One task that can be tedious or easily lead to mistakes in the configuration for RouterOS is the case where you need to move an ethernet link from one interface to another, for example if an interface fails and you need to move to another port…
There are lots of places that might need to have their configuration modified - firewall rules, queues, IP addresses, dhcp server/client settings, LDP interfaces, OSPF settings, etc.
It would be nice if there was a tool that would go through the entire configuration, find every reference to interface X and change it to be interface Y, and give warnings if something cannot be completely moved while maintaining the functionality (warning - destination interface is in a different switch. No switch-related configurations will be modified)
My way is to do it directly in easy configurations or use export, find and replace, remove config and import in complex configurations. Such tool would be useful but also additional source of errors. How to deal automatically with the former role of the changed port?
I’d say just leave the old interface alone - it will end up being a plain old interface. Anything that had pointed to it as a master interface should be pointing to a new master interface. Its membership in bridges would be removed, any IPs assigned to it would have been moved. It would have the same speed/duplex/arp/whatever direct configurations on it, but there’s no reason to remove those IMO.
And yes, I also would do a export/find/replace - I mean, you have to do that sort of thing in Cisco routers too, but given the GUI nature of Winbox, it seems that a tool might be helpful.
Oh. I meant the former role of the newly used port instead the previous port. I guess you are expecting it is without any configuration so far… But what if not?
Isn’t is just introducing ALIASES for interfaces ?
All rules can use real interface name or an alias. If you “move” an alias to different interface, no rules need to be changed.
In order to keep things simple for techs, we just started using a bridge interface for WAN and a bridge interface for LAN, and attaching whichever physical interface - pretty much the “alias” solution because the bridge interface never changes.
Aliases would be nice - I’d love the ability to de-couple the physical interfaces from the logical configurations. But I sure can see a lot of threads in here about the feature confusing new users. Small price to pay, though.
