I have a network physically structued like this:
Laptop <---> CRS328 A Switch <---> CRS328 B Switch <--> RB4011 <---> RB Groove A-2Hn
When I run winbox on my laptop I can only see CR3328 A and CRS328 B shown as neighbors.
When I connect to the CRS328 A using winbox on my laptop, and run Tools > Romon > Discover, I see everything else: CRS328B, RB3011, RB Groove
Why are 2 neighbors not visible in Winbox when showing neighbors in WinBox on my laptop?
I retyped the RoMon secrets in the devices in case that’s it, but still missing some devices.
Since I’m running Winbox64 v4 I thought it might be a bug, but V3 shows them missing as well.
ip neighbors are different from RoMON
from your PC on winbox you see ip neighbors of devices that are directly reachable, that is de usefulness of RoMON, You can reach devices that you couldn’t reach directly
I thought RoMon uses MAC addresses (ignoring IP)…
But maybe I misunderstand what that winbox tab is offering. Is there a way to browse/see MT devices by MAC?
Use ROMON.
But I think you are mixing 2 things together here.
How I understand it all works:
In Winbox those Neighbors are not ROMON discoveries.
Winbox Neighbors uses Cisco Discovery Protocol so you might even see devices there which are not Mikrotik.
Or they are Mikrotik but not ROS, like SWOS devices (which should open then in web browser if you select them).
This only works for the network segments it can reach.
Romon is different in that it actively tries to look on all possible interfaces it is allowed to use for other ROMON enabled devices (and that’s only Mikrotik/ROS).
It can create a sort of “bridge” towards segments which are otherwise not reachable for you.
And then on the next hop it does the same.
That way it creates a list of devices which can be reached using ROMON. Until it encounters a device where ROMON is not allowed to go on all interfaces. Segments connecting to those interfaces, are not visible to ROMON either.
Or when there simply are no ROMON enabled devices anymore to be found.
Small caveat: the underlying network has to allow passing of the ROMON ethernet frames (EtherType 0x88bf). But in cases where this is not working, you can circumvent it with workarounds.
E.g. from home I can connect using Zerotier to a customer RB5009 105km away from me, that one has MPLS connections to 30 other locations all over the Northern part of Belgium.
That MPLS does not pass ROMON frames (it’s L3), but EOIP tunnels placed between that RB5009 and each of those sites make that work. Those tunnels are not even connected to bridge. They just need to be there to let ROMON do its magic. Any L2 connection will suffice to do this.
A couple of other sites don’t have that MPLS (other ISP), so I use Wireguard tunnels there to that central RB5009 and again, EOIP on top (it needs to be L2 communication and Wireguard is L3).
Result: from wherever I am with internet access, I see all MT devices for that customer, using ROMON to that Zerotier connected RB5009.
What connections or devices are between the ones you do see and the ones you don’t ?
Most likely there is something in between not allowing ROMON frames.
Create an L2 connection to cross that roadblock and it will work again.
Or if it’s a stupid switch blocking you, maybe you can replace it with one which does allow those Romon frames to get through.
My setup is:
Laptop <—> CRS328 A Switch <—> CRS328 B Switch ↔ RB4011 <—> RB Groove A-2Hn
and my laptop discover the RB4011 and RB Groove (using the neighbours tab in winbox). I was hoping for some way to browse / discover all of the MT devices on my network using WinBox.