MikroTik RouterBoard to replace pfSense Box

Hello Forum,

Getting straight to the point:
I’m thinking about getting a routerboard to replace a pfSense box to do the routing, firewalling, QoS, etc in our backpacker hostels.
I wonder if the two options I currently have (RB2011UiAS-RM or RB3011UiAS-RM) will do the job and which would be the better option?
Here is my setup & my requirements:
As we are located in South America (Bolivia & Peru) bandwidth is still pretty low around here, best I can currently get are 5Mbit/s/1Mbit/s ADSL lines, so I currently have 4 ADSL lines with those characteristics on the WAN side.

On the LAN side I have 3 LANs: the internal Office Lan, an internet cafe style LAN for 6 client PCs and an open WiFi (with 8 ddWRT APs and some 200 clients) for guests.

If RouterOS would let me, I would like to achieve the following:

  • MultiWAN LoadBalance the 4 ADSL lines and keep a minimum bandwidth for the Office LAN.
  • Use RouterOS as a DHCP server for all three LANs (different subnets).
  • Firewall between WAN and LAN and between LANs
  • Shape traffic on all LANs but mainly on the free WiFi - I have full control over the internet cafe, and sometimes we do need to download some torrent on the office LAN, but on the WiFi I would like to lower that traffic to the point of blocking it (which I know is next to impossible)
  • At some point I would like to VPN into the Office LAN from the outside.

I’m already getting all this - to some point - from my pfSense Box, but the hardware might fail any day soon, so it needs to be replaced and around here I can only get energy efficient hardware from MikroTik…

Can I do all this with RouterOS and either the RB2011 or the RB3011 ?



Yes this can be done, you have several options, here’s a link covering loadbalancing on Mikrotik: http://mum.mikrotik.com/presentations/US12/steve.pdf
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:PCC

Minimum Bandwidth for the Office LAN can be achieved with simple queues.
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Queue

Yes. DHCP service is easy to setup on Mikrotik.
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/DHCP_Server

Yes, and again easy with Mikrotik:
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/Firewall

Reference the links for Simple Queues again to achieve this. There are other options and others can chime in with different mangles or filters they have used to achieve your desired results.

Not a problem, there are multiple VPN options on Mikrotik. OVPN / PPP / PPPoE / PPTP / SSTP

Yes. http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:TOC