Hi all,

I would like to kindly ask for the help of the experts here. I do have two routers in Hetzner's datacenter at Helsinki, which are connected to the Internet via a redundant fiber optics connection, supplied by Hetzner. I also have my own IPv4 range and IPv6 range and the routers are communicating with the co routers of the datacenter via a peering network or transfer network as it's called by the datacenter. I am not sure which term is more correct. This is a /30 for the IPv4 communication and a /126 for the IPv6 commincation. On of them for each router of course, since we are talking for two redundant Internet connections.

These routers are also running BGP, as we are a ripe member and we have our own /24 IPv4 IP range and /29 IPv6 IP range. They also are configured with iBGP, in order to take advantage of the redundant Internet connections, but the problem I have (and here is where I need your help), is that this is not configured on a way that the secondary router undertakes the roles in case the Internet connection on the main router is not working. So whenever there is an issue on the main connection, I have to login on the secondary MikroTik router, increase the priority on the entries under "Interface List" > "VRRP" and also go on each BGP connection (there is one for the IPv4 and one for the IPv6), under the tab "Extra" and tick the checkbox "Connected" on "Output Redistribute".

The engineer that helped me setup all this (eBGP, iBGP, etc.) said that it's not possible to make the routers work on a full automated mode, so I have to do that whenever the Internet connection on the main router is not working. I truly believe that this is not the truth and that they are able to do this failover automated. It's completely ridiculous having such infrastructure and pay a redundant fiber connection if this is not working by itself and I have to realize that our infrastructure is not supplying services, when the first customer calls to complain.

I would really appreciate if you the MikroTik experts and experienced engineers could provide me here some help. I am also willing to pay something for your services, if someone could undertake this with responsibility and make it work as it should. My only minor problem is that I have time only until Saturday. I am at Helsinki and doing some maintenance works on our infrastructure and I want to solve that issue when I am here. I don't want to rely on Hetzner to bring it back in life in case something goes wrong with the settings and the tests. I want to do that with the minimum possible downtime.

Thanks a lot in advance for your time and your help. I am looking forward to hear some ideas and solutions to my problem.


With kind regards,
Angelos Pitsos