Monitoring traffic through routers

RouterOS General
1

I am interested in being able to monitor the traffic that is going through the routers in my network. I have 4 of the RB951Ui-2HnD routers and 1 CRS125-24G-1S-2HnD-IN switch just acting as a router. All of these devices have been configured to work in a bridge interface mesh network. I want to be able to confirm the path traffic takes through the network (ie. pinging from one device to another through the routers) to confirm that the mesh is working as I imagined and in an optimal fashion. I have tried looking at the logging function and following the network engineering outlined in the Mikrotik manual, but it is not very clear to me and I am not an IT guy. I have also tried using The Dude, but didn’t get very far as it didn’t pic up all five routers even though they all register when I log into Winbox. If someone could help me out that would be great.

By the way, this is an infrastructureless network - there is no internet.

2

Best solution would be using trace route, under tools. Will indicate ip path as used.

3

Trace route doen’t tell you what router the packets went through, only that it went to the destination; I have tried it before. I need something that will show me what source a packet went through and the IP addresses of the hops it made (the routers it went through). After doing this fist part with just one client, I need to be able to do this with something other than just one simple ping. I plan on sending data from approximately 10 clients at effectively the same time, and I need to be able to see the route, as some of these clients will be closer to different routers on the Mesh network and I want to make sure that the path is being optimized.

4

Trace route tells you exactly this. Ping only tells you if a packet went through. If you want a more graphical version, try the software VisualRoute.

5

Try Using Torch in bridge to see packets on all routers (bridges)..
Also you could make Ip firewall filter to log all packets traveling through firewall (chai forward )..

6

Thank you huntah, I will try that. I have tried traceroute and it didn’t specify any of the hops it did. I have tried VisualRoute previously as well and it didn’t show any of the hops in between either. Thank you for the suggestions though, it’s much appreciated.

7

Sounds like you have a bridged network. Needs to be routed in order for this to function.

8

Egate, do you have any tips for doing that?

9

Sorry, not something you can tip on. If you disable the bridge, you would have to static add routes, in order to route traffic from one router to the next, or make use of automatic routing protocol like RIP or OSPF. This normally is used in bigger networks.

10

Well it’s a bridge interface mesh network, and I need it to act as this, so I guess there is no way around that then.

11

Even if it is a bridged network. If your routing is set up correct, you should still be able to see the route/hops taken when running trace-route. Also maybe to clarify. If set up in a bridge environment. Data coming in on one port, will be retransmitted on all other ports that is part of the router-board.