Lost Beginner

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Dear forum,

I just installed my first RB2011 and I am happy that the default config works fine for me.
BUT trying to understand what’s going on and making changes according to additonal requirements is extremely difficult. While there is a huge amount of information (in particular in the Mikrotik online Manual), I only got lost. It seems that I haven’t found some very basic information that I try to figure out with this post. I am using the webinterface and the winbox, including the terminal.
Here are my first questions (definitly more to come…):

  • Can I get a shell to walk around in the system?
    When I started the “Terminal”, I was expecting a bash running on a linux, with commands like pwd, ls, cd and less available. What I get is some sort of command line interpreter instead. Is there a normal unix shell available somehow?

  • Am I working with iptables?
    The CLI that I get with the “Terminal” looks a lot like iptables. Am I correct when I assume that this is what I am interfacing to?

  • Where is my configuration?
    I was expecting some config files that I can edit to change the routers behavior. So far, I only see some CLI methods to print parameters, as well as to add and remove values. Is that the way that I am supposed to interact with the router? No proper editor to use? Not even a vi? Or can I download config files to my pc and upload modified files? Are my changes that I make in the CLI automatically saved and available after a reboot, or do I need to apply a “save values” command (that I haven’t seen yet)?

More specific (technical) questions to come, but I want to get startet first.
Thanks for helping a newbie.

Walt

2

ok, seems I figured that out (please correct me if I am wrong):

  • no shell to look around
  • not iptables
  • export and import commands to create/load config files

I will come back with my first technical question soon.

Walt

3

Seems that these issues are solved.
Please correct me if I am wrong:

  • There is NO shell to access the underlying Linux
  • This is NOT iptables (although it looks a bit similar)
  • “export” and “import” commands can be used to work with config files (as described in Manual:Configuration Management)

Could I have found the answers somewhere?

Walt

4

Just to clarify once again:

  1. There is no access to the underlying linux. You are interfacing with RouterOS.
    Yes, RouterOS is built on top of linux kernel, but its not really linux per se, you are getting RouterOS.
  2. It is iptables at the backend, but again, you are interfacing with RouterOS firewall.
    Yes, the sintax is very much iptables-like, and in the background it is iptables, but you are interfacing with RouterOS firewall.
  3. Export and import are your best friends.
    Look at more info on the wiki, there is “export compact” and “export verbose”. In v5 verbose was the default mode, in v6 compact is the default mode.
    Read up on the wiki on more info on these modes.

Finally, the wiki will answer MOST of your questions, and searching on the forums should answer the rest.
The community here on the forums in really nice tho, so ask away if you have more questions.

5

@tomaskir: thanks for the clarifications.