Weird NIC issue with RouterOS+qemu+GNS3

RouterOS Virtualization
1

I’ve followed this guide to installing RouterOS in GNS3 using QEMU.
http://brezular.com/2014/07/09/running-mikrotik-routeros-x86-on-gns3/

My installation is in Windows, but I got it running very easily and it’s fantastic to have Mikrotik in GNS3.

I’ve found two issues and I am wondering if anyone else has seen such a thing:

I set it up to have 5 ethernet ports. The mikrotik sees all 5 ethernet interfaces, but strangely, e3 / ether4 (qemu/mikrotik view) can’t receive traffic. It sends just fine.

If I snoop the interface with wireshark, I see CDP from two Mikrotiks I connected to a switch. I also connected a cisco router to the switch, and it sees both Mikrotiks when I do “show cdp neighbor”

The 'tiks are just deaf on ether4 - they can use ether1-3,ether5 all day long.

The second thing - qemu is dropping the 802.1q vlan tags from packets on egress, and discarding any tagged frames on egress. (Mikrotik does not see the traffic at all)
I think it’s the NIC driver rtl8139, which from some gooling I did on the qemu forums, this appears to be a driver issue, and I should try e1000 but this crashed the mikrotik image.

Anyone have similar issues as these?
(I’ll post updates if I find solutions on my own)

2

UPDATE:

I tried e1000 driver again and this time it’s not crashing at all.
Now VLAN tags are propagating correctly

ether4 is still deaf

Interesting thing I found now - vlan interface won’t receive packets larger than 252 bytes on the wire. ?

I’m going to try installing a new ROS from scratch to see if something strange has been “captured” in my image.


UPDATE2:

I decided to try the current version of GNS3. (I was still using 0.8.x)
Let’s just say that I loathe the new look - I’ve hit cancel on at least 4 rant posts so far.

UPDATE3:

Sigh of immense relief - you can at least restore the old look - There’s the new default “Charcoal” - then there’s classic (right colors and window widgets, same crappy new icons that look out of place) and then there’s “legacy” - which I’m now very greatfully using.

It’s not that everything new sucks - I actually like the improvements to Winbox over time, for instance - and the webmin looks good…