you have to understand the difference between bonding and load balancing. These are not synonyms. And load balancing have to be implemented in a different way depending on situation. There is no such thing as - golden load balancing that everyone have to use.
I agree. That’s where MT is strong, but in most cases there is need for quite simple and standard setup. Demand is such that even some cheap routers has an option to use two wlan’s and do load balancing. I do not say that MT should not do this in manner as it is done now, but to provide means for simple, standard setups, which are the most commonly needed.
Here are scenarios that I am pointing:
-
user has two broadband internet connections. He just wants to set router to use both as one.
-
user has two broadband connections. He wants to use both as one, but he would like to send one type of traffic through one connection and other through other (usually, user wants to place all p2p connections through one internet link, and all other traffic to the other
-
user has two broadband connections. He wants to set incoming ports on both connections to be forwarded to single server in lan (usually, it’s pop3/smtp server)
-
user has two broadband internet connections. He wants to use one of them as main, and other one as backup
These are standard needs, so it would be good if MT can provide means to set them up in an easy manner, which I can see similar to setting up bridging.
as you already pointed out, there are several possible configurations, most of them includes mangle and routing marks.
if you study these topics you could easily configure examples for 2 gateway solutions, or even 3, 4 as there are almost no difference in how many connections you have to balance. That is why thi s page exists:
as far as i know - when you attend training you get router that is included in training fee, you get certificate that you passed testing successfully.
as a result, you will know some more people that work with RouterOS, you will get more value back from using RouterOS. As result you will get your invested training money back from using product more effectively. Also, that is not only knowledge about RouterOS, it is knowledge about networking as it is.
and then you can make working wiki examples and earn free licenses if your examples are good.
I fully support this idea.
How many times did we need to check out which wifi frequency belongs to which channel.
For example, if I see 2427Ghz I have no immediate clue where in the 2.4Ghz band this frequency is located, but if I see “channel no.4” I immediate know it is somewhere in between the lowest, 1 and the middle, 7 channel.
Important to know if you try to separate the channels as much as possible in congested wifi areas.
Winbox is a program that makes routerboard and radio management much more simple but it can still be improved here and there.
Well, an option in winbox to start a new winbox session in a pull down menu if you right click on a registred radio in the wireless registration list.
Now you can ping, mac ping, telnet or mac telnet session to such listed device (if the device accepts the connection) but to open a winbox session, whether is to be a mac one or based on IP, we need to fill in the mac or IP in the winbox loader to start a new session.
I would be nice if such could be done by a short cut in the pull down menu of available options in the wireless registration table.
As winbox fan I also want it to remember the window settings of each routerboard.
Back in the 2.9 family I remember that every window opened (and in that window every data shown) is remembered at a proper winbox session termination so you have that same window config back next time you get into the same unit again with winbox.
After, or somewhere down the line, of the 3.x upgrades this functionality is lost.
Now only some window settings are remembered but most get lost after I close the winbox session.
Like ´inline´ comments, some windows keep that in memory to apply it next time I open, but some don´t.
Also, on some windows I’d like to see some specific columns, for instand the “new packet mark” in mangle, but each time the winbox session is closed while this window in the session was also closed I have to build my window again next time I access this router.
There should also be an option to alter the default start up settings for columns etc.
It would make life so much more easy… 
how about Dude? it’s exactly meant for these kinds of multi-router management scenarios
I agree, Dude might be the ´killer´ application that works for that. I do believe in that.
I have only two problems with ´Dude´ which stops me from using:
-
Last week installed latest Dude package on Windows PC and ran ´discovery´ tool. It started good, found some of my networks fine but then all remote networks became empty and only the LAN Dude works in is visible. Now whatever I try, networks behind a router don’t exist any more. Tried the same on a laptop, same result. So gave up for now, have no time to start trouble shooting here and its exactly the same problem I had two years ago when I tried it.
-
Dude can run on a rb for a remote segment of my physical network. But I installed the package, and tried to use is as agent from the running main package. No access possible! I seem not to be able to reach the agent…
Conclusion:
Dude might work, I have the believe it will. But if that takes now as much time to learn and ´try and error´ find out how to work with it as the rest of ROS, it takes me another year.
So far winbox works very nice with me, but some minor improvements would make life easier if you only use winbox.
Sure, if I have more time in the future (there are only 24 hours in a day!) I will start to chew on the dude. For now I just eat what I already know how it tastes.
- dude can’t “see” what you can’t ping
- you have to configure the dude on RB first
I’d like to see some kind of support for:
Channelized DS3 Interface
ATM DS3 Interface
Trouble is, I’m not sure there’s hardware out there to support 
I’d love to replace my Cisco 7206 VXR with an x86 Mikrotik.