property Description

creation-time (time) Time when file was created

name (string) Name of the file

package-architecture (string) Architecture that package is built for. Applies only to RouterOS ".npk" files.

package-built-time (string) Time when package was built. Applies only to RouterOS ".npk" files.

package-name (string) Name of the installable package that. Applies only to RouterOS ".npk" files.

package-version (string) version of the installable package that. Applies only to RouterOS ".npk" files.

size (integer) File size in bytes

file type (string) Type of the file. For folders file type is directory

read more
• Scripting examples
• RouterOS upgrade

Manual:System/Resource
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

General
Sub-menu level: /system resource
General resource menu shows overall resource usage and router statistics like uptime, memory usage, disk usage,
version etc.
It also has several sub-menus for more detailed hardware statistics like PCI, IRQ and USB.

[admin@RB1100test] /system resource> print

uptime: 2w1d23h34m57s
version: "5.0rc1"
free-memory: 385272KiB
total-memory: 516708KiB
cpu: "e500v2"
cpu-count: 1
cpu-frequency: 799MHz
cpu-load: 9%
free-hdd-space: 466328KiB
total-hdd-space: 520192KiB
write-sect-since-reboot: 1411
write-sect-total: 70625
bad-blocks: 0.2%
architecture-name: "powerpc"
Manual:System/Resource 855

board-name: "RB1100"
platform: "MikroTik"

Properties
All properties are read-only

Property Description

architecture-name (string) CPU architecture. Can be powerpc, x86, mipsbe or mipsle.

bad-blocks (percent) Shows percentage of bad blocks on the NAND.

board-name (string) RouterBOARD model name

cpu (string) Cpu model that is on the board.

cpu-count (integer) Number of CPUs present on the system. Each core is separate CPU, Intel HT is also separate CPU.

cpu-frequency (string) Current CPU frequency.

cpu-load (percent) Percentage of used CPU resources. Combines all CPUs. Per-core CPU usage can be see in CPU
submenu

free-hdd-space (string) Free space on hard drive or NAND

free-memory (string) Unused amount of RAM

platform (string) Platform name, usually it is "MikroTik"

total-hdd-space (string) Size of the hard drive or NAND

total-memory (string) Amount of installed RAM

uptime (time) Time interval passed since boot-up.

version (string) Installed RouterOS version number.

write-sect-since-reboot Number of sector writes in HDD or nand since router was last time rebooted.
(integer)

write-sect-total (integer) Number of sector writes in total.

CPU
Sub-menu level: /system resource cpu
This submenu shows per-cpu usage, as long as IRQ and Disk usage.

[admin@RB1100test] /system resource cpu> print

CPU LOAD IRQ DISK
0 5% 0% 0%
[admin@RB1100test] /system resource cpu>

(needs editing)
Manual:System/Resource 856

Properties
Read-only properties

Property Description

cpu (integer) Identification number of CPU which usage is shown.

load (percent) CPU usage in percents

irq (percent) IRQ usage in percents

disk (percent) Disk usage in percents

IRQ
Sub-menu level: /system resource irq
Menu shows all used IRQs on the router. It is possible to set up IRQ load balancing on mulicore systems by
assigning IRQ to specific core. IRQ assignments are done by hardware and cannot be changed from RouterOS. For
example, if all Ethernets are assigned to one IRQ, then you have to deal with hardware: upgrade motherboards BIOS,
reassign IRQs manually in BIOS, if none of above helps then change the hardware.

Properties

Property Description

cpu (auto | integer; Default: ) Specifies which CPU is assigned to the IRQ.
[1]
• auto - pick CPU based on number of interrupts. Uses NAPI to optimize interrupts.

Read-only properties

Property Description

active-cpu (integer) Shows active CPU in multicore systems.

count (integer) Number of interrupts. On ethernet interfaces interrupt=packet.

irq (integer) IRQ identification number

users (string) Process assigned to IRQ

RPS
Sub-menu level: /system resource rps
This menu allows to enable Receive Packet Steering (RPS) to reduce single core usage.
NAPI [1] can become a bottleneck under high packet load, because of serialization per device queue. RPS distributes
the load of received packet processing across multiple cores.

USB
Sub-menu level: /system resource usb
This menu displays all available USB controllers on the board. Menu is available only if at least one USB controller
is present.

[admin@MikroTik] /system resource usb> print detail

0 device="2:1" name="RB400 EHCI" serial-number="rb400_usb" vendor-id="0x1d6b"
Manual:System/Resource 857

device-id="0x0002" speed="480 Mbps" ports=2 usb-version="2.00"

1 device="1:1" name="RB400 OHCI" serial-number="rb400_usb" vendor-id="0x1d6b"

device-id="0x0001" speed="12 Mbps" ports=2 usb-version="1.10"

Properties

Property Description

device (string)

device-id (hex) Hexadecimal device ID

name (string) Descriptive name of the device retrieved from driver

ports (integer) How many ports are supported by usb controller

serial-number (string)

speed (string) Max USB speed that can be used (480Mbps for USBv2 and 12Mbps for USBv1)

usb-version (string) Identifies max spported USB version

vendor (string) Device manufacturer's name.

vendor-id (hex) Hexadecimal vendor ID

PCI
Sub-menu level: /system resource pci
PCI submenu shows the information about all PCI devices on the board

[admin@RB1100test] /system resource pci> print

# DEVICE VENDOR NAME IRQ
0 06:00.0 Attansic Technology Corp. unknown device (rev: 192) 18
1 05:00.0 Freescale Semiconductor Inc MPC8544 (rev: 17) 0
2 04:00.0 Attansic Technology Corp. unknown device (rev: 192) 17
3 03:00.0 Freescale Semiconductor Inc MPC8544 (rev: 17) 0
4 02:00.0 Attansic Technology Corp. unknown device (rev: 192) 16
5 01:00.0 Freescale Semiconductor Inc MPC8544 (rev: 17) 0
6 00:00.0 Freescale Semiconductor Inc MPC8544 (rev: 17) 0

Properties
All properties are read-only
Manual:System/Resource 858

Property Description

category (string) PCI device type, for example ethernet controller

device (string)

device-id (hex) Hexadecimal device ID

io (hex-hex) I/O memory range

irq (integer) IRQ asigned to the device

memory (hex-hex) Memory range

name (string) Descriptive name of the device retrieved from driver

vendor (string) Device manufacturer's name.

vendor-id (hex) Hexadecimal vendor ID

References
[1] http:/ / www. linuxfoundation. org/ collaborate/ workgroups/ networking/ napi

Manual:System/Health
Summary
Hardware that supports monitoring will display different information about hardware status, like temperature,
voltage.
[1]
Warning: For feature availablity on RouterBOARD products check routerboard.com

Voltage
Routers that support voltage monitoring will display supplied voltage value. In CLI/Winbox it will
display volts. In scripts/API/SNMP this will be dV or value showed in CLI/Winbox multiplied by
10
Note: Routers that have PEXT and PoE power input are calibrated using PEXT, as result value showed over
PoE can be lower than input voltage due to additional ethernet protection chains.

Temperature
Routers that support temperature monitoring will display temperature reading. In CLI/Winbox it
will display degrees Celsius. In scripts/API/SNMP this will be value showed in CLI/Winbox multiplied by 10

Fan control
Using this menu users will be able to control fan behaviour on the router.
Warning: for auto mode to work you have to use fans that support monitoring (it will have 3 wires) If you
have fan with only 2 wires (V+,GND) then you have to set fan-mode to manual. If control pulse cannot be
detected, then router will switch between main and auxiliary fan and stop only when it detects fan with
control
Manual:Store 859

Manual:Store
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4+

Store manages storage devices used by RouterOS various facilities.

Currently Store can be used for:

• Webproxy
• User Manager
• the Dude
This is especially useful for
RouterBOARD devices with SD/CF
slots - as the built-in storage is quite
small, an external drive comes in very
handy when you want a big User
Manager database.

You can add as many external or

secondary drives as you want, and
select any number of them for each of
the mentioned feature use. For
example User Manager could be used
on 3 disks, one of them would be the
active database, and the rest would be
backups. You can then add a fourth
disk, copy the active data to it - unplug
it - and move to another server, to keep
using the actual database.
This means migration and backup made easy!
Note: For proper operation router needs to be rebooted after adding or removing external storage.

Creating a Store instance

[[email protected]] /store> print
Flags: X - disabled, A - active
# NAME TYPE DISK STATUS
0 A web-proxy1 web-proxy system active
[[email protected]] /store> add
activate comment copy-from disabled name disk type

[[email protected]] /store> add name=webproxy_backup disk=disk1 type=web-proxy activate=no

Manual:Store 860

This will add a new storage place for Webproxy on disk1, and will set it as inactive.
Activate new store instance to save proxy cache on secondary disk (other proxy settings configured separately from
/ip proxy menu),

[[email protected]] > store activate webproxy-backup

E.g. RB1000 with populated CF Card slot and User Manager, one can add the CF card for use by User manager to
store all it's data as follows

/store add disk=CF1 type=user-manager activate=yes

Store management
Sub-menu: /store

Properties

Property Description

activate (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to activate this store as primary.

comment (string; Default: ) Short description of an item.

disabled (yes | no; Default: no) Whether to disable store.

disk (string; Default: ) Name of the disk (from /store disk menu) used by this store.

name (string; Default: ) Descriptive name of the store

type (user-manager | web-proxy; Configured type of the store. Two options are available, either store is used by web-proxy or by
Default: ) user-manager.

Read-only Properties

Property Description

status (backup | active | invalid) Current status of the store. Shows whether store is used as backup,active or some of the config is invalid.

Menu specific commands

Property Description

activate (<store_name>) Makes specified store as active if previously was in backup state.

Disk management
Sub-menu: /store disk

Read-only Properties
Manual:Store 861

Property Description

free-space (integer [KiB]) Shows the free space left on the disk.

name (string) Name of the disk

status (strung) Shows the current status of the disk, can be ready, formating etc.

system (yes | no) Shows whether disk is used as system drive

total-space (integer [KiB]) Shows total available disk space

Menu specific commands

Property Description

check-drive (<drive_name>) Check the drive for errors.

clean-drive (<drive_name>) Clean the drive

format-drive (<drive_name>) Format the file system in usable by RouterOS file system.

Note: Before using drive as a storage device it must be formatted. Before doing so, make sure that all
sensitive data is backed up.

Manual:System/Watchdog
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
This menu allows to configure system to reboot on kernel panic, when an IP address does not respond, or in case the
system has locked up. Software watchdog timer is used to provide the last option, so in very rare cases (caused by
hardware malfunction) it can lock up by itself. There is a hardware watchdog device available in all RouterBOARD
PowerPC and Mipsbe models, which can reboot the system in any case.

Properties
Sub-menu: /system watchdog
Manual:System/Watchdog 862

Property Description

watch-address (IP; Default: The system will reboot in case 6 sequental pings to the given IP address (sent once per 10 seconds) will fail.
none) If set to none this feature is disabled.

watchdog-timer (yes | no; Whether to reboot if system is unresponsive for a minute

Default: yes)

no-ping-delay (time; Default: Specifies how long after reboot not to test and ping watch-address. The default setting means that if
5m) watch-address is set and is not reachable, the router will reboot about every 6 minutes.

automatic-supout (yes | no; When software failure happens, a file named "autosupout.rif" is generated automatically. The previous
Default: yes) "autosupout.rif" file is renamed to "autosupout.old.rif"

auto-send-supout (yes | no; After the support output file is automatically generated, it can be sent by email
Default: no)

send-email-from (string; e-mail address to send the support output file from. If not set, the value set in /tool e-mail is used
Default: )

send-email-to (string; Default: e-mail address to send the support output file to.
)

send-smtp-server (string; SMTP server address to send the support output file through. If not set, the value set in /tool e-mail is used.
Default: )

Basic examples
To make system generate a support output file and sent it automatically to [email protected] throught the
192.0.2.1in case of a software crash:

[admin@MikroTik] system watchdog> set auto-send-supout=yes \

\... [email protected] send-smtp-server=192.0.2.1
[admin@MikroTik] system watchdog> print
watch-address: none
watchdog-timer: yes
no-ping-delay: 5m
automatic-supout: yes
auto-send-supout: yes
send-smtp-server: 192.0.2.1
send-email-to: [email protected]
[admin@MikroTik] system watchdog>

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Manual:System/Scheduler 863

Manual:System/Scheduler
Applies to RouterOS: 2.9, v3, v4

Summary
The scheduler can trigger script execution at a particular time moment, after a specified time interval, or both.

Properties
• interval (time; default: 0s) - interval between two script executions, if time interval is set to zero, the script is
only executed at its start time, otherwise it is executed repeatedly at the time interval is specified
• name name) - name of the task
• on-event (name) - name of the script to execute. It must be presented at /system script
• run-count (read-only: integer) - to monitor script usage, this counter is incremented each time the script is
executed
• start-date (date) - date of the first script execution
• start-time (time) - time of the first script execution
• startup - execute the script 3 seconds after the system startup.

Notes
Rebooting the router will reset run-count counter.
If more than one script has to be executed simultaneously, they are executed in the order they appear in the scheduler
configuration. This can be important if one scheduled script is used to disable another one. The order of scripts can
be changed with the move command.
If a more complex execution pattern is needed, it can usually be done by scheduling several scripts, and making them
enable and disable each other.
if scheduler item has start-time set to startup, it behaves as if start-time and start-date were set to time 3 seconds after
console starts up. It means that all scripts having start-time=startup and interval=0 will be executed once each time
router boots.

Examples
We will add a task that executes the script log-test every hour:

[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=log-test source=:log message=test

[admin@MikroTik] system script> print
0 name="log-test" source=":log messgae=test" owner=admin run-count=0
[admin@MikroTik] system script> .. scheduler
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add name=run-1h interval=1h
on-event=log-test
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> print

Flags: X - disabled
Manual:System/Scheduler 864

# NAME ON-EVENT START-DATE START-TIME INTERVAL RUN-COUNT

0 run-1h log-test mar/30/2004 06:11:35 1h 0
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler>

In another example there will be two scripts added that will change the bandwidth setting of a queue rule "Cust0".
Every day at 9AM the queue will be set to 64Kb/s and at 5PM the queue will be set to 128Kb/s. The queue rule, the
scripts, and the scheduler tasks are below:

[admin@MikroTik] queue simple> add name=Cust0 interface=ether1 \

\... dst-address=192.168.0.0/24 limit-at=64000
[admin@MikroTik] queue simple> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid
0 name="Cust0" target-address=0.0.0.0/0 dst-address=192.168.0.0/24
interface=ether1 limit-at=64000 queue=default priority=8 bounded=yes

[admin@MikroTik] queue simple> /system script

[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=start_limit source={/queue simple set \
\... Cust0 limit-at=64000}
[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=stop_limit source={/queue simple set \
\... Cust0 limit-at=128000}
[admin@MikroTik] system script> print
0 name="start_limit" source="/queue simple set Cust0 limit-at=64000"
owner=admin run-count=0

1 name="stop_limit" source="/queue simple set Cust0 limit-at=128000"

owner=admin run-count=0

[admin@MikroTik] system script> .. scheduler

[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add interval=24h name="set-64k" \
\... start-time=9:00:00 on-event=start_limit
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add interval=24h name="set-128k" \
\... start-time=17:00:00 on-event=stop_limit
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME ON-EVENT START-DATE START-TIME INTERVAL RUN-COUNT
0 set-64k start... oct/30/2008 09:00:00 1d 0
1 set-128k stop_... oct/30/2008 17:00:00 1d 0
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler>

The following example schedules a script that sends each week a backup of router configuration by e-mail.

[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=e-backup source={/system backup

{... save name=email; /tool e-mail send to="[email protected]" subject=([/system
{... identity get name] . " Backup") file=email.backup}
[admin@MikroTik] system script> print
0 name="e-backup" source="/system backup save name=ema... owner=admin
run-count=0

[admin@MikroTik] system script> .. scheduler

Manual:System/Scheduler 865

[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add interval=7d name="email-backup" \

\... on-event=e-backup
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME ON-EVENT START-DATE START-TIME INTERVAL RUN-COUNT
0 email-... e-backup oct/30/2008 15:19:28 7d 1
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler>

Do not forget to set the e-mail settings, i.e., the SMTP server and From: address under /tool e-mail. For example:

[admin@MikroTik] tool e-mail> set server=159.148.147.198 [email protected]

[admin@MikroTik] tool e-mail> print
server: 159.148.147.198
from: [email protected]
[admin@MikroTik] tool e-mail>

Example below will put 'x' in logs each hour from midnight till noon:

[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=enable-x source={/system scheduler

{... enable x}
[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=disable-x source={/system scheduler
{... disable x}
[admin@MikroTik] system script> add name=log-x source={:log message=x}
[admin@MikroTik] system script> .. scheduler
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add name=x-up start-time=00:00:00 \
\... interval=24h on-event=enable-x
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add name=x-down start-time=12:00:00
\... interval=24h on-event=disable-x
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> add name=x start-time=00:00:00 interval=1h \
\... on-event=log-x
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler> print
Flags: X - disabled
# NAME ON-EVENT START-DATE START-TIME INTERVAL RUN-COUNT
0 x-up enable-x oct/30/2008 00:00:00 1d 0
1 x-down disab... oct/30/2008 12:00:00 1d 0
2 x log-x oct/30/2008 00:00:00 1h 0
[admin@MikroTik] system scheduler>
Manual:System/Time 866

Manual:System/Time
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Clock and Time zone configuration

RouterOS uses data from the tz database [1], Most of the time zones from this database are included, and have the
same names. Because local time on the router is used mostly for timestamping and time-dependant configuration,
and not for historical date calculations, time zone information about past years is not included. Currently only
information starting from 2005 is included.
Following settings are available in the /system clock console path, and in the "Time" tab of the "System > Clock"
WinBox window:
• time (HH:MM:SS, where HH - hour 00..24, MM - minutes 00..59, SS - seconds 00..59)
• date (mmm/DD/YYYY, where mmm - month, one of jan, feb, mar, apr, may, jun, jul, aug, sep, oct, nov, dec, DD -
date, 00..31, YYYY - year, 1970..2037) : date and time show current local time on the router. These values can be
adjusted using the set command. Local time cannot, however, be exported, and is not stored with the rest of the
configuration.
• time-zone-name (manual, or name of time zone; default value: manual) : Name of time zone. Like most of the
text values in RouterOS, this value is case sensitive. Special value manual applies manually configured GMT
offset, which by default is 00:00 with no daylight saving time.
Startup date and time is jan/02/1970 00:00:00 [+|-]gmt-offset. If router has a battery (for example RB230), then
BIOS stored time is used as a startup time.

Active time zone information

• dst-active (yes or no>; read-only property) : This property has value yes while daylight saving time of the current
time zone is active.
• gmt-offset ([+|-]HH:MM - offset in hours and minutes; read-only property) : This is the current value of GMT
offset used by the system, after applying base time zone offset and active daylight saving time offset.

Manual time zone configuration

These settings are available in /system clock manual console path, and in the "Manual Time Zone" tab of the
"System > Clock" WinBox window. These settings have effect only when time-zone-name=manual. It is only
possible to manually configure single daylight saving time period.
• time-zone, dst-delta ([+|-]HH:MM - time offset in hours and minutes, leading plus sign is optional; default value:
+00:00) : While DST is not active use GMT offset time-zone. While DST is active use GMT offset time-zone +
dst-delta.
• dst-start, dst-end (mmm/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS - date and time, either date or time can be ommited in the set
command; default value: jan/01/1970 00:00:00) : Local time when DST starts and ends.
Manual:System/Time 867

SNTP client
SNTP client is included in the system package. RouterOS implements SNTP protocol defined in RFC4330. Manycast
mode is not supported. NTP server and a NTP client is included in the separate ntp package, that is not installed by
default.
Client configuration is located in the /system ntp client console path, and the "System > NTP Client" WinBox
window. This configuration is shared by the SNTP client implementation in the system package and the NTP client
implementation in the ntp package. When ntp package is installed and enabled, the SNTP client is disabled
automatically.
• enabled (yes or no; default value: no)
• mode (One of broadcast or unicast; default value: broadcast) : In broadcast mode, client does not send any
requests, and listens for the broadcast messages sent by the NTP server. In unicast mode client periodically sends
requests to the currently selected active server, and waits for a reply message from that server.
• primary-ntp, secondary-ntp (IP address) : IP addresses of the NTP servers. These properties have effect only
when mode=unicast. Value 0.0.0.0 is ignored. If both values are zero and mode is unicast then SNTP client is
disabled. If both values are non-zero, then SNTP client will alternate between the two server addresses, switching
to the other when request to the current server times out or when the "KoD" packet is received, indicating that
server is not willing to respond to requiests from this client.

Status
• active-server (IP address; read-only property) : Currently selected NTP server address. This value is equal to
primary-ntp or secondary-ntp.
• poll-interval (Time interval; read-only property) : Current iterval between requests sent to the active server.
Initial value is 16 seconds, and it is increased by doubling to 15 minutes.

Last received packet information

Values of the following properties are reset when the SNTP client is stopped or restarted, either because of a
configuration change, or because of a network error.
• last-update-from (IP address; read-only property) : Source IP address of the last received NTP server packed that
was successfully processed.
• last-update-before (Time interval; read-only property) : Time since the last successfully received server
message.
• last-adjustment (Time interval; read-only property) : Amount of clock adjustment that was calculated from the
last successfully received NTP server message.
• last-bad-packet-from (IP address; read-only property) : Source IP address of last received SNTP packed that was
not successfully processed. Reason of the failure and time since this packet was received is available in the next
two properties.
• last-bad-packet-before (Time interval; read-only property) : Time since the last receive failure.
• last-bad-packet-reason (Text; read-only property) : Text that describes reason of the last receive failure. Possible
values are:
• bad-packet-length - Packet length is not in the acceptable range.
• server-not-synchronized - Leap Indicator field is set to "alarm condition" value, which means that clock on the
server has not been synchronized yet.
• zero-transmit-timestamp - Transmit Timestamp field value is 0.
• bad-mode - Value of the Mode field is neither 'server' nor 'broadcast'.
Manual:System/Time 868

• kod-ABCD - Received "KoD" (Kiss-o'-Death) response. ABCD is the short "kiss code" text from the Reference
Identifier field.
• broadcast - Received proadcast message, but mode=unicast.
• non-broadcast - Received packed was server reply, but mode=broadcast.
• server-ip-mismatch - Received response from address that is not active-server.
• originate-timestamp-mismatch - Originate Timestamp field in the server response message is not the same as
the one included in the last request.
• roundtrip-too-long - request/response roundtrip exceeded 1 second.

Log messages
SNTP client can produce the following log messages. See article "log" on how to set up logging and how to inspect
logs.
• ntp,debug gradually adjust by OFFS
• ntp,debug instantly adjust by OFFS
• ntp,debug Wait for N seconds before sending next message
• ntp,debug Wait for N seconds before restarting
• ntp,debug,packet packet receive error, restarting
• ntp,debug,packet received PKT
• ntp,debug,packet ignoring received PKT
• ntp,debug,packet error sending to IP, restarting
• ntp,debug,packet sending to IP PKT
Explanation of log message fields
• OFFS - difference of two NTP timestamp values, in hexadecimal.
• PKT - dump of NTP packet. If packet is shorter than the minimum 48 bytes, it is dumped as a hexadecimal string.
Otherwise, packet is dumped as a list of field names and values, one per log line. Names of fields follow
RFC4330.
• IP - remote IP address.
NOTE: the above logging rules work only with the built-in SNTP client, the separate NTP package doesn't have any
logging facilities.

NTP client and server

To use NTP client and server, ntp package must be installed and enabled.

Client settings
Client configuration is located in /system ntp client.
• enabled (yes or no; default value: no)
• mode (One of broadcast, unicast, multicast or manycast.)
• primary-ntp, secondary-ntp (IP address)
Manual:System/Time 869

References
[1] http:/ / www. twinsun. com/ tz/ tz-link. htm

Manual:API
Summary
Application Programmable Interface (API) allows users to create custom software solutions to communicate with
RouterOS to gather information, adjust configuration and manage router. API closely follows syntax from command
line interface (CLI). It can be used to create translated or custom configuration tools to aid ease of use running and
managing routers with RouterOS.
To use API RouterOS version 3.x or newer is required.
By default API uses port #8728 and service is disabled. More on service management see in corresponding manual
section. Corresponding service name is api

Protocol
Communication with router is done by sending sentences to the router and receiving one or more sentences in return.
Sentence is sequence of words terminated by zero length word. Word is part of sentence encoded in certain way -
encoded length and data. Communication happen by sending sentences to the router and receiving replies to sent
sentences. Each sentence sent to router using API should contain command as a first word followed by words in no
particular order, end of sentence is marked by zero length word. When router receives full sentence (command word,
no or more attribute words and zero length word) it is evaluated and executed, then reply is formed and returned.

API words
Words are part of sentence. Each word has to be encoded in certain way - length of the word followed by word
content. Length of the word should be given as count of bytes that are going to be sent.
Length of the word is encoded as follows:

Value of length # of bytes Encoding

0 <= len <= 0x7F 1 len, lowest byte

0x80 <= len <= 0x3FFF 2 len | 0x8000, two lower bytes

0x4000 <= len <= 0x1FFFFF 3 len | 0xC00000, three lower bytes

0x200000 <= len <= 0xFFFFFFF 4 len | 0xE0000000

len >= 0x10000000 5 0xF0 and len as four bytes

• Each word is encoded as length, followed by that many bytes of content;

• Words are grouped into sentences. End of sentence is terminated by zero length word;
• Scheme allows encoding of length up to 0x7FFFFFFFFF, only four byte length is supported;
• Bytes of len are sent most significant first (network order);
• If first byte of word is >= 0xF8, then it is a reserved control byte. After receiving unknown control byte API
client cannot proceed, because it cannot know how to interpret following bytes;
• Currently control bytes are not used;
In general words can be described like this <<encoded word length><word content>>. Word content can be
separated in 5 parts: command word, attribute word, API attribute word. query word and reply word
Manual:API 870

Command word
First word in sentence has to be command followed by attribute words and zero length word or terminating word.
Name of command word should begin with '/'. Names of commands closely follow CLI, with spaces replaced with '/'.
There are commands that are specific to API;
Command word structure in strict order:
• encoded length
• content prefix /
• CLI converted command
API specific commands:

getall
login
cancel

Command word concent examples:

/login

/ip/address/getall

/user/active/listen

/interface/vlan/remove

/system/reboot

Attribute word
Each command wordhave its own list of attribute words depending on content.
Atribute word structure consists of 5 parts in this order:
• encoded length
• content prefix equals sigh - =
• attribute name
• separating equals sign - =
• value of attribute if there is one. It is possible that attribute does not have a value
Note: Value can hold multiple equal signs in the value of attribute word since the way word is encoded

Note: Value can be empty

Examples without encoded length prefix:

=address=10.0.0.1

=name=iu=c3Eeg
Manual:API 871

=disable-running-check=yes

Warning: Order of attribute words and API parameters is not important and should not be relied on

API attribute word

API attribute word structure is in strict order:

• encoded length
• content prefix with dot .
• attribute name
• name postfixed with equals =sign
• attribute value
Currently the only such API attribute is tag.
Note: If sentence contain API attribute word tag then each returned sentence in reply from router to that
tagged sentence will be tagged with same tag.

Query word

Senteces can have additional query paramteres that restrict their scope. They are explained in
detail in separate section.
Example of sentence using query word attributes:

/interface/print
?type=ether
?type=vlan
?#|!

• Query words begin with '?'.

• Currently only print command handles query words.
Warning: Order of query words is significant

Reply word

It is sent only by the router. It is only sent in response to full sentence send by the client.
• First word of reply begins with '!';
• Each sentence sent generates at least one reply (if connection does not get terminated);
• Last reply for every sentence is reply that has first word !done;
• Errors and exceptional conditions begin with !trap;
• Data replies begin with !re
• If API connection is closed, RouterOS sends !fatal with reason as reply and then closes the connection;
Manual:API 872

API sentences
API sentence is main object of communication using API.
• Empty sentences are ignored.
• Sentence is processed after receiving zero length word.
• There is a limit on number and size of sentences client can send before it has logged in.
• Order of attribute words should not be relied on. As order and count is changeable by .proplist attribute.
• Sentence structure is as follows:
• First word should contain command word;
• Should contain zero length word to terminate the sentence;
• Can contain none or several attribute words. There is no particular order at what attribute words has to be sent
in the sentence, order is not important for attribute words;
• Can contain none or several query words. Order of query words in the sentence is important.
Note: Zero length word terminates the sentence. If it is not provided router will not start to evaluate sent
words and will consider all the input as part of the same sentence.

Initial login
/login

!done

=ret=ebddd18303a54111e2dea05a92ab46b4

/login

=name=admin

=response=001ea726ed53ae38520c8334f82d44c9f2

!done

Note: that each command and response ends with an empty word.

• First, clients sends /login command.

• Reply contains =ret=challenge argument.
• Client sends second /login command, with =name=username and
=response=response.
• In case of error, reply contains =ret=error message.
• In case of successful login client can start to issue commands.
Manual:API 873

Tags
• It is possible to run several commands simultaneously, without waiting for previous one to complete. If API client
is doing this and needs to differentiate command responses, it can use 'tag' API parameter in command sentences.
• If you include 'tag' parameter with non-empty value in command sentence, then 'tag' parameter with exactly the
same value will be included in all responses generated by this command.
• If you do not include 'tag' parameter or it's value is empty, then all responses for this command will not have 'tag'
parameter.

Command description
• /cancel
• optional argument: =tag=tag of command to cancel, without it cancels all running commands
• does not cancel itself
• all canceled commands are interruped and in the usual case generate '!trap' and '!done' responses
• please note that /cancel is separate command and can have it's own unique '.tag' parameter, that is not
related to '=tag' argument of this command
• listen
• listen command is avaliable where console print command is available, but it does not have expected effect
everywhere (i.e. may not work)
• !re sentences are generated as something changes in particular item list
• when item is deleted or dissapears in any other way, the '!re' sentence includes value '=.dead=yes'
• This command does not terminate. To terminate it use /cancel command.
• getall
• getall command is available where console print command is available. Since version 3.21 getall is an
alias for print.
• replies contain =.id=Item internal number property.
• print
• API print command differs from the console counterpart in the following ways:
• where argument is not supported. Items can be filtered using query words (see below).
• .proplist argument is a comma separated list of property names that should be included for the returned
items.
• returned items may have additional properties.
• order of returned properties is not defined.
• if list contains duplicate entries, handling of such entries is not defined.
• if propery is present in .proplist, but absent from the item, then that item does not have this property
value (?name will evaluate to false for that item).
• if .proplist is absent, all properties are included as requested by print command, even those that
have slow access time (such as file contents and perfomance counters). Thus use of .proplist is
encouraged. Omission of .proplist may have high perfomance penalty if =detail= argument is set.
Manual:API 874

Queries
print command accepts query words that limit set of returned sentences. This feature is available since RouterOS
3.21.
• Query words begin with '?'.
• Order of query words is significant. Query is evaluated starting from the first word.
• Query is evaluated for each item in the list. If query succeeds, item is processed, if query fails, item is ignored.
• Query is evaluated using a stack of boolean values. Initially stack contains infinite amount of 'true' values. At the
end of evaluation, if stack contains at least one 'false' value, query fails.
• Query words operate according to the following rules:

Query Desciption

?name pushes 'true' if item has value of property name,

'false' if it does not.

?-name pushes 'true' if item does not have value of property

name, 'false' otherwise.

?name=x pushes 'true' if property name has value equal to x,

?=name=x 'false' otherwise.

?<name=''x''''' |style="border-bottom:1px solid gray;" valign="top"| pushes 'true' if pushes 'true' if property name has value greater than
property ''name'' has value less than ''x'', 'false' otherwise. |- x, 'false' otherwise.
|style="border-bottom:1px solid gray;" valign="top"|'''?>name=x

?#operations applies operations to the values in the stack.

• operation string is evaluated left to right.
• sequence of decimal digits followed by any
other character or end of word is interpreted as a
stack index. top value has index 0.
• index that is followed by a character pushes
copy of value at that index.
• index that is followed by the end of word
replaces all values with the value at that index.
• ! character replaces top value with the opposite.
• & pops two values and pushes result of logical
'and' operation.
• | pops two values and pushes result of logical
'or' operation.
• . after an index does nothing.
• . after another character pushes copy of top
value.

Examples:
• Get all ethernet and VLAN interfaces:

/interface/print
?type=ether
?type=vlan
?#|

• Get all routes that have non-empty comment:

/ip/route/print
?>comment=

• Forum thread with detailed explanation of use of queries [1]

Manual:API 875

OID
print command can return OID values for properties that are available in SNMP. This feature appeared in 3.23
version.
In console, OID values can be seen by running 'print oid' command. In API, these properties have name that ends
with ".oid", and can be retrieved by adding their name to the value of '.proplist'. An example:

/system/resource/print

=.proplist=uptime,cpu-load,uptime.oid,cpu-load.oid

!re

=uptime=01:22:53

=cpu-load=0

=uptime.oid=.1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0

=cpu-load.oid=.1.3.6.1.2.1.25.3.3.1.2.1

!done

!trap
When for some reason API sentence fails trap is sent in return accompanied with message attribute and on some
occasions category argument.

message
When API sentence fails some generic message or message from used internal process is return to give more details
about failure

<<< /ip/address/add
<<< =address=192.168.88.1
<<< =interface=asdf
<<<
>>> !trap
>>> =category=1
>>> =message=input does not match any value of interface

category
if it is a general error, it is categorized and error category is returned. possible values for this attribute are
• 0 - missing item or command
• 1 - argument value failure
• 2 - execution of command interrupted
• 3 - scripting related failure
• 4 - general failure
• 5 - API related failure
• 6 - TTY related failure
• 7 - value generated with :return command
Manual:API 876

Command examples

/system/package/getall

/system/package/getall

!re

=.id=*5802

=disabled=no

=name=routeros-x86

=version=3.0beta2

=build-time=oct/18/2006 16:24:41

=scheduled=

!re

=.id=*5805

=disabled=no

=name=system

=version=3.0beta2

=build-time=oct/18/2006 17:20:46

=scheduled=

... more !re sentences ...

!re

=.id=*5902

=disabled=no

=name=advanced-tools

=version=3.0beta2

=build-time=oct/18/2006 17:20:49

=scheduled=

!done

/user/active/listen
Manual:API 877

/user/active/listen

!re

=.id=*68

=radius=no

=when=oct/24/2006 08:40:42

=name=admin

=address=0.0.0.0

=via=console

!re

=.id=*68

=.dead=yes

... more !re sentences ...

/cancel, simultaneous commands

/login

!done

=ret=856780b7411eefd3abadee2058c149a3

/login

=name=admin

=response=005062f7a5ef124d34675bf3e81f56c556

!done

-- first start listening for interface changes (tag is 2)

/interface/listen

.tag=2

-- disable interface (tag is 3)

/interface/set

=disabled=yes

=.id=ether1

.tag=3

-- this is done for disable command (tag 3)

!done

.tag=3

-- enable interface (tag is 4)

/interface/set

=disabled=no
Manual:API 878

=.id=ether1

.tag=4

-- this update is generated by change made by first set command (tag 3)

!re

=.id=*1

=disabled=yes

=dynamic=no

=running=no

=name=ether1

=mtu=1500

=type=ether

.tag=2

-- this is done for enable command (tag 4)

!done

.tag=4

-- get interface list (tag is 5)

/interface/getall

.tag=5

-- this update is generated by change made by second set command (tag 4)

!re

=.id=*1

=disabled=no

=dynamic=no

=running=yes

=name=ether1

=mtu=1500

=type=ether

.tag=2

-- these are replies to getall command (tag 5)

!re

=.id=*1

=disabled=no

=dynamic=no

=running=yes

=name=ether1

=mtu=1500

=type=ether

.tag=5
Manual:API 879

!re

=.id=*2

=disabled=no

=dynamic=no

=running=yes

=name=ether2

=mtu=1500

=type=ether

.tag=5

-- here interface getall ends (tag 5)

!done

.tag=5

-- stop listening - request to cancel command with tag 2, cancel itself uses tag 7

/cancel

=tag=2

.tag=7

-- listen command is interrupted (tag 2)

!trap

=category=2

=message=interrupted

.tag=2

-- cancel command is finished (tag 7)

!done

.tag=7

-- listen command is finished (tag 2)

!done

.tag=2

Example client
• this is simple API client in Python2
• example for Python3
• usage: api.py ip-address username password
• after that type words from keyboard, terminating them with newline
• Since empty word terminates sentence, you should press enter twice after last word before sentence will be sent to
router.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys, posix, time, md5, binascii, socket, select

Manual:API 880

class ApiRos:
"Routeros api"
def __init__(self, sk):
self.sk = sk
self.currenttag = 0

def login(self, username, pwd):

for repl, attrs in self.talk(["/login"]):
chal = binascii.unhexlify(attrs['=ret'])
md = md5.new()
md.update('\x00')
md.update(pwd)
md.update(chal)
self.talk(["/login", "=name=" + username,
"=response=00" + binascii.hexlify(md.digest())])

def talk(self, words):

if self.writeSentence(words) == 0: return
r = []
while 1:
i = self.readSentence();
if len(i) == 0: continue
reply = i[0]
attrs = {}
for w in i[1:]:
j = w.find('=', 1)
if (j == -1):
attrs[w] = ''
else:
attrs[w[:j]] = w[j+1:]
r.append((reply, attrs))
if reply == '!done': return r

def writeSentence(self, words):

ret = 0
for w in words:
self.writeWord(w)
ret += 1
self.writeWord('')
return ret

def readSentence(self):
r = []
while 1:
w = self.readWord()
if w == '': return r
Manual:API 881

r.append(w)

def writeWord(self, w):

print "<<< " + w
self.writeLen(len(w))
self.writeStr(w)

def readWord(self):
ret = self.readStr(self.readLen())
print ">>> " + ret
return ret

def writeLen(self, l):

if l < 0x80:
self.writeStr(chr(l))
elif l < 0x4000:
l |= 0x8000
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 8) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr(l & 0xFF))
elif l < 0x200000:
l |= 0xC00000
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 16) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 8) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr(l & 0xFF))
elif l < 0x10000000:
l |= 0xE0000000
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 24) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 16) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 8) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr(l & 0xFF))
else:
self.writeStr(chr(0xF0))
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 24) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 16) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr((l >> 8) & 0xFF))
self.writeStr(chr(l & 0xFF))

def readLen(self):
c = ord(self.readStr(1))
if (c & 0x80) == 0x00:
pass
elif (c & 0xC0) == 0x80:
c &= ~0xC0
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
elif (c & 0xE0) == 0xC0:
c &= ~0xE0
Manual:API 882

c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
elif (c & 0xF0) == 0xE0:
c &= ~0xF0
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
elif (c & 0xF8) == 0xF0:
c = ord(self.readStr(1))
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
c <<= 8
c += ord(self.readStr(1))
return c

def writeStr(self, str):

n = 0;
while n < len(str):
r = self.sk.send(str[n:])
if r == 0: raise RuntimeError, "connection closed by remote end"
n += r

def readStr(self, length):

ret = ''
while len(ret) < length:
s = self.sk.recv(length - len(ret))
if s == '': raise RuntimeError, "connection closed by remote end"
ret += s
return ret

def main():
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.connect((sys.argv[1], 8728))
apiros = ApiRos(s);
apiros.login(sys.argv[2], sys.argv[3]);

inputsentence = []

while 1:
r = select.select([s, sys.stdin], [], [], None)
Manual:API 883

if s in r[0]:
# something to read in socket, read sentence
x = apiros.readSentence()

if sys.stdin in r[0]:
# read line from input and strip off newline
l = sys.stdin.readline()
l = l[:-1]

# if empty line, send sentence and start with new

# otherwise append to input sentence
if l == '':
apiros.writeSentence(inputsentence)
inputsentence = []
else:
inputsentence.append(l)

if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

Example run:

debian@localhost:~/api-test$ ./api.py 10.0.0.1 admin ''

<<< /login
<<<
>>> !done
>>> =ret=93b438ec9b80057c06dd9fe67d56aa9a
>>>
<<< /login
<<< =name=admin
<<< =response=00e134102a9d330dd7b1849fedfea3cb57
<<<
>>> !done
>>>
/user/getall

<<< /user/getall
<<<
>>> !re
>>> =.id=*1
>>> =disabled=no
>>> =name=admin
>>> =group=full
>>> =address=0.0.0.0/0
>>> =netmask=0.0.0.0
>>>
>>> !done
>>>
Manual:API 884

References
[1] http:/ / forum. mikrotik. com/ viewtopic. php?f=2& t=72298

Manual:IP/Proxy
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4

Summary
Sub-menu: /ip proxy
Standards: RFC 1945, RFC 2616
MikroTik RouterOS performs proxying of HTTP and HTTP-proxy (for FTP, HTTP and HTTPS protocols) requests.
Proxy server performs Internet object cache function by storing requested Internet objects, i.e., data available via
HTTP and FTP protocols on a system positioned closer to the recipient in the form of speeding up customer
browsing by delivering them requested file copies from proxy cache at local network speed. MikroTik RouterOS
implements the following proxy server features:
• Regular HTTP proxy – customer (itself) specify what is proxy server for him
• Transparent proxy – customer does not know about the proxy being enabled and there isn’t need any additional
configuration for web browser of client.
• Access list by source, destination, URL and requested method (HTTP firewall)
• Cache access list to specify which objects to cache, and which not.
• Direct Access List – to specify which resources should be accessed directly, and which - through another proxy
server
• Logging facility – allows to get and to store information about proxy operation
• Parent proxy support – allows to specify other proxy server, ('if they don’t have the requested object ask their
parents, or to the original server.)
A proxy server usually is placed at various points between users and the destination server (also known as origin
server) on the Internet. (see Figure 10.1).
Manual:IP/Proxy 885

A Web proxy (cache) watches requests coming from client, saving copies of the responses for itself. Then, if there is
another request for the same URL, it can use the response that it has, instead of asking the origin server for it again.
If proxy has not requested file, it downloads that from the original server.
There can be many potential purpose of proxy server:
• To decrease access speed to resources (it takes less time for the client to get the object).
• Works as HTTP firewall (deny access to undesirable web pages),
Allows to filter web content (by specific parameters, like source address, destination address and port, URL, HTTP
request method) scan outbound content, e.g., for data leak protection.
Note: it may be useful to have Web proxy running even with no cache when you want to use it only as
something like HTTP and FTP firewall (for example, denying access undesired web pages or deny specific
type of files e.g. .mp3 files) or to redirect requests to external proxy (possibly, to a proxy with caching
functions) transparently.
Manual:IP/Proxy 886

Proxy configuration example

In MikroTik RouterOS proxy configuration is performed in /ip proxy menu. See below how to enable the proxy on
port 8080 and set up 195.10.10.1 as proxy source address:

[admin@MikroTik] ip proxy> set enabled=yes port=8080 src-address=195.10.10.1

[admin@MikroTik] ip proxy> print

enabled: yes
src-address: 195.10.10.1
port: 8080
parent-proxy: 0.0.0.0:0
cache-drive: system
cache-administrator: "[email protected]"
max-disk-cache-size: none
max-ram-cache-size: 100000KiB
cache-only-on-disk: yes
maximal-client-connections: 1000
maximal-server-connections: 1000
max-fresh-time: 3d

When setting up regular proxy service, make sure it serves only your clients and prevent unauthorised access to it by
creating firewall that allow only your clients to use proxy, otherwise it may be used as an open proxy.
Remember that regular proxy require also client’s web browser configuration.
For example:

Explorer 8.x Firefox 3.x Opera 10.x

Select Tools>Internet options. Select Tools>Options. Select Tool>Preferences.

Click the Connections tab. Click the Advanced tab. Open the Advanced tab/Network.
Select the necessary connection and choose Settings button. Open the Network tab. Click the Proxy servers.
Configure proxy address and port. Click the Connection/Settings Enter proxy address and port.
Select Manual proxy configuration'

Transparent proxy configuration example

RouterOS can also act as a Transparent Caching server, with no configuration required in the customer’s web
browser. Transparent proxy does not modify requested URL or response. RouterOS will take all HTTP requests and
redirect them to the local proxy service. This process will be entirely transparent to the user (users may not know
anything about proxy server that is located between them and original server), and the only difference to them will
be the increased browsing speed.
To enable the transparent mode, firewall rule in destination NAT has to be added, specifying which connections (to
which ports) should be transparently redirected to the proxy. Check proxy settings above and redirect us users
(192.168.1.0/24) to proxy server.
[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat> add chain=dstnat protocol=tcp src-address=192.168.1.0/24 \
dst-port=80 action=redirect to-ports=8080

[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat> print

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
Manual:IP/Proxy 887

0 chain=dstnat protocol=tcp dst-port=80 action=redirect to-ports=8000

[admin@MikroTik] ip firewall nat>

The web proxy can be used as transparent and normal web proxy at the same time. In transparent mode it is possible
to use it as standard web proxy, too. However, in this case, proxy users may have trouble to reach web pages which
are accessed transparently.

Proxy based firewall – Access List

Access list is implemented in the same way as MikroTik firewall rules processed from the top to the bottom. First
matching rule specifies decision of what to do with this connection. Connections can be matched by its source
address, destination address, destination port, sub-string of requested URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or request
method. If none of these parameters is specified, every connection will match this rule.
If connection is matched by a rule, action property of this rule specifies whether connection will be allowed or not
(deny). If connection does not match any rule, it will be allowed.
In this example assume that we have configured transparent proxy server as given in example above.
Block particular Websites.

/ip proxy access add dst-host=www.facebook.com action=deny

It will block website http:/ / www. facebook. com [1], we can always block the same for different networks by giving
src-address.

/ip proxy access add src-address=192.168.1.0/24 dst-host=www.facebook.com action=deny

Users from network 192.168.1.0/24 will not be able to access website www.facebook.com [1].
You can block also websites that contain specific words in URL:

/ip proxy access add dst-host=:mail action=deny

[2]
This statement will block all websites which contain word “mail” in URL. Like www.mail.com ,
www.hotmail.com [3], mail.yahoo.com etc.
We can also stop downloading specific types of files like .flv, .avi, .mp4, .mp3, .exe, .dat, …etc.

/ip proxy access

add path=*.flv action=deny
add path=*.avi action=deny
add path=*.mp4 action=deny
add path=*.mp3 action=deny
add path=*.zip action=deny
add path=*.rar action=deny.

Here are available also different wildcard characters, to creating specific conditions and to match it by proxy access
list.
Wildcard properties (dst-host and dst-path) match a complete string (i.e., they will not match "example.com" if they
are set to "example"). Available wildcards are '*' (match any number of any characters) and '?' (match any one
character).
Regular expressions are also accepted here, but if the property should be treated as a regular expression, it should
start with a colon (':').
To show that no symbols are allowed before the given pattern, we use ^ symbol at the beginning of the pattern.
To specify that no symbols are allowed after the given pattern, we use $ symbol at the end of the pattern.
Manual:IP/Proxy 888

Reference
List of all available parameters and commands per menu.

General
Sub-menu: /ip proxy

Property Description

always-from-cache (yes | no; Default:

no)

cache-administrator (string; Default: Administrator's e-mail displayed on proxy error page

webmaster)

cache-hit-dscp (integer: 0..63; Default:

4)

cache-on-disk (yes | no; Default: no)

max-cache-size (none | unlimited | Specifies the maximal cache size, measured in kibibytes
integer: 0..4294967295; Default: none)

max-client-connections (integer: Maximal number of connections accepted from clients (any further connections will be rejected)
1..5000; Default: 600)

max-fresh-time (time; Default: 3d) Maximal time to store a cached object. The validity period of an object is is usually defined by the
object itself, but in case it is set too high, you can override the maximal value

max-server-connections (integer: Maximal number of connections made to servers (any further connections from clients will be put
1..5000; Default: 600) on hold until some server connections will terminate)

parent-proxy (Ip4 | ip6; Default: 0.0.0.0) IP address and port of another HTTP proxy to redirect all requests to. If set to 0.0.0.0 parent proxy
is not used.

parent-proxy-port (integer: 0..65535; Port that parent proxy is listening on.

Default: 0)

port (integer: 0..65535; Default: 8080) TCP port the proxy server will be listening on. This port have to be specified on all clients that
want to use the server as HTTP proxy. Transparent (with zero configuration for clients) proxy
setup can be made by redirecting HTTP requests to this port in IP firewall using destination NAT
feature

serialize-connections (yes | no;

Default: no)

src-address (Ip4 | Ip6; Default: 0.0.0.0) Proxy will use specified address when connecting to parent proxy or web site. If set to 0.0.0.0 then
appropriate IP address will be taken from routing table.

Access List
Sub-menu: /ip proxy access
Access list is configured like a regular firewall rules. Rules are processed from the top to the bottom. First matching
rule specifies decision of what to do with this connection. There is a total of 6 classifiers that specify matching
constraints. If none of these classifiers is specified, the particular rule will match every connection.
If connection is matched by a rule, action property of this rule specifies whether connection will be allowed or not. If
the particular connection does not match any rule, it will be allowed.
Manual:IP/Proxy 889

Property Description

action (allow | deny; Default: allow) Specifies whether to pass or deny matched packets

dst-address (Ip4[-Ip4 | /0..32] | Ip6/0..128; Default: Destination address of the target server.
)

dst-host (string; Default: ) IP address or DNS name used to make connection the target server (this is the string user
wrote in browser before specifying port and path to a particular web page

dst-port (integer[-integer[,integer[,...]]]: 0..65535; List or range of ports the packet is destined to

Default: )

local-port (integer: 0..65535; Default: ) Specifies the port of the web proxy via which the packet was received. This value should
match one of the ports web proxy is listening on.

method (any | connect | delete | get | head | options | HTTP method used in the request (see HTTP Methods section in the end of this
post | put | trace; Default: ) document)

path (string; Default: ) Name of the requested page within the target server (i.e. the name of a particular web
page or document without the name of the server it resides on)

redirect-to (string; Default: ) In case access is denied by this rule, the user shall be redirected to the URL specified
here

src-address (Ip4[-Ip4 | /0..32] | Ip6/0..128; Default: Source address of the connection originator.
)

Read only properties:

Property Description

hits (integer) Count of requests that were matched by this rule

Wildcard properties (dst-host and dst-path) match a complete string (i.e., they will not match "example.com" if they
are set to "example"). Available wildcards are '*' (match any number of any characters) and '?' (match any one
character). Regular expressions are also accepted here, but if the property should be treated as a regular expression, it
should start with a colon (':').
Small hints in using regular expressions:
• \\ symbol sequence is used to enter \ character in console
• \. pattern means . only (in regular expressions single dot in pattern means any symbol)
• to show that no symbols are allowed before the given pattern, we use ^ symbol at the beginning of the pattern
• to specify that no symbols are allowed after the given pattern, we use $ symbol at the end of the pattern
• to enter [ or ] symbols, you should escape them with backslash \.
It is strongly recommended to deny all IP addresses except those behind the router as the proxy still may be used to
access your internal-use-only (intranet) web servers. Also, consult examples in Firewall Manual on how to protect
your router.
Manual:IP/Proxy 890

Direct Access
Sub-menu: /ip proxy direct
If parent-proxy property is specified, it is possible to tell proxy server whether to try to pass the request to the
parent proxy or to resolve it connecting to the requested server directly. Direct Access List is managed just like
Proxy Access List described in the previous chapter except the action argument.
Unlike the access list, the direct proxy access list has default action equal to deny. It takes place when no rules are
specified or a particular request did not match any rule.

Property Description

action (allow | deny; Default: allow) Specifies the action to perform on matched packets:
• allow - always resolve matched requests directly bypassing the parent router
• deny - resolve matched requests through the parent proxy. If no one is specified this
has the same effect as allow.

dst-address (Ip4[-Ip4 | /0..32] | Ip6/0..128; Default: Destination address of the target server.
)

dst-host (string; Default: ) IP address or DNS name used to make connection the target server (this is the string user
wrote in browser before specifying port and path to a particular web page

dst-port (integer[-integer[,integer[,...]]]: 0..65535; List or range of ports used by connection to target server.
Default: )

local-port (integer: 0..65535; Default: ) Specifies the port of the web proxy via which the packet was received. This value should
match one of the ports web proxy is listening on.

method (any | connect | delete | get | head | options | HTTP method used in the request (see HTTP Methods section in the end of this
post | put | trace; Default: ) document)

path (string; Default: ) Name of the requested page within the target server (i.e. the name of a particular web
page or document without the name of the server it resides on)

src-address (Ip4[-Ip4 | /0..32] | Ip6/0..128; Default: Source address of the connection originator.
)

Read only properties:

Property Description

hits (integer) Count of requests that were matched by this rule

Cache Management
Sub-menu: /ip proxy cache
Cache access list specifies, which requests (domains, servers, pages) have to be cached locally by web proxy, and
which not. This list is implemented exactly the same way as web proxy access list. Default action is to cache object
(if no matching rule is found).
Manual:IP/Proxy 891

Property Description

action (allow | deny; Default: allow) Specifies the action to perform on matched packets:
• allow - cache objects from matched request
• deny - do not cache objects from matched request

dst-address (Ip4[-Ip4 | /0..32] | Ip6/0..128; Default: Destination address of the target server
)

dst-host (string; Default: ) IP address or DNS name used to make connection the target server (this is the string user
wrote in browser before specifying port and path to a particular web page

dst-port (integer[-integer[,integer[,...]]]: 0..65535; List or range of ports the packet is destined to.
Default: )

local-port (integer: 0..65535; Default: ) Specifies the port of the web proxy via which the packet was received. This value should
match one of the ports web proxy is listening on.

method (any | connect | delete | get | head | options | HTTP method used in the request (see HTTP Methods section in the end of this
post | put | trace; Default: ) document)

path (string; Default: ) Name of the requested page within the target server (i.e. the name of a particular web
page or document without the name of the server it resides on)

src-address (Ip4[-Ip4 | /0..32] | Ip6/0..128; Default: Source address of the connection originator
)

Read only properties:

Property Description

hits (integer) Count of requests that were matched by this rule

Connections
Sub-menu: /ip proxy connections
This menu conntains the list of current connections the proxy is serving.
Read only properties:

Property Description

client ()

dst-address (Ip4 | Ip6) IPv4/Ipv6 destination address of the connection

protocol (string) Protocol name

rx-bytes (integer) The amount of bytes received by the client

server ()

src-address (Ip4 | Ip6) Ipv4/ipv6 address of the connection originator

Manual:IP/Proxy 892

state (closing | connecting | converting | hotspot | idle | resolving | rx-header | Connection state:
tx-body | tx-eof | tx-header | waiting) • closing - the data transfer is finished, and the
connection is being finalized
• connecting - establishing toe connection
• converting - replacing header and footer fields in
response or request paket
• hotspot - check if hotspot authentication allows to
continue (for hotspot proxy)
• idle - staying idle
• resolving - resolving server's DNS name
• rx-header - receiving HTTP header
• tx-body - transmitting HTTP body to the client
• tx-eof - writing chunk-end (when converting to
chunked response)
• tx-header - transmitting HTTP header to the client
• waiting - waiting for transmission form a peer

tx-bytes (integer) The amount of bytes sent by the client

Cache Inserts
Sub-menu: /ip proxy inserts
This menu shows statistics on objects stored in cache (cache inserts).
Read only properties:

Property Description

denied (integer) Number of inserts denied by the caching list.

errors (integer) Number of disk or other system-related errors

no-memory (integer) Number of objects not stored because there was not enough memory

successes (integer) Number of successfull cache inserts.

too-large (integer) Number of objects too large to store

Cache Lookups
Sub-menu: /ip proxy lookup
This menu shows statistics on objects read from cache (cache lookups).
Read only properties:

Property Description

denied (integer) Number of requests denied by the access list.

expired (integer) Number of requests found in cache, but expired, and, thus, requested from an external server

no-expiration-info Conditional request received for a page that does not have the information to compare the request with
(integer)

non-cacheable (integer) Number of requests requested from the external servers unconditionally (as their caching is denied by the cache
access list)

not-found (integer) Number of requests not found in the cache, and, thus, requested from an external server (or parent proxy if
configured accordingly)

successes (integer) Number of requests found in the cache.

Manual:IP/Proxy 893

Cache Contents
Sub-menu: /ip proxy cache-contents
This menu shows cached contents.
Read only properties:

Property Description

file-size (integer) Cached object size

last-accessed (time)

last-accessed-time (time)

last-modified (time)

last-modified-time (time)

uri (string)

HTTP Methods

Options
This method is a request of information about the communication options available on the chain between the client
and the server identified by the Request-URI. The method allows the client to determine the options and (or) the
requirements associated with a resource without initiating any resource retrieval

GET
This method retrieves whatever information identified by the Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers to a data
processing process than the response to the GET method should contain data produced by the process, not the source
code of the process procedure(-s), unless the source is the result of the process.
The GET method can become a conditional GET if the request message includes an If-Modified-Since,
If-Unmodified-Since, If-Match, If-None-Match, or If-Range header field. The conditional GET method is used to
reduce the network traffic specifying that the transfer of the entity should occur only under circumstances described
by conditional header field(-s).
The GET method can become a partial GET if the request message includes a Range header field. The partial GET
method intends to reduce unnecessary network usage by requesting only parts of entities without transferring data
already held by client.
The response to a GET request is cacheable if and only if it meets the requirements for HTTP caching.

HEAD
This method shares all features of GET method except that the server must not return a message-body in the
response. This retrieves the metainformation of the entity implied by the request which leads to a wide usage of it for
testing hypertext links for validity, accessibility, and recent modification.
The response to a HEAD request may be cacheable in the way that the information contained in the response may be
used to update previously cached entity identified by that Request-URI.
Manual:IP/Proxy 894

POST
This method requests that the origin server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the
resource identified by the Request-URI.
The actual action performed by the POST method is determined by the origin server and usually is Request-URI
dependent.
Responses to POST method are not cacheable, unless the response includes appropriate Cache-Control or Expires
header fields.

PUT
This method requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the supplied Request-URI. If another entity exists
under specified Request-URI, the enclosed entity should be considered as updated (newer) version of that residing on
the origin server. If the Request-URI is not pointing to an existing resource, the origin server should create a resource
with that URI.
If the request passes through a cache and the Request-URI identifies one or more currently cached entities, those
entries should be treated as stale. Responses to this method are not cacheable.

TRACE
This method invokes a remote, application-layer loop-back of the request message. The final recipient of the request
should reflect the message received back to the client as the entity-body of a 200 (OK) response. The final recipient
is either the origin server or the first proxy or gateway to receive a Max-Forwards value of 0 in the request. A
TRACE request must not include an entity.
Responses to this method MUST NOT be cached.
[ Top | Back to Content ]

References
[1] http:/ / www. facebook. com
[2] http:/ / www. mail. com
[3] http:/ / www. hotmail. com
Manual:Fast Path 895

Manual:Fast Path
Applies to RouterOS: v6.0rc2 +

Summary
Fast path allows to forward packets without additional processing in the Linux kernel. It improves forwarding speeds
significantly.
For fast path to work, interface support and specific configuration conditions are required.

List of RouterBoards with FastPath support

RouterBoard Interfaces

RB6xx series ether1,2

RB7xx series all ethernets

RB8xx series ether1,2

RB9xx series all ethernets

RB1000 all ethernets

RB1100 series ether1-10,11

RB2011 series all ethernets and sfp

CCR series routers all ethernets and sfps

FastPath Handlers
Currently RouterOS has following fast path handlers:
• ipv4
• traffic generator
• mpls
• bridge
Note: Packet will be forwarded in fast path only if source and destination interfaces support fast path. See the
list of supported interfaces.

IPv4 handler
IPv4 fast path is automatically used if following conditions are met:
• firewal rules are not configured,
• Traffic flow is disabled /ip traffic-flow enabled=no
• Simple and queue trees with parent=global are not configured.
• source interface is not bridge port or bonding slave
• destination interface queue is set to only-hw-queue and no queue tree entries with parent="dst interface"
• no mesh, metarouter interface configuration,
• sniffer, torch and traffic generator is not running
• connection tracking is not active
Manual:Fast Path 896

• ip accounting is disabled (/ip accounting enabled=no);

• VRFs are not set (/ip route vrf is empty);
• Hotspot is not used (/ip hostspot has no interfaces);
/ip firewall connection tracking set enabled parameter has new auto value Which means
that connection tracking is disabled by default until firewall rules are added.
Note: Starting from v6.1 added VRRP interface no longer disables fast path globally. Ipv4 and bridge fast
path handlers will not work only if source interface is vrrp slave interface.

Traffic Generator handler

Traffic Generator fast path is automatically used for interfaces that support this feature.
MPLS handler
MPLS fast path is automatically used for interfaces that support this feature.
Currently MPLS fast-path applies only to MPLS switched traffic (frames that enter router as MPLS and must leave
router as MPLS) - MPLS ingress and egress (including VPLS tunnel endpoints that do VPLS encap/decap) will
operate as before.
Bridge handler
Bridge fast path is automatically used if following conditions are met:
• no bridge firewall rules (/interface bridge filter, /interface bridge nat) are configured,
• /interface bridge settings use-ip-firwall=no,
• destination interface queue is set to only-hw-queue,
• no mesh, metarouter interface configuration,
• sniffer, torch and traffic generator is not running
[ Top | Back to Content ]
Manual:Tools/Fetch 897

Manual:Tools/Fetch
Applies to RouterOS: v3, v4 +

Summary
Sub-menu: /tool fetch
Standards:
Fetch is one of the console tools in Mikrotik RouterOS. It is used to copy files from any network device to a
Mikrotik router via HTTP or FTP.
In latest v5 versions it is possible also to upload files to remote locations.
Fetch now supports HTTPS protocol. By default no certificate checks are made, but setting check-certificate to yes
enables trust chain validation from local certificate store. CRL checking is never done.

Properties
Property Description

address (string; Default: ) IP address of the device to copy file from.

ascii (yes | no; Default: no)

check-certificate (yes | no; Enables trust chain validation from local certificate store.
Default: no)

dst-path (string; Default: ) Destination filename and path

host (string; Default: ) Domain name or virtual domain name (if used on web-site, from which you want to copy information).
For example,

address=wiki.mikrotik.com host=forum.mikrotik.com

In this example the resolved ip address is the same (66.228.113.27), but hosts are different.

keep-result (yes | no; Default: yes) If yes, creates an input file.

mode (ftp|http|tftp {!} https; Default: Choose the protocol of connection - http, https , ftp or tftp.
http)

password (string; Default: Password, which is needed for authentication to the remote device.
anonymous)

port (integer; Default: ) Connection port.

src-path (string; Default: ) Title of the remote file you need to copy.

upload (yes | no; Default: no) If enabled then fetch will be used to upload file to remote server. Requires src-path and dst-path
parameters to be set.

url (string; Default: ) URL pointing to file. Can be used instead of address and src-path parameters.

user (string; Default: anonymous) User name, which is needed for authentication to the remote device.
Manual:Tools/Fetch 898

Examples
The following example shows how to copy the file with filename "conf.rsc" from device with ip address
192.168.88.2 by FTP protocol and save it as file with filename "123.rsc". User and password are needed to login into
the device.

[admin@mt-test] /tool> fetch address=192.168.88.2 src-path=conf.rsc \

user=admin mode=ftp password=123 dst-path=123.rsc port=21 \
host="" keep-result=yes

Example to upload file to other router:

[admin@mt-test] /tool> fetch address=192.168.88.2 src-path=conf.rsc \

user=admin mode=ftp password=123 dst-path=123.rsc upload=yes

Another example that demonstrates the usage of url property.

[admin@test_host] /> /tool fetch url="http://www.mikrotik.com/img/netaddresses2.pdf" mode=http
status: finished

[admin@test_host] /> /file print

# NAME TYPE SIZE CREATION-TIME
...
5 netaddresses2.pdf .pdf file 11547 jun/01/2010 11:59:51

[ Top | Back to Content ]

Article Sources and Contributors 899

Article Sources and Contributors

Manual:TOC Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25789 Contributors: Becs, Marisb

Manual:First time startup Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22160 Contributors: Jandrade28, Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb, MarkSorensen, Nest, Normis, Rock on all you f little
dudes!, SergejsB

Manual:Initial Configuration Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22340 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Console login process Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21955 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Troubleshooting tools Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22862 Contributors: Andriss, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Support Output File Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22202 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Maximan, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:RouterOS features Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25703 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis, SergejsB, Uldis

Manual:RouterOS FAQ Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21957 Contributors: B.Gates, Dsdee, Eep, Eugene, Grimp, Marisb, Nest, Normis, Rieks

Manual:Connection oriented communication (TCP/IP) Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19069 Contributors: Andriss, Marisb

Manual:Console Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22857 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Winbox Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25527 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Nz monkey

Manual:Webfig Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23656 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Product Naming Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25605 Contributors: Marisb, Megis

Manual:Default Configurations Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25205 Contributors: Marisb, Normis

Manual:Upgrading RouterOS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25844 Contributors: Axtell, Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:Configuration Management Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24984 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:Interface Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22145 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Interface/Ethernet Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25792 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Interface/Bonding Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25677 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Interface/Bridge Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25102 Contributors: Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb

Manual:Interface/VRRP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20047 Contributors: Burek, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Bonding Examples Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23807 Contributors: Eep, Eugene, Marisb, Normis, Peson

Manual:VRRP-examples Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21961 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Switch Chip Features Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25724 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Maximum Transmission Unit on RouterBoards Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25803 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb, Megis, Mplsguy, Normis,
SergejsB

Manual:Interface/Wireless Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24506 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB, Uldis

Manual:Wireless AP Client Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20439 Contributors: Marisb, SergejsB

Manual:Wireless Station Modes Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20615 Contributors: Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:Nv2 Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23773 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Mplsguy, Normis, SergejsB, Uldis

Manual:WMM Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23347 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Spectral scan Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23004 Contributors: Marisb, Normis

Manual:Wireless Advanced Channels Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23771 Contributors: Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis, Uldis

Manual:Interface/HWMPplus Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16987 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Raivis bucis, Route, SergejsB

Manual:Making a simple wireless AP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16483 Contributors: Marisb, Normis

Manual:Wireless FAQ Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25771 Contributors: Andreinazc, Janisk, Jorj, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB, Uldis

Manual:Wireless Debug Logs Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17342 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, MarkSorensen, Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:Interface/VLAN Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19562 Contributors: Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb

Manual:IP/IPsec Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25889 Contributors: Eep, Eugene, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SacXs2, Sergejs, SergejsB

Manual:Interface/EoIP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25533 Contributors: Eugene, HarvSki, Huri, Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb

Manual:Interface/Gre Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24637 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Interface/IPIP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21605 Contributors: Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb

Manual:Interface/PPP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25043 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Interface/PPPoE Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23491 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Interface/PPTP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25091 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Sergejs, SergejsB

Manual:Interface/L2TP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25063 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Interface/SSTP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25092 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Interface/OVPN Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25174 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:BCP bridging (PPP tunnel bridging) Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22208 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis, SergejsB
Article Sources and Contributors 900

Manual:MLPPP over single and multiple links Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25654 Contributors: Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Interface/VPLS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25391 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IPv6 Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17558 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/Settings Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25907 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/Address Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20446 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/ARP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20824 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Load balancing multiple same subnet links Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16963 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IPv6/Settings Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25788 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IPv6/Address Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23735 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IPv6/ND Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20511 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:My First IPv6 Network Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23739 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Creating IPv6 loopback address Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17556 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Route

Manual:IP/Route Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20436 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Simple Static Routing Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21612 Contributors: Marisb, SergejsB

Manual:Virtual Routing and Forwarding Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16975 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Route

Manual:IPv6/Route Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23740 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Simple Static IPv6 Routing Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23743 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IP/DHCP Server Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25653 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/DHCP Client Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25651 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/DHCP Relay Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24880 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/Pools Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17294 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:IPv6/DHCP Server Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25891 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IPv6/DHCP Client Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24325 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IPv6/Pool Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22676 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Routing Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16923 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:IP/Firewall Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16965 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/Firewall/Filter Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25013 Contributors: Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:IP/Firewall/NAT Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24582 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:IP/Firewall/Mangle Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22182 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:IP/Firewall/Address list Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17287 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:IP/Firewall/L7 Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25103 Contributors: Eep, Hrnous, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:IP/Firewall/Connection tracking Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25904 Contributors: Janisk, Krisjanis, Marisb, Normis

Manual:IPv6/Firewall Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17674 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Filter Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23201 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Mangle Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17644 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IPv6/Firewall/Address-list Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17645 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:IP/Services Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25706 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, SergejsB

Manual:PCC Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24755 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Connection Rate Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16964 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:NTH in RouterOS 3.x Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17073 Contributors: Marisb, Maximan, Normis

Manual:Routing Table Matcher Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16980 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Routing/Routing filters Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24638 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Route

Manual:Routing/OSPF Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25099 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Route

Manual:OSPF Case Studies Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23058 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:OSPF-examples Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22871 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Route

Manual:OSPF and Point-to-Point interfaces Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17390 Contributors: Atis, Eep, Marisb

Manual:OSPFv3 with Quagga Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17612 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Route

Manual:Routing/BGP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23694 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Route

Manual:BGP HowTo & FAQ Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24179 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Route

Manual:BGP soft reconfiguration alternatives in RouterOS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=18350 Contributors: Atis, Eep, Janisk, Marisb, SergejsB

Manual:BGP Load Balancing with two interfaces Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16878 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Route
Article Sources and Contributors 901

Manual:Simple BGP Multihoming Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19642 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Using scope and target-scope attributes Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25244 Contributors: Atis, Eep, Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Routing/RIP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17245 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Routing/Prefix list Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17242 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:Routing/MME Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17440 Contributors: Atis, Eep, Marisb

Manual:MME wireless routing protocol Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17441 Contributors: Atis, Eep, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:Routing/Multicast Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25791 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Route

Manual:Queue Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25410 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:HTB Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22317 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Queue Size Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16951 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis

Manual:Queues - Burst Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24767 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Queues - PCQ Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21847 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Queues - PCQ Examples Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23527 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis, Rieks, SergejsB, Wiki1981

Manual:Packet Flow Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25078 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis

Manual:Packet Flow v6 Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25744 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:TE Tunnels Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16522 Contributors: Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:TE tunnel auto bandwidth Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16517 Contributors: Marisb, Mplsguy

Manual:Simple TE Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25440 Contributors: Marisb, Megis

Manual:TE Tunnels Example Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19203 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Interface/Traffic Engineering Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22126 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:MPLS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23554 Contributors: Eising, Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis, Route, SergejsB

Manual:MPLS/Overview Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23235 Contributors: Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis, Route

Manual:MPLS over PPPoE Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16772 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:MPLS/EXP bit behaviour Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16502 Contributors: Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:MPLS/LDP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24648 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:MPLSVPLS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16498 Contributors: Eep, Mag, Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:Cisco VPLS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16871 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:BGP based VPLS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22990 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis

Manual:VPLS Control Word Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25090 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Layer-3 MPLS VPN example Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16990 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Route

Manual:EBGP as PE-CE routing protocol Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23196 Contributors: Marisb, Route

Manual:OSPF as PE-CE routing protocol Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16913 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Route

Manual:MPLS/Traffic-eng Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17239 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Router AAA Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25805 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:PPP AAA Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22902 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:RADIUS Client Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22741 Contributors: Agris, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB, Uldis

Manual:User Manager Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19155 Contributors: Akangage, Bhhenry, Binhtanngo2003, Cmit, Comnetisp, Eep, Girts, Hellbound, Janisk,
Levipatick, Marisb, Nest, Normis, Polokus, Rtkrh10, SergejsB, Uldis

Manual:Hotspot Introduction Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25314 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Customizing Hotspot Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25437 Contributors: Marisb, SergejsB

Manual:IP/Hotspot Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19414 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB, Vitell

Manual:Virtualization Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20250 Contributors: Danielillu, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:KVM Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24077 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Megis, Normis, Route

Manual:Metarouter Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25828 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Nickshore, Normis, Omega-00, Uldis

Manual:Xen Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=16862 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Mplsguy, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:Interface/Virtual-ethernet Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22659 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Port Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25747 Contributors: Becs, Marisb

Manual:Special Login Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25027 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:System/Serial Console Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20488 Contributors: Marisb, MarkSorensen, Normis

Manual:Scripting Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25806 Contributors: Burek, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Proofreader

Manual:Scripting-examples Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25690 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Vitell

Manual:Lua Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20164 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Article Sources and Contributors 902

Manual:System/SSH client Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23804 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:IP/SSH Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24660 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:System/Log Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19957 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:System/UPS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=17453 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:System/LCD Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25259 Contributors: Becs, Marisb, Normis

Manual:LCD TouchScreen Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25692 Contributors: Becs, Marisb, Normis

Manual:System/GPS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21760 Contributors: Marisb, Normis

Manual:IP/Traffic Flow Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25247 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:SNMP Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25273 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Uldis

Manual:Tools/Graphing Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21173 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Tools/Profiler Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20847 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Tools/Packet Sniffer Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23105 Contributors: Janisk, Kirshteins, Marisb, SergejsB

Manual:Grounding Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25535 Contributors: Becs, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Wireless card diagnostics Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21093 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:RouterBOARD bad blocks Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24124 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Password reset Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24165 Contributors: Fbsd, Golden, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, Sizwan

Manual:Flashfig Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20470 Contributors: Janisk, Maximan, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:Bootloader upgrade Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23708 Contributors: Cmit, Eep, Girts, Janisk, Marisb, Normis, SergejsB, XlnEax

Manual:System/Certificates Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25851 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Create Certificates Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=24785 Contributors: Becs, Marisb

Manual:Tools/Traffic Generator Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23242 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:Tools/Bandwidth Test Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19919 Contributors: Kirshteins, Marisb

Manual:System/LEDS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25674 Contributors: Marisb, Normis

Manual:System/Note Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21032 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:System/File Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19362 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:System/Resource Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=19354 Contributors: Marisb

Manual:System/Health Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=21436 Contributors: Janisk, Normis

Manual:Store Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23424 Contributors: Becs, Janisk, Marisb, Nest, Normis, SergejsB

Manual:System/Watchdog Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23340 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb

Manual:System/Scheduler Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23832 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:System/Time Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=20110 Contributors: Eep, Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:API Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25640 Contributors: AlbertStrasheim, Eep, Janisk, Jk, Juris, Karlis, Marisb, Normis, Yangsenyu

Manual:IP/Proxy Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=23946 Contributors: Janisk, Marisb, Normis

Manual:Fast Path Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25594 Contributors: Marisb, Normis

Manual:Tools/Fetch Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=25030 Contributors: Cmarzotta, Enk, Janisk, Marisb, Mmv, Nest, Normis, Route, Rus123
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 903

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

Image:Version.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Version.png License: unknown Contributors: Normis
File:Winbox-loader2.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-loader2.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:Winbox-workarea.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-workarea.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:Webfig-2.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Webfig-2.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:initial_screen_webfig.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Initial_screen_webfig.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:webfig_login.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Webfig_login.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:goto_system.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Goto_system.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk, Marisb
File:users_management.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Users_management.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:ediit_create_user.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Ediit_create_user.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:change_password_user_edit.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Change_password_user_edit.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:DHCP_client.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:DHCP_client.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:add_new_address.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Add_new_address.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:adding_new_address.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Adding_new_address.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
Image:Icon-note.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Icon-note.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb, Route
File:check_nat_masquerade.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Check_nat_masquerade.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:masqurade_rule.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Masqurade_rule.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:to_the_routes.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:To_the_routes.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:add_default_route.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Add_default_route.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:route_add_gateway.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Route_add_gateway.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:go_to_DNS_settings.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Go_to_DNS_settings.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:dns_add_server.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Dns_add_server.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:for_2_dns_servers.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:For_2_dns_servers.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:sntp_client_setup.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Sntp_client_setup.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
Image:Icon-warn.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Icon-warn.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb, Route
File:interface_open_details.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Interface_open_details.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:master_port.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Master_port.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:remove_bridge_port.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Remove_bridge_port.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:secuirtas_profle.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Secuirtas_profle.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:creating_security_profile.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Creating_security_profile.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:goto_wireless.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Goto_wireless.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:wireless_general.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Wireless_general.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:wireless_ht.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Wireless_ht.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:enable_wireless.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Enable_wireless.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:Brtidge_ports_view.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Brtidge_ports_view.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:add_bridge_port.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Add_bridge_port.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:set_up_bridge.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Set_up_bridge.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:correct_address_1.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Correct_address_1.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:change_passwd_current_user.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Change_passwd_current_user.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:wifi_freq_usage1.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Wifi_freq_usage1.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:wifi_freq_usage.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Wifi_freq_usage.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:wifi_adv_mode.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Wifi_adv_mode.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:Wifi_select_country.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Wifi_select_country.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
File:dst-nat.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Dst-nat.png License: unknown Contributors: Janisk
Image:image11001.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image11001.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
Image:image11002.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image11002.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
File:profiler.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Profiler.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
Image:Supout.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Supout.png License: unknown Contributors: Normis
Image:Supout2.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Supout2.png License: unknown Contributors: Normis
Image:Supout3.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Supout3.png License: unknown Contributors: Normis
Image:image2001.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image2001.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
Image:image2002.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image2002.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
Image:image2003.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image2003.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
Image:image2004.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image2004.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
Image:image2005.gif Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Image2005.gif License: unknown Contributors: Andriss
Image:2009-04-06 1317.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:2009-04-06_1317.png License: unknown Contributors: Normis
File:win-web-snap.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-web-snap.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb, SergejsB
File:winbox-loader.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-loader.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:winbox-loader2.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-loader2.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:winbox-ipv6-loader.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-ipv6-loader.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:winbox-ipv6nd.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-ipv6nd.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:winbox-win-child.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-win-child.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:win-add.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-add.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:win-remove.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-remove.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:win-enable.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-enable.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:win-disable.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-disable.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:win-comment.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-comment.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:win-sort.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Win-sort.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:winbox-window-search.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-window-search.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 904

File:Winbox-window-sort.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-window-sort.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb

File:Winbox-window-field.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-window-field.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
File:Winbox-window-detail.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Winbox-window-detail.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb
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