"restrict upgrade from RouterOS older than v5.16" ?

RouterOS General
1

I can see “*) upgrade - improved RouterOS upgrade process and restrict upgrade from RouterOS older than v5.16;” in recent (rc22) changelog.

What was the reason for that? Any way to up old router to 6.x after that?

2

You can always use netinstall to install newer version.

3

When version gap is so large, you are better out with full Netinstall and configuration from 0 anyway.

4

read: first upgrade to a 6.x image, where x<42, then upgrade to your desired 6.42+ ROS

the reasoning behind this move is probably to remove the burden of supporting legacy configuration objects with conversion to new style inside routeros (not in the text based ros config).
this is perfectly reasonable. you just can’t expect that anybody was able to pick the right structure 5+ years before for features that will be implemented now & afterwards.

5

I do understand the reason for not converting the config (good point to deny the past and go into the future), but why can’t I just take my 5.x device, and up it to 6.x even with full config reset?

Netinstall is good when you’re near the device (or device is near you), otherwise you won’t upgrade it remotely even if you have .rsc script to do initial setup.

So I’d ask to allow the upgrade (even without config conversion) but make it CLI-only and with some scary key like ‘i-am-dump-myself=yes’ )

6

This is to the 6.42(rc) series onward. If you have 5.(<16), why not upgrade it first to the “bugfix only” line, and then jump to 6.42?

7

I tried upgrading an old RB750 which was on 5.0
I think it got as far as 5.0.8 (or similar, I forget now) and refused to go any further.
I then manually copied on the .npk file for 6.0 and rebooted and the thing went into a boot loop.
So I ended up having to learn how to use Netinstall anyway.

8

Ok, so this feature is somtheng that should be noted in (a bit dated) docs rather that considered as “killer feature” )

9

ROS sw upgrades do work and the configuration is kept & restored if you upgrade a pre 5.16 device to 6.x, then upgrade it again to 6.42+.

full config reset can not work remotely. even if you have a run-after script specified for /system reset-configurations no-defaults, it will only run after the config has been reseted to empty. assuming the script would do a “/system reboot” to install the pre-downloaded software from the flash, you’d have no means to run another script after the upgrade event to restore your configuration.

also “.rsc” files can not contain every configuration objects (certificates, some passwords) so it’s (sadly) not very easy.

when speaking of RouterOS upgrades:

  • it manipulates the filesystem, where the unpacked installation files + the kernel resides
  • the same fs contains the configuration, more or less as “applied” to certain OS components. it’s not getting interpreted on each run, hence the binary backup file - it is more or less a snapshot of all config related filesystem items
  • even if configuration related filesystem elements are removed/cleaned by a “system reset-configuration” command, upgrading routerOS might have difficulties with 5+ years old legacy OS filesystem structures, that might prevent the upgrade running in an one-shot (one reboot) mode. chaining reboot events and changing critical OS elements in-between them is a risky play - in case of issues your device can be rendered useless on a top of a tower.

altogether every software has a lifecycle and support is rarely provided after 5 years. every vendor on earth (and also the open source community) pushes you to use the latest stable code.