Hi,
Backpacked into a remote tower last week to replace the three-port MT router we had there with a larger 9-port RB493ah. Needed an additional port for a new backhaul.
Ether1 was 10.0.8.5/24, and is where the tower gets it’s bandwidth from. Ether 2-9 are on some type of switch chip, but I assumed they could route individually. Ether2 was 10.0.37.1/24 and feeds local AP’s. Ether3 was 10.0.40.1/24 and is a backhaul, and Ether4 is a backhaul at 10.0.50.1/24.
I plugged in the new router, and our monitoring system back at the office started reporting that the interfaces were up (as in 10.0.37.1, 40.1, and 50.1 were pingable), but couldn’t see beyond them. The access points at 10.0.37.2, .3, and .4 were not responding. The backhauls 10.0.40.2 and 40.3 and the Mikrotik at 10.0.40.4 couldn’t be reached, and the 10.0.50.2 and 50.3 backhauls weren’t responding either.
I futzed around as long as I could with the tower down. The office could connect to the Mikrotik at 10.0.8.5, so routing on Ether1 was working, but not on the Ether ports off the switch chip. I had to abandon ship and plug the old router back in.
So, I guess I’m wondering what’s going on? I did not configure Ether2-9 as switch ports, so they should be individually routable. Anyone see what I’m missing or doing wrong?
Eric -
Well I really didn’t expect anyhting exotic - just checking to see there was not something that you may have overlooked…
I have not used that board but have used the older 150 series…what I found was the ether ports are not necessarily in order - and that would seem the case in your description…
So start plugging in your laptop to different ethernet ports and use the winbox ‘discovery’ function and see what address pops up where…
I beg to differ on the “nothing unusual”. This is the second time this week I have seen this. Where are the routes in “/ip route” to all your local interfaces? There should be a route for every ip assignment in “/ip address”. These routes are added automatically in the CLI. I could not explain to the last user why his routes were incomplete. They just were, and caused a major malfunction.
If those routes are there, check to insure all parameters are complete. The last time I encountered this, the entries were missing only the distance and interface. I prefer “/ip route print” to the export. It shows all the entries.
If you are working with an RB493 or RB493AH, be sure to verify your ethernet port numbers.
Ether1 is on the end and supports POE. Ether2 is the furthest away from Ether1. Then 2-9 goes left to right with 9 being the closest port to 1. This is non-intuitive as one would think they are numbered in order with 2 being next to 1.
I have been caught by this more than once. Configured and labeled a new wPOP router. Swapped out the old router; plugged in the cables and found the new router not routing. Close inspection showed I had the labels on the wrong ports.
Corrected the cabling and routing worked. Also moved the labels.
Routing does work on the RB493AH. I have several in production.