The real problem is words have meaning, and words like “stable” and “long term support” have been given specific meanings both by definition and in practice by hundreds (or thousands) of software vendors for the last two decades.
It is true that the meaning can vary somewhat vendor to vendor, and generally, as a courtesy to customers, those vendors spell out what their version of those words mean (i.e. release and support policies), even if their meaning isn’t always consistent with what most of the rest of industry is doing.
I don’t care what MikroTik chooses to call their releases, so long as they define their version of the meanings and apply them consistently internally and externally so we know what to expect.
Instead, for now, many users are half-jokingly/half-seriously using those terms to refer to the codebase instead of the reliability of the finished product–and it helps, to a degree, in understanding how to treat each release.
With the stability of 7.19.x on my network, and despite breaking changes (that were fixed) when I upgraded my BGP core to 7.20.6 (which is humming along nicely), I am cautiously optimistic about this newly-christened LTS version and look forward to moving more of my network over to it in the coming weeks.
Congrats on a V7 LTS Release! Just a thought… It would be cool if you could backport most if not all of these fixes to 7.19.6 and come out with a 7.19.7 release. I’m planning on sticking to releases that don’t have any major routing protocol changes, so I’m probably going to skip 7.20, and 7.21 regardless of “LTS” status. Routing Protocol Overview - RouterOS - MikroTik Documentation
Upgraded CCR1036 with 6.49.18 to 7.20.7. After the upgrade, /routing/bgp/instance is empty and all connections show ‘instance not active’ in red. For some reason, a disabled /interface/ovpn-server/server instance is created after the update even though no OpenVPN server existed before.
What's new in 7.17 (2025-Jan-16 10:19):
*) ovpn - added VRF support to OVPN server (server menu now supports multiple entries and previous server configuration is automatically imported);
Personally, I'm against auto upgrades with exactly same arguments. There should be a choice. Users hate, when there is no choice. Everything "auto-*" should be turnable on/off.
Autoreplacement of TABs in scripts should also be turnable on/off. And you released long-term with this "feature" always on.
You've given the rebellion a greater villain, device-mode. As the French say, Liberté, égalité, fraternité
WRT to future auto-upgrade setting – especially with a long-term channel now – I doubt they'll be fighting in the streets. Certainly not from me, since it be useful, if controllable. Like some:
Version 7.20.7 still has issues with BGP-VPNv4 advertising other BGP multihop. It seems a bit too early to mark this version as long-term (LTS), right?
tpedko, FezzFest, buset1974 - Thank you for your reports. We will look into this.
Seems that other posts are not related to actual RouterOS release. Please keep in mind - you can create new topics freely to discuss new features, speculate some stuff, etc. Keep this topic related to actual issues in the particular RouterOS release.
About auto upgrade - is this actually a real problem? Anyone can do it with simple copy paste command. Even if there would be a “checkbox“ for auto update you would still need to go an select it. Same number of steps required
For me, some version to be "marked" as Long Term need:
Do not report serious bugs in vital functions in RoS like routing, tunneling etc..
To be tested month or more for continious work without reported bugs or glitches !
Then some RoS version can be marked as Long Term ! For now is repoted more then 3 bugs into routing, tunneling in this particular version. So i suggest Mikrotik to remove this version from Long Term, fix the reported bugs in this thread, release a new fixed version, wait for reporting "unexpected" bug, and after more then month to mark as Long Term. Until that procedure, this version and every next that will be released for me, is just a new "Stable" version. Make note on this Mikrotik, and proceed !
Hi strod, I'm not asking about auto upgrade, but reporting that the issue with BGP VPNv4 advertising other BGP multihop still exists in version 7.20.7 LT. So, this is still related to the topic.
infabo - Sorry, missed that one about CAPsMAN. We will check it out. As for IPv6 - if you enable “/ipv6 settings set accept-router-advertisements“ and have completely empty “/ipv6 export“ besides that setting change, then SLAAC service could not start properly. Basically some kind of internal SLAAC setup without firewalls, etc. Still a bug. We did not choose to ignore it since it is almost a “lab setup“.
buset1974 - Yes, that is why I responded with “we will look into this“. Next paragraph was for “others”.
Finally the waiting is over after 4+ years! Better late than never! Joke aside, thanks to the whole Mikrotik dev team for having released a long-term ROS 7. This will please many customers around the world.
infabo - CAPsMAN “suggests same version” as CAPsMAN has. CAPsMAN upgrade settings has no relation to “channels“ selection under upgrade settings. Documentation page has been updated a bit to explain this.
I don't think so, the problem with tabs autoreplacement I mentioned above is directly related to this release, because it was introduced in 7.20 and now migrated to long-term.
Thank you for updating the docs. Think it makes sense to only honor the channel when device is checking for updates itself. But having it documented is good, so no one is surprised.
