After so many years of doing things through the command line I’ve decided to give the Quick Set window a go. I’ve set it to bridge mode and added a static IP address to the bridge interface. It left me puzzled for hours.
the defconf firewall rule #5 (defconf: drop all not coming from LAN) catches and blocks all the traffic, even if I try to connect to the webfig from an IP range 192.168.1.0/24 AND through an interface that belongs to the LAN Interface List.
I can access webfig only when I add the bridge interface to the LAN Interface List. Here is the config that is automatically set up by the wizard: bridge.rsc (6.2 KB)
I think this can be improved for better user experience.
it seems to be a good practice to set up the IP address on the bridge interface itself rather than leaving it on the specified etherX interface
the WAN interface list does not make sense for a bridge mode anymore
the webfig should be still accessible to the user through the specified IP after switching to bridge mode.
@kareiva’s queries are fair. Jokes aside, QuickSet is supposed to provide one-time initial setup for simple cases of router, bridge, AP and WISP with a preferred IP range.
The true caveats are that you limit yourself to those very uncomplicated cases and never touch it again. The behaviours pointed out are inconsistent with achieving those simple setups for basic home users.
Standing statement. Once you have made ANY changes to a router configuration - NEVER EVER use QuickSet. It is intended to be used ONLY on a factory default configuration.
I just combo of multiple problem. I’m not sure MT is very good at updating and make default-configuration consistent… combine I’m not sure they test it much. I’ve reported bugs in before, which gotten fixed – but it ideally should be one the more reliable things given it’s focus on newbies.
For example, one horrible past bug in it’s logic was changing the ip address/subnet it used a ~null when setting /ip/dhcp-server/network which created a DHCP network 0.0.0.0/0 - which really makes a mess of things.
We actually use it with complex custom default configuration, to allow setting the IP address after reset in field. But we have to regular test it to make sure it isn’t broken with new versions. So I know too much how it works.
If you really just got a brand-new Mikrotik, from box, i’d bet 90% it work (at least to what it does). But any other case, you’re odd closer to 50/50% it “just work” — horrible odds for setup wizard. (see point I don’t think the regression test older router’s combo version/default-configuration/quickset – one change in default-configuration can break quickset since there independent)
On the other hand it is the essential point in flippism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipism
maybe Professor Batty contributed to the Quickset phylosophy (though given the evil results in many cases it seems more probable that Two-Face did).
The issue with Quick Set is that it acts as a script that just makes changes on top of the existing configuration. What it should be doing instead is achieving a very specific target state. To work consistently 100% of times, it should be wiping out existing configuration (except for users and passwords) and applying one of the standard configurations it is designed to do.
This is how industry standard configuration management tools work like Ansible, Puppet etc. It’s not about how you get there, it’s about the final state being exactly what is requested and nothing else. Yes, it would be somewhat dangerous, but that can be dealt with by providing warnings and asking for confirmation, similar to how “reset configuration” option works. This way it would be a very consistent and powerful tool.
Advanced users don’t use Quick Set anyway to make changes on top of their configuration. And beginners usually only care about getting things to whatever state is represented in Quick Set window.
Well, if you think about it, the default configuration script is also in itself a form of (automated) Quickset, its advantage is that it is run only after a reset, so what is there before (nothing) is known.
When you run Quickset right after a reset (and thus the default configuration) you fall in the 90% (or more) cases where it works just fine (limited to what it can do).
So, the usual recommendation (after the “don’t use quickset” one) to only run it once on a freshly reset router (i.e. default configuration) aims to force the results into this 90% or more, if you cannot do that, i.e. - besides a couple of quirks that quickset actually has and that could be corrected - the script should be capable of “understanding” the current state (something that after the - sometimes crazy - modifications an inexperienced user may have done is often difficult even for expert humans).
The only way out (IMHO) would be to force the Quickset to only run after the default configuration script is run, by prompting the user like:
and then provide the dropdown menu for selecting which Quiskset script to run.
For more advanced users (that foolishly believe that Quickset can be of any use) there must remain a command to run it in any case resulting in a prompt like :
Do you really want to run Quickset?
Type YESIWANTTORISKMYWHOLECONFIGURATION to accept or N to quit.
Thank you for all the comments. I did not want to start a philosophical discussion. Should I try to file a bug report for exactly those glitches or are you all saying it’s hopeless?
Those seem to be two of the “quirks” I mentioned, they could be fixed, so yes, if you have the time for that it would be nice (IMHO) if you could open a ticket detailing them with support, even if they assign to the ticket a low priority, before or later they will fix them.
As Amm0 reported, other ones were fixed in the past.
Hence why it’s commonly advised here to not use Quickset except ONCE after reset with default config.
Too many people who use it on top of other changes and then you don’t know what will happen.
I got that. I agree you should report it. As discussed, it has flaws that make it sub-par at best at as setup wizard. But it should at least work in the WYSIWYG sense. Problem is folk move on, and no one who know how it should work uses it.
The whole concept needs work. I think @anserk hits the nail on the head on here.
IMO only thing good about is the “profiles” (in upper right) that allow you switch configuration “flavors” (switch or router, etc.). The concept gets you closer to “configuration templates”. See
to which I got a “no”.
So for ISP/OEMs it’s buggy and incomplete. And for home/SMB, using QuickSet as “new user wizard” is pretty from from the mark at anyones expectation.
But do think @anserk is 100% right, if it applied what was shown in QuickSet, was used with the current/matching version default-configuration (instead of the factory version default) & forcing a reboot to apply both the new default-configuration and the QuickSet provided fields. That actually go a long way here I think. Great idea.
