Dude 3.6 on ROS 6.x mipsbe (RB2011UAS-2HND-IN)

RouterOS The Dude
1

Hi,
I have installed Dude v. 3.6 recently. Firstly it run on ROS 6.5 and after that I upgraded to ROS 6.9 and had to reinstall Dude because it did not allowed me to log in. But this is not the case I want to discuss about.

The problem is, that since I istalled Dude, it is continuously eating the memory. See the graph:
memory_growth.jpg
Description:
Dude installed first time on Friday. See what it did.
ROS updated to v. 6.9 on Sunday. Several reboots, Dude uninstall, install again. Since then it is continuously eating the memory.

No changes to dude shchemes, nor other changes.

So now what? Is it the behaviour that it should be? What shall I do after two days when memory will be out?

How can I expect it will run on RBs with 64MB of memory (Omnitiks)?

2

Run the export file=MyFile command. Then run system routerboard print and make sure your firmware is up to date. If so, then do system reset-configuration. Manually add back in your custom settings from the MyFile.rsc file.

3

Dude has not enjoyed any development time since the days of ros ver3. It may well be there are compatibility issues with v6. But I do not know if this is the case.

4

Well, thank you for the suggestion.

My firmware version si up to date: 3.10.

Anyway, before reset, I just restarted the router. And it is starting at 40MB of RAM used. Wondering how it will be growing… The strange thing is that two days ago it started at 64MB used…

To be honest, I do not believe that export, reset and import of settings could change something. Or do you have personally such experience in exactly the same situation? Will the graphs survive the reset?

How the reset and setting back the settings could have influence on Dude behaviour? There is no settings regarding Dude.

edit: after the reboot it seems that all device pictures used in network maps in Dude are lost. They do not display when selected from pull-down menu. Others (not previously used) are present. What is this??

5

Hi again,

I am attaching the graph after last restar on Tuesday. It started growing from 40MB (much lower start then after previous restart).
memory_growth2.jpg
I have read somewhere (do not have link now) that someone was told by someone from Mikrotik that Dude is keeping data in memory until the data are written to disk. And writing should be done periodically.

I do not know how to manage the writing period, but it seems that even the data are written to disk (not lost by reboot), the memory is not freed. Seems this could be the reason. Or the reboot is started by data writing and performed after the data are written?

If there would be no hints, I will write to support and ask for solution. - Yes, I know that development of Dude is dead, but it is being in use on many installations so some solution surely exist…

6

[Ticket#2014020766000469] created.

7

No answer to my ticket so far. Never mind.
About 3 days ago I had short power blackout. After that the Dude server was unaccessible. Restarts did not help. Disable/Enable Dude package did not help. I uninstalled Dude, removed its store, created new stored for Dude, installed Dude again and then reconstructed the Dude maps. Since then the memory growth is much slower:
memory_growth3.jpg
Really strange.

Is anyone facing the same behavior?

8

I have just opened the Dude client. My maps were without descriptions, names, numbers… only colored boxes with links were displayed. So I restarted the dude server. Logged again and: Nothing displayed. Well, imported the XML export from yesterday. Seemed fine, performed well, but: Not possible to log in by Dude client: Invalid username and password. After a while, login successfull. And again, no descriptions, no speeds, no nothing, only blank graphs - points with connections.

Additional reboot: Unable to connect to dude server - invalid username and password.

Found that store Dude1 (usb stick) was deactivated and Dude2 (backup on internal flash) was activated. So I reactivated it back. Logged in correctly. Maps totally lost their devices.

Ok, tried to upload XML backup back - Upload failed: cannot create the file.

Yesterday was everything fine, no reboots, no problems. And today this. Suddenly, with no reason.

Maybe problem with usb stick. Now I see two usb stick in Disks. But only one is physically connected.

So, additional reboot to reset the attached disks. Ok, only USB1 is connected. Activated again Dude1 store on USB1. Reboot.

Stores look fine. Wrong user/name for Dude. Used “admin/blank” to log in. Nothing inside. Tried to import XML backup: Uplad fiailed: cannot create the file.

I will need to try different usb flashdisk and will see what happen… And reinstall Dude again. And maybe export the router config, netinstall v6.9, import config. But I will do it during weekend as it is not possible to do it remotely.

Anyway, it seems that Dude is real crap.

9

It looks like novel - each page brings something new:

Now, after powercycling before few hours the Dude started to work like before, client connects, maps are correct with the devices and links as before. And I did nothing for it - only the power was switched off and then on.

10

Again, still no answer to my ticket.

What is new?

I have changed the usb flash disk on Saturday afternoon. I had many problems with accepting the flashdisks but finally I managed to reliable run one of them. So I was able to throw away old (maybe 10 years or so) 128MB flash disk which was till now used as storage for logging and Dude data. I put there 7GB much newer usb flash disk.

Meanwhile I realised that if I have whatever that writes to usb flash, it can prevent usb1 disk mounting, because the mounting can take some time after mikrotik starts. If meanwhile some script or log writes to (e.g. "usb1/log.txt) it cannot address the so far not mounted disk. Therefore new directory with name “usb1” is created on the internal flash memory. Unfortunatelly, subsequent mounting of USB flash disk will not happen. Therefore the solution: Postpone writing by scripts at least 2 minutes from start to get some time for usb1 mounting.

Since then I have no running problems with Dude, data is not lost, Dude survived all restarts so far.

But this is not solving the continuous memory consumption, as you can see on the actual graph:
memory_growth4.jpg
What does it say?

  1. it seems that the graph slope is much lower, it means, the memory consumption is slower. But it is still present!

  2. the big jumps up are due to xml exports for backups from the Dude client.

So, it seems that Dude works (functionally) really better than before, even the memory problem is not solved.

11

First response to my ticket from Normunds:

Hello,

You can try the v4.0b3 version and see if situation has improved

Regards,
Normunds

Will try soon. Hope it will not destroy the rest.

12

It did not destroyed much.
After many problems I succeeded to install Dude v.4.0b3. Data is not lost. Unfortunatelly, it is not easy to export the backup file from Dude, because the client always disconnects and the Dude store is also disconnected and connected again to the server (found in the system log).

And finally, there is no influence to memory consumption problem. It is not solved.

Replied to Support and waiting for answer.

13

Today at midnight the Dude 4.0b3 stopped consuming the memory. And lost data.

Restart did not help.

Imposssible to upload the backup - the same problem like with exporting: The client disconnects and the dude store reconnects again according to system log.

14

Downgraded to 3.6. Deleted the dude store, created new. Restarted many times. Impossible to import old backup exports from version 3.6. It worked before, I did it several times.

The contemporary result is worse than the initial problem.

Probably I will have to netinstall 6.10 or 6.9 and try everything from the beginning… Awful!

15

New news:

Netinstalled rOS 6.10.
Installed Dude 4.0.3b.
Logged from client. Deleted “Local” map, changed user name and password. Reconnected.
Uploaded last backup (.tgz file).
“uploading” diplayed.
Then connection lost. Reconnecting.

Nothing uploaded (it seems), but new lines in system log appeared:

Mar/17/2014 16:18:08 store,debug activating store for dude1
Mar/17/2014 16:18:08 store,debug dude1: activation finished successfully

Connected again to Dude. Nothing uploaded, but “Local” map which was deleted before exists again.

The Dude is loosing connection with its database and makes it to re-activate. For me it is not clear, why. But this is still the same operating mode like before netinstall.

16

Hi,
I had done many experience with Dude 4.0.3b install on ROS.

Currently the best way I found to upload backup is by creating many dude store on a non system drive.
You can upload the file using scp or ftp or samba if you use version 6.x, directly in the directory of the store of a non running dude.

I had manage with scheduler and batch file script a rotation.

Structure:
dude1
dude2
dude3
dude4
dude6
dude7
dudeRuntime

Every night a scheduler do a copy, without activate, of the dudeRuntime to the store dudeX where X is the day of the week + 1.
A batch file is use to download the backup 1 hour later.
When I want to upload a backup to dudeRuntime, I just activate most recent dude store. When the activation is complete, I start the upload of the file using scp.

Hope it help,
Michael

17

I fully removed the dude from ros devices long time ago when I realised it is not possible to run it reliably. I run it on windows since then without any problems.

18

Hi,
I only use dude on Routerboard device for dude agent purpose. The main server is in a x86 Xeon Server running ROS. It works great probing almost 500 devices using 20 agents.

All map is inside the main dude server. All device all probe by dude agent, none by main server.

I prefer ROS for main server for the scripting / scheduling mikrotik’s way vs microsoft.

Regards,
Michael

19

what is the ROS versiot that you use for Dude-Agent. I can’t install it on 493G RB only to use it as agent

20

I everyone,
My problem is: How i can import the configuration from The Dude 3.6 to The Dude 6.24rc23? My backup file is on .XML extension (dude v3.6), Winbox terminal response is " action time out - try again" .
Someone can help me with this problem?
I really need to do this because the database is too big to configure it from the beginning.
Thank you very much.
Best regards.