So, with all of your help, I finally have my hex set up great. Love it, very happy. So now my son bought a mikrotik and wants it set up exactly the same way; all the exact same settings. I have read that you can’t take your .backup file and use it in a different mkrotik router because it has mac addresses and serial numbers and incompatible stuff. Your backup file is designed only for use in your specific router. And, one more thing, he got the newer hex refresh E50UG with version 7 OS and I have the older hex RB750Gr3 with version 6 OS.
So is there a way to import my config onto his router, or will I have to do everything by hand again?
You can Copy and Paste the configuration.
Importing an export Is NEVER a good idea, particularly when the two devices are not the same, but - more generally - usually the destination device has some minimal configuration and importing the export from the old device could create conflicts.
A suitable procedure Is to compare the exports from the two devices and then Copy and Paste only the differences, in sections, a section at the time.
I just posted a couple spreadsheets that could be of use in such a situation, here: http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/configuration-parser-spreadsheet/183922/1
but they are only tools that can help, not a fail- or fool- proof solution.
You need to be careful with interface names and interface lists as you risk to lock yourself out, you can set temporarily Winbox access allowed to “all” interfaces while you do the Copy/Paste.
One word answer: no, generally you can’t just go “give me the same config”.
There are two methods of saving config on Mikrotik:
backup - this is meant for the exact same device and usually best done on the exact same software version. This saves the (binary) configuration files of RouterOS and reloads them verbatim
export (/export show.sensitive file=myconfig.rsc) - this provides a text based command-by-command transcript of how your router is configured (If you don’t want to expost passwords/secrets, omit the show-sensitive part)
If you use the export method, you may still have to configure some things by hand, but by following along the textual export you have a much lower chance of missing something important. Also, usually whole chunks (e.g. firewall rules) can be copy-pasted verbatim into the console of the new router.
Thanks for all the answers. It seems that in my particular situation it might be better to just do the settings one by one with the 2 devices right next to each other. I have a very simple small home network here, so I didn’t really do all that much changing of the default. I tried to sty as close to default as possible with most settings. Probably not that many settings to change. Safest bet.
On a related note, in a desire to keep these 2 routers similar, would it be bad for me to upgrade the one that has OS 6 to OS 7? This way they would be the same? I’m guessing that, again, for my simple network with no funky or complex stuff the upgrade would probably go OK. Bad idea? Have people had problems upgrading from 6 to 7? I mean in a simple set up like mine?
I don’t think you will have issues in the upgrading, in a basic configuration, and on a device without wi-fi the changes (if any) should be minimal.
Take into account that 7 is a bit slower, some say by 15%, some say by 20%, some say …
so, if your old Hex performance was fine with v6, you won’t notice a difference with 7, if it was on the brim of collapsing under the load/speed/bandwidth/whatever then maybe it is better to leave it alone on v6.
Now the good question:
At which exact version of 7 do you plan to upgrade it?
I don’t see a lot of topics about upgrading so I’m guessing that either it works fine or not too many people do it.
I click on “check for upgrades” and it says that I am up to date. I’m guessing that’s because I am choosing the stable channel and that channel only shows you stable updates in your particular version, in other words if you are on OS 6 it will only show you all the updates for OS6. It’s not going to show OS 7. If I change to the “upgrade” channel then it shows OS7.
