Mikrotik Router as a SWITCH

RouterOS General
1

Hi there,

I’ve some concept troubles to set up a Mikrotik RB-1100 acting as a network switch. Let me to explain:

I intend to connect some servers in the same ports pool to view and analyze traffic and load between them, connecting the main patchcord (which is provided by the ISP) in ether1 and setting up it as a master-port. The rest of ports will obtain internet route through such master-port.

The problem is that the RB-1100 has two switch group defined (switch0 and switch1); the first one (switch0) includes ether1 to ether5, so, when I try to set ether6 with ether1 as a master-port, I got the error:

“master-port must be in same switch group”

I need to use ALL ports (both switch groups) as a unique switch.
What should I do? The first thing that spring to mind is a bridge, but…how? Can I use these ports (the ones used in the bridge) later?

And a second question… where I define the PUBLIC IP address for the router itself if all ports are in use?

Any help, comments, etc would be appreciated.

Best Regards
Vander

2

You’d be best off buying a switch rather than try to shoehorn a router into being a switch. Bridging traffic in software is going to perform very, very poorly.

3

You’ re right, but the FINAL idea is that the Router acts as a ROUTER, this first instance is just for measurement, check loads, etc.

Thanks anyway.

4

Then set the master-port of ether1 - 10 to none, add a bridge, and add ether1 - 10 to the bridge. Add the IP addressing for the network to the bridge interface. I’m a little unclear on how Internet is delivered. Is it to be routed? If yes, make the IP address on the bridge a LAN address, probably RFC1918 space. Then use ether11 - 13 to connect the ISP, put an IP address directly on the port, and NAT out that port. If the servers are to get public IP addressing the ISP port is simply added to the same bridge, servers then reach the gateway directly on layer 2.