I tried the RB250GS...

SwOS
1

And here’s my initial comments.

  1. If you buy this switch, do nothing with it until you upgrade to 1.2. It doesn’t work with anything less than that.
    I’m not sure how this made it out the door with 1.0.
    I wish I had come to the forum before killing an hour trying to get a simple config to work.

  2. Once loaded with 1.2 it’s a pretty quick config and the menus are easy enough to learn, although the vlan config nomenclature is a little strange, but all easy to learn.

  3. I don’t have a need for the acl right now, but it looks powerful and has some really cool features.

  4. I can’t figure out how to limit management access to a port or vlan.
    “Add if missing” doesn’t apply to the CPU interface?
    It would help if there were a “CPU” or “Management” port somewhere in the forwarding table or a default management vlan.
    It seems anything that hits the management IP gets the login.

Wish list:

  1. Why can’t the config file saved be more like a RouterOS config?
    I have a RouterOS “template” config script I use that has some variables at the top for public IP, identity and the like, so that my techs can config devices quickly using this config file and we save the file in archives in case a device dies. It eliminates mistakes and “oops, I forgot to config that.”
    Having a scripted config file would make this switch just as easy to config by field techs.

  2. A Mac based telnet login from RouterOS would be huge and would have saved me from some fac resets.

2

I can’t figure out how to limit management access to a port or vlan.

http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/vlans/40462/6

Why can’t the config file saved be more like a RouterOS config?

Please clarify what problems do you have with current configuration backup system?

A Mac based telnet login from RouterOS would be huge and would have saved me from some fac resets.

Currently only web based GUI interface is available for management.

3

I have field techs that are not paid to understand things like vlans, routes, firewalls and RouterOS. So, we outfit them with simple tools so they can quickly copy a config from one device to another. We have made templates that are exactly or close to what the final config is. Usually they can get everything up and accessible from the outside world in short time.

For SWOs, it would be nice if we could modify the config files in a text editor, and email them to the tech with simple instructions:
1 Take it out of the box
2. Power up
3. Connect to port 1
4. Set your laptop to 192.168.88.2
5 Access the web interface on IP 192.168.88.1 (they know this IP from RouterOS, nice choice btw.
6. Copy the config from the email.
7. Power down.
8. Plug all the cables in.
9. Power up
10. Go home.

That’s exactly what we do with routeros devices.

I can decifer some of the swb file, but it is not easy to understand every entry!
For example, the ip address and identity are in hex and the entire file has no cr or lf so it’s a single line file.
It seems like the ‘Allow From’ supports a net mask?


Something like:

/system
ip 10.70.1.120
allow 10.70.1.1/32
snmp community SWmanage
…
…
/port 1
vlan strict
default vlan 10
tag add
forward 2,3,4
/port 2
vlan none
default vlan 1
tag strip
forward 1
/acl
…
…

Would be much better. I don’t need cisco format, but…
It should take 10 minutes to write a new config and 30 seconds to install it.

If you publish the swb format, I can write a converter!