RB951G-2HnD - use routing instead of bridging?

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hello guys,

Some question that popped into my mind after reading articles here and there regarding the bridge and switch function on the Mikrotik routers.
I did’t touched the default config with regards the bridged ports configured - thats also the situation with the switch ports.

/interface bridge port> print
Flags: X - disabled, I - inactive, D - dynamic 
 #    INTERFACE              BRIDGE              PRIORITY  PATH-COST    HORIZON
 0    ether2-master-local    bridge-local            0x80         10       none
 1    wlan1                  bridge-local            0x80         10       none




/interface ethernet switch port> print
Flags: I - invalid 
 #   NAME                        SWITCH                VLAN-MODE VLAN-HEADER   
 0   ether1-gateway              switch1               disabled  leave-as-is   
 1   ether2-master-local         switch1               disabled  leave-as-is   
 2   ether3-slave-local          switch1               disabled  leave-as-is   
 3   ether4-slave-local          switch1               disabled  leave-as-is   
 4   ether5-slave-local          switch1               disabled  leave-as-is   
 5   switch1_cpu                 switch1               disabled  leave-as-is

I don’t need VLANs..I just want to know is it possible to bring down the CPU usage on the router if i remove (disable) the bridge and configure routing for the clients accessing the network from the Wireless interface instead?
On most of the places i’ve seen that bridging is function realized in software and takes CPU time to execute, while switching is incorporated in hardware…There is no way to allow wireless users connect to the network without bridge or routing because the wireless chip does not have direct connection to the switch..
So i’m thinking will there it be a CPU cycles saving if i configure routing instead of bridging for the wireless interface clients connecting?

2

Let me first say that I’m not sure about this but I think it makes not that much of a difference.
The thing that makes difference is that your wireless devices won’t be able to directly communicate with your wired devices via network neighborhood and stuff like that.
If you start routing both wireless and wired independently to the internet they also need to communicate to each other via routing.
That could take more of your firewall.

3

You can also see at /tool profile what is using mostly the CPU.
I, personally, don’t like that much the bridges and try to avoid them as much as possible, but my preference is not linked to the CPU. A bridge interface could eat something like 5% of CPU, give or take.
On the other hand I wouldn’t worry that much about CPU usage unless it starts hitting 80% or more

4

We had some strange effects in the past using large bridged networks so we
use routing. Problems are much easier to isolate.