When you go to the Mikrotik software download page you seem to be asked to select a particular router series for the download. Does this actually matter?
ie. whether you select RB100 series or RB500 series you seem to get the same files, so as I have both RB100s and RB500s it’s easier to just download one update, ftp it to a router and auto-update all the routers from it.
However this clearly wouldn’t be a good idea if a different set of packages is needed, although how do you tell the difference?
So when I add a RB600 to the network and download the update for the RB600 there will be a way of distinguishing it from the updates for the RB100/500?
Ps, love the “To not confuse people”. Mikrotik hardware is brilliant and the software pretty good, but confusing people with the documentation (or lack of it) is a Mikrotik speciality!
Normis, YOU might know that for some arcane reason ‘ns’ is the code for the processor in the 100/500 series for v2, and ‘mipsl’ is the code for v3, and ‘ccp’ appears to be some sort of code for the processor in the 600 series, but YOU live and breath these things, you probably have pictures of these things on the walls of your home surrounded by candles. You’ve forgotten more about these wretched things than us lesser mortals could possibly want to know.
But in the absence of any condescending little notes in the Mikrotik manuals, or simple little explanations for the denser specimen’s amongst your customers on the web-page, how did you expect me to know?
And by the way I’ve just loaded v3 onto a 133C and it didn’t like it one little bit.
And also by the way, is there any possibility that you might get some documentation out for v3 BEFORE the releases of v4 get into double figures?
be reasonable - you go to download page and choose your router type you want to upgrade, download files and you see what files you are downloading, then upload these files to router you chose. and you will notice what RB series use PPC packages, mipsle or mibsbe. or just use DUDE.
Yes you do. It’s almost idiot proof so there’s a sporting chance even I might be able to get that part of it right.
But once I’ve installed my first RB600 in the network I’m going to be downloading updates for the RB100/500, the RB600 and the x86. So I’m going to have these folders on my Hard-drive, not selectable by the System Selector on your web-site.
So it would be really, really nice if the files and folders on my HDD - for uploading by ftp to the routers - were quick and easily distinguishable instead of my having to constantly check which is which by reference to some arcane ‘catagorisation by processor’.
when you select a device in the download page, below it’s picture - the NAME of the package appears (which actually is the CPU type).
you can tell which devices have the same package name by that method. as you see some have “mipsle”, some “mipsbe” and some are “ppc”. all devices with PPC can use the same package.
I’ve only downloaded one v3 set. I selected RB100 series on the download page. It gave me a set of packages called all_packages-mipsle-3.7.zip. I used it to upgrade an RB133C and it went to pieces - as I’ve reported in another thread. I had to spend a couple of hours taking it down from the roof, getting access to it and downgrading it back to 2.9.46, with which it’s now working perfectly well.
When trying to find the problem I checked the package list which (from memory now) told me that it had RouterOS for the RB500. I went back to my hard-drive to check the packages I’d uploaded to it and could only see that they were 3.7-mipsle, which told me nothing at all.
I THOUGHT I’D UPLOADED THE WRONG SET OF PACKAGES TO IT!
Now you tell me it wasn’t the wrong package set. Previously I had no way of knowing that the RB100 series and RB500 series take the same packages. Belatedly you’ve let me into the secret that what I should have done was to check back with the documentation to see what kind of processor the RB133C is supposed to have and then check that against the package file-name to see whether or not is was the right one for it. Nowhere is that set out in the documentation -or even in a little note on the download page for thickies like me and unhappily Normis I don’t possess ESP.
Unhappily, you see Normis, I don’t know what processor these boards have. I don’t care what processor these boards have, as long as it does its job. I rely on you guys to do your sums and get it right and provide me with a board that does what you say it will. I don’t want to have to learn what all the different CPUs are called that every MT board I use has onboard just so’s I can know which of the several sets of packages residing on my HDD is the relevant one for the board I’m trying to upgrade at that moment.
All I’d really like is to be able to see a set of packages on my HDD, or even on the hdd of a routerboard before hitting the reboot button, and know it was the right one because it says so nice and simply, - like a polite “system-3.7-RB1xx/5xx.npk”
Or is that so simple that, God forbid, anyone at all could understand it?
I don’t understand the issue here. You don’t have to know the processor type. You want to know which packages can be used for which boards. Fortunately, that’s exactly what the package name does. If you have a package with “mipsle” in it’s name, and “mipsle” is also under RB500 section - you know that you don’t have to download the packages again. you already have them.
To make it REALLY SIMPLE for you - the package with the name “fruit” will work with both Apples and Oranges, but package name CARS will work with BMWs and Audi’s. As an addition, if you don’t know if the BMW is a fruit or a Car, we SPECIFICALLY write this information under each products image.
what he’s talking about is that once he is just looking at the downloaded package file names (.e.g upgrading another board two weeks later) he cannot see the “for RB500” from the name without knowing the right CPU architecture. And he won’t start downloading the same firmware every time he needs to select the right firmware files.
But there’s a simple solution for that: Make folders on your hard disk name something like “RB100_500” and put the files for that architecture in there. Another folder “RB200_x86” for the x86 type files, …
Thank you cmit. I was beginning to think I was the only one who couldn’t see the elephant in the room.
Yes, as a consequence of what I’ve learned in this exchange I will begin doing exactly what you suggest, but nevertheless it makes a two-stage process out of something that would only be a one-stop one if MT could only appreciate that there is an idiot end to their customer-base - and they’re just willing to take the money from it as they are from the competent and expert end.
And this still wouldn’t help when it comes to making a final check that you have the right packages on the RB for upgrade before hitting the reboot button.
And you don´t have to worry that the uploaded packages are not the proper ones and would damage or destroy you router’s config. If you uploaded a package that is mend for another type or router a reboot would just do that, reboot but without the package in the file list. The router can’t load packages from another routerboard version.
And yes, make a folder system on your HD. Everytime a new upgrade is there I just download all packages form MT and put them in the folders where they belong. Even make a separation between the combined packages and the ´all packages´ zip file.
In the last case, I extract the files, put them in a new folder.
I then copy these packages I need to upgrade, for instance on a CPE I only use ¨wireless¨, ¨routerboard¨, ¨system¨ and ¨dhcp¨, and put them on a folder on the desktop of my PC
I open winbox into a CPE unit, open the file list and grab the 4 packages and dump them in the file list.
After this reboot the CPE and it works with the new ros.
At first the different packages were a bit confusing to me too but after a while you know and by using a simple work methode its an minor job to perform.
That’s good to know. I did wonder if it was the case but as the only way to find out is to deliberately upload the wrong set of packages to a board and reboot it I thought it might be better to remain in ignorance.
The Mikrotik documentation doesn’t mention this. In fact the manual tells you how to uninstall a ‘wrong’ package which I took to mean one for the wrong board, but I guess it might be another example of Mikrotik’s often eccentric use of English and what it meant to say was an ‘unnecessary’ package.
Or is it…?
I didn’t know this was possible. I’ve been messing around with ftp for over a year! It’s one of the probably very many useful little tricks you can do with Winbox that MT decided not to tell anyone about in their customarily laconic manual entry. Just like the one about using the console as a text messenger they’ve elected to pull out of their secrets box in the latest newsletter.
I’ve also been religiously download updates for the RB100 series from the Website, unzipping them, uploading them to a RB500 router by ftp, using auto-update to download them to my 112 and 133 CPEs and rebooting them, wiping the ‘RB100’ updates from the router, downloading the updates from the RB500 series from the website to a newly-created folder, unzipping them, uploading them to the RB500 by ftp and rebooting it to update it.
Well, it happened to me by accident because I also was confused by the serveral different type of packages. But usually I use new updates first on new to be configured unit on my table. So if something goes wrong I can just take another unit when needed. It’s not a production unit yet.
The Mikrotik documentation doesn’t mention this.
I agree. The ros ref. manual is more a technical document that prescribes lots of possible usages for the ros (and it doesn’t cover all). But it is definately not an easy explanatory manual. A lot you have to learn by trial and error and asking this forum.
Some threads are blessing this forum because its so active and good, outstanding many other manufacturers forums. I think it is merely a result of the lack of proper explanations for the many usages of the MT ros by MT. Users are forced to learn through the forum.
[quote=“WirelessRudy”]
I open winbox into a CPE unit, open the file list and grab the 4 packages and dump them in the file list.
[/quote]
I didn’t know this was possible.
This way you also easily can up and download all files from and to the router. log, supout.rif, backup, etc.
Somebody else on the forum told me, its nowhere to be found in the manuals.
Regarding the ros manual: the different manual revision (that are following the many ros families and updates) are not all the same in subjects they prescribe.
Some manuals only deal with some parts of the ros, others have many more chapters. For instance, the ref manual3.0 does not mention all options of the ros while earlier versions can be found that do. But it doesn’t mean therefore these functions are not there any more in the ros3.x!
I’ve also been religiously download updates for the RB100 series from the Website, unzipping them, uploading them to a RB500 router by ftp, using auto-update to download them to my 112 and 133 CPEs and rebooting them, wiping the ‘RB100’ updates from the router, downloading the updates from the RB500 series from the website to a newly-created folder, unzipping them, uploading them to the RB500 by ftp and rebooting it to update it.
Well, that´s how we learn. In my case the auto-update in ros3.x never worked anyway so I do it manually the way I prescibed. A bit of work but its more work to find out why the auto-update doesn’t work.
I didn’t even know there was a ref 3 manual until I read this. I’m on the MT mailing list and receive the newsletter and in my innocence thought MT would actually announce the arrival of a manual for v3 - even as a work in progress - with a fanfare and a bit of crowing about their support for the shiny new products and how good it is, and even provide a link for it so’s folk can see what it contains and why it’s better than v2-9. Or at the very least might shyly mention it in passing.
But no, they slip it in under the door for people fall over if they happen to pass that way almost as if they hope no-one’s going to notice. I even sniped at Normis about it above and he didn’t mention it.
I must admit that one of the things I like about Mikrotik is the sense that you’re not dealing with some great soulless Microsoftian monolith, run by the marketing department along shiny steel commercial lines. I kind’a get the feeling they’re all beavering away with their soldering irons and Unix developer’s software in a garden shed somewhere intent on producing ever better Routerboards while their Mums look after all the paperwork and the administration.
