This is a real shame.
Maybe I’m a bit slow, but a job that I’d expect would take 15-30 minutes, unpacking a switch, hooking up som cables, setting up some bonds, tagging and untagging a few vlans. You know, switching, layer 2 stuff.
Has so far taken the better part of two days. Grasping RouterOS, while trying to hack together a, in networking terms, quite straight forward and simple configuration. I think I’m getting there, but this was a very unpleasant surprise for my first Mikrotik experience.
From what I’ve been able to grasp, routeros looks like a fantastically versatile and powerful tool. But I just need to tag a few vlans here, untag a few there, and bond a few, and that’s about that. Switching stuff.
The switch itself looks like a pretty decent unit. Very good value for money. But if you’re expecting a traditional switch setup experience, you’re in for something else. This can be everything you want, and at least me, I’m going to have to learn a bit about it to feel comfortable deploying this thing. So considering the large investment in grasping routeros, perhaps it’s not such good value after all. Especially if you’re not deploying a large amount of these units.
I’m not in this product for routing things. Not even between vlans. I just want a easy setup switch.
By the way, the booklet that came with my unit, in addition to explaining how to boot swOS (which, if followed, puts the switch in a boot loop), also states it has a USB Type A connector. I’ve not been able to find one. You know what would be really nice? One of those micro-usb ports that contains a usb-to-serial interface for a management port. Those are very handy.
TL; DR;
RouterOS is probably great. But for simple switching stuff, it’s ridiculously overkill.