WHere do I start?

RouterOS General
1

The company I work for asked me to setup a wireless hotspot for a client of theirs. They purchased a routerboard 500 as they were told this is the best product and a former employee used it in the past for a similar application. I have general networking knowledge but this is a bit out of my expertise considering this thing needs to be programmed from scratch. So I have some questions, I have to learn this stuff and am starting from scratch so bear with me please.

I am assuming it has routerOS installed? But how would I know for sure? I use winbox to access the thing if that helps. It has a 2.4ghz card installed with a 6db antenna. I want this configured as a simple dhcp router. I want it to get an incomming IP address on WAN1 and then distrube IPs over wireless wan1 and thats it. Seems simple enough. Not with this router. I wish they had bought a regular router but oh well.

So is there a decent manual for this thing? Something that can guide me though setting it up as a DHCP wireless router and how to get the maximum possible range out of it? I tested it with 802.11b and the range was no better than our dlink routers. For some reason when i change it to 802.11g my computer doesnt see it. Yes the computer has a G card in it.

We were told to buy this router as the range was greater than most routers, I don’t need all the other features it offers. So can anyone help me get started.

Thanks for reading.

2

I’ve been working with MikroTik RouterOS for around six weeks now, I looked at it briefly a year or so ago, but have only just got around to migrating our network in earnest.

There is documentation and a Wiki which you can access through the support section on the main website. However, I’ve been working on IP networks for over 15 years and I found the documentation woefully inadequate. The documention covers the basic command set, but gives little in the way of explanations. Examples in Wiki either don’t work or assume a high level of knowledge.

Some wireless cards don’t support certain features, but RouterOS happily allows you to setup these unsupported features, then you scratch your head for hours trying to work out why it doesn’t work.

Don’t get me wrong, I think RouterOS is miles better than what I was using before (LocustWorld MeshBox), but a lot could be done to ease the initial pain barrier.

Really a training course is the answer, see the main website for details. Unfortunately for me they don’t seem to be held in the UK and I only found out about the course in South Africa a week before and I just couldn’t get travel arrangements sorted in time.

Really you only have three options, go on a training course, dig into the documentation and prepare for several weeks of sleepless nights or hire a consultant that knows what they’re doing.


Regards

Chris Macneill
Educated Guesswork Ltd. (http://www.eguesswork.co.uk)

3

If you want to get something out of your Routerboard you really need to know what you’re doing… It’s like having a bag of Lego.. You can build almost what you want with it, but you need to know how to put the pieces together..
If you have basic OSI understanding it shouldn’t be hard to set up the basic stuff.. To get most out of wireless you need to understand how wireless works.. I think the manual is good, but its very technical. The best advice i could give you is to try out the examples in the manual combined with the wiki. You will discover that the GUI (Winbox) very much represents the command line, so if you get an example like /ip firewall, this represents hitting IP and Firewall in the GUI. Look at the examples and learn from them, this is the best way to learn how RouterOS works imho..

Regards

/Henrik

4

Well I have been misled on this project in more ways than one. I was told this was a $1000 router so my expectations were high. Come to find out its worth 200-300 tops so I guess Im getting what they paid for. I don’t know, its like using dos when windows is available. What for? This is 2007, routers should be programmed by the manufacturer. Maybe this peice of shit does things that are useful to .001% of the world but I don’t need those things.

This is the last set of legos I let them buy, next time I will insist we buy a router.

Thanks.

5

I complete agree with confused. The RouterOs firmware it’s the best in it’s class and you won’t find anything near around it’s features.

BUT i consider the docs and support almost a NONE.
I spent more the 3 weeks just to figure out the basic stuff, and i’m not a beginer as probably confused he’s not as he states he had played with a competitors product before getting his hands on RouterOs.
And every time a user, or a beginner ask for a how to or a basic stuff, always get a answer that “you must know the basic, go home and do you homework” or “go and get literate” or “it’s not for beginers” and such.
Read the posts and you’ll find users asking for wizards or basic questions. The basic questions are usually not answered and wizards? The will tell you that MT already has it’s wizards and tell you to use winbox’s hotspot or dhcp, as almost saying “we don’t need more wizards”.

But we know as users or at least i know as user that the moment you start using a product (could be hardware or software) you’ll have to spend some time to figure out and start doing the right stuff (learning curve). Whatever this learning curve is short or long (shortter would be better you spend less hours and eventually less money) depends on the software/hardware maker. It appears MT people have a hard time getting this.

I was at Dallas, MUM meeting and i remember someone asking the MT people “When MT will be the next Cisco?” and the answer was " Depends on you (users)".

I COMPLETED DISAGREE!

It depends on YOU MT guys to make not only the best firmware/hardware in ti’s class BUT ALSO MAKE IT SIMPLE AND EASY TO USE. You don’t get this you’ll be always selling to a niche market. Wanna get bigger? Make it simple!

Getting the Cisco example, take a look how many docs, how to’s and books and beginer’s guides are available on the web. I know you can argue that cisco cost 10 times more, but also cost you 10 time less getting used to it. And the price tag also has it’s cost, meaning the Cisco routers are lot more stable.You can argue that Cisco wireless routers won’t do a fraction of a MT wireless router does and would say “I AGREE” that’s the reason i stick to MT, hopping tha MT will have a BROADEN maket share in the future, giving us users all the benefits this could represent.

Want a example? Try to learn about vlans, how to put then to work on a MT box, find the docs about it and try it. Then go the web and find cisco’s vlan docs. MT has only a page on the vlan command, and cisco have lots of how to’s and examples, so my suggestion for a begginer is reading a cisco manual before MT’s, this will save you hundreds of hours.

You can argue the cisco is a trillion dollar company but i took cisco only because i remembered the cisco question at the MUM, but you can pick several other makers with similar “best in it’s class” docs and support.

I also always read “read the wiki” answer, but does the wiki provide a deep explanation on the examples? Again they assume the every users is a pro. Try to copy and past dimitry’s firewalling example to a router and see what happens. It won’t work, it has a syntax error on the example!

This is a friendly critic, meaning that i’m a fan, i have several RouterOs running (with pain), doing things impossible to other brands, and i can say every other, since i had tried all the major wireless stuff, from cisco to zyxell with no good results in comparation to MT’s.

I’ll post this in 2 topics and hope this will reignite the debate on simplicity and hope MT will produce simpler easier to use products and hopping they sell like crazy meaning millions of dollars to it’s investors and emploees and getting us users more hours to sleep instead trying to understand the basic.

6

You should go buy a Linksys WRT54GL and put dd-wrt on it. This will give you ease of use and long range. Besides MT this is the most value for money you can ever get.. When you want more and have advanced needs, go back to RouterOS…

Regards

/Henrik

7

If you have at least a week for reading the manual, then you wouldn’t cry for help here.
It’s a … well… good manual. I have now several dosens of MT boxes, both pc and routerboard, and I knew nothing at the beggining about MT.
It took me several weeks to get a functional router. Meaning with security and stuff.
If you use /setup to setup the basics, and then enable hotspot, and use the /ip hotspot to do the rest, it should be simple enough.
You get the webbox, wich puts some firewall rules by itself…
You MUST have at least some knowledge of what are you doing. I mean, in a 30 dollars router, you get what you pay for. Period. That’s all. You learn nothing, you have nothing.
About Cisco, in one of the previous posts, I agree. Partially.
In here, I can get a sh cisco for about 150 dollars, and I must pay at least another 150 to get it configured. Probably I won’t need to do a /system reboot on them, but hey ! It’s not the same kind of stuff.
And sorry to say that, but mt won’t be a cisco soon. It’s not targeted to the same market. It’s my opinion.
It can do probably about 99% of a cisco, and do another 30% that cisco simply won’t ever do.
For me, as a novice, mt seemed the obvious choise beteen cisco and mt, having knowledge about none. Now i know pretty much about mt, and it suffices to me.
I tried varios stuff for routing: ipcop, monowall, plain linux, bsd and freesco. Also tried ikarus. I use MT.

So

  1. manual
  2. wiki
  3. forum

If used in this order, they will help you. They helped me, from zero ground.

Good luck.

8

30 dollars router? Where are you getting this price?
It costs $ 95.00 only the license, plus the hardware, so will be at least $ 300 bucks.

I did not compare cisco with MT i even stated about the superiority of the MT in the wireless field, i only took cisco cause i remembered the question at the Dallas MUM, that’s it.

My enphasis here is about getting a good doc and a simple way to begginers to start playing.

9

30 dollars or so, it costs an edimax or tp-link router, wich you should use for simplicity. And good ( ? ) documentation.

Sorry if i seemd agressive. I did not meant it. What I mean, is MT covers a specific niche on the market, and since 2.7, wich i first used, the documentation improved very much. Also, the forums and wiki cover if you have time to search, a big part of the specific issues you may encounter.
If you can stick to mt, you will see benefits in not so long time. It’s best used even with a 30 buck pII 500 mhz with 64 ram, wich I use in most of the installations, doing very well with hundreds of queues (10 - 768). So, for at as much as 100$, without wireless, and two intel or 3 com cards, you get a very capable router, wich can do things that you will only see in 400 and up hardware dedicated routers.
Best wishes, and good luck. Read on.

10

I´m sorry to read the unfunded critisiscim on MT. I feel things should be put a bit more in perspective.

I started working with MT ROS a year ago beeing a ¨know nothing¨ when it came to networking. All I did understand is how to set up a rudimental Windows wired network with some hubs etc.

Now, with all the info to be found in the ROS reference manual, the Wiki, the Forum and by trying myself I know things I never knew they existed.
Specially the resources getting from this Forum are helpfull at times but actuall all problems I´ve had are to be found one way or another in the documentations, or if the issue was serious, were answered in the Forum.
But OK, I agree impatience sometimes took over and I just dropped the question in a tread…

I do also know lots of small started WISP in the world, do use MT on Routerboards because its a very good price quality product and you can do it all by yourself.

I don´t know about Cisco but the simple fact it´s website contains hundreds of documents doesn´t mean any good. And see how many forums deal with Cisco and find loads of people struggling here…
Cisco is normally used in the high-end IT world were highly paid (and higly educated) IT technicians make their living. That is not because it´s so simple to use!
I used to work with one of the first Shipping firms in Holland that introduced network management of their ships. After a while 25% of the office personall was highly paid IT technicians and most equipment was Cisco. After several years of hard struggling by the money draining IT department they still had loads of problems. These technicians that knew all about the firm´s network setup could only be kept in the force by paying them more, and more, and more…

And, no suprice, no way back! If the networking is giving out of hands to the gusy that maker their very good living with it they have no reason to leave you with a problem free working system…

but also, if complicated networking in general was so simple why do we need all these expensive ´consultances´ anyway! MT ROS is also not made for the private market were the customer just want a wireless network for his two PC´s.

I think MT ROS is very compleet and has lots of options and If you don´t need them they don´t bother you. I think it has best of both worlds.
But like every operating system, the skill to work with it and fully understand doesn´t come overnight. Who can fly a F16 jet fighter after having it parked in front of your house… most of us can do a wheelchair!

I have the MT ROS running as Wireless accesspoint, Client CPe´s and as a main gateway router. They perform DHCP server, Web proxy, Hotspot, Routing, LoadBalancingg and simple link connections with other routers. They never crashed on me, not even after serveral power cuts that usually does break most operating systems, and after the initial ploughing through the learning process it performs very well.

You have also several options to work with it, Telnet, SSH, Web based or, what I personally use most because its clear, Winbox.

I´ve also had several Lynksys, belkin, or D-link wireless routers in my hands and although these manufactures do their best to make a user friendly GUI they still give the average user lots of problems to configure. Specially as soon as you go outside the standard base set up. Even me, a now more then avarage skilled network builder, am still supriced by their unstability at times and/or weird ways of configurations.

In other words: It´s mostly the highly paid technician that tells MT is crap. The reality is however that it can do alsmost everything you want for very reasonable prices with loads of support to get, and its stable and everybody can understand it after a while. So if you have some time to spare you never need an expensive consultant.

But OK, if your boss want to waste his money on IT/Cisco consultancies then let him… and you will never learn how things can be done different.

11

Well if your having trouble with MT OS, how would you manage with a Cisco box - or perhaps they arn’t real routers either - because they don’t come pre-programmed by the manufacturer.

I will admit I have had a number of frustrating experiences with MT os, but just as many with Cisco boxes.

If you simply want to add wireless users to a LAN - just grab an Edimax AP.

Running down MT OS on the forums used by MT users to help each other isn’t going to get you a lot of help, and frankly, only shows your ignorance. Best of luck figuring it out on your own!

12

WirelessRudy: Best said.

As for the original thread, hotspot in my opinion is fairly ease to use. And with user manager you can get a primary radius for clients, at the same price of the paid router.
For experimenting, use a virtual appliance, either vmware or microsoft virtual pc, if you do not have the spare hardware to see. I do not know about wireless, but for ethernet is the same functionality. Especialy in virtual pc, wich unfortunately is easier to configure than vmware. The 24 hours of the demo should be enough. If not, install again on the same virtual machine, after erasing the virtual hdd. :slight_smile:


I use MT as EVERY access point on a few hundred clients network. I tried d-link, edimax, linksys, globalsun, even ikarus in demo and MANY other, and as far, MT is the best.
Every router and bridge in my network is a MT device.
I could not ever be pleased more.
It’s the only router/bridge wich I can replace in 10 minutes or so, fully configured, when I have a free machine, without disturbing clients, both on ethernet or wireless.
Thanks MT team, and keep up the good work.
Thank you.

13

i think some readers may had misunderstood my point of view, so i’ll try to make it as clear as possible

1st: I’M A MT FAN, MT USER AND MY ENTIRE NETWORK IS MT BASED.

2nd: I HAD USED ALL THE MAIN MT COMPETITORS SOFTWARE/HARDWARE, INCLUDING IKARUS AND STAROS AND ALL THE MAIN BRAND AP’S AS CISCO, PROXIM AND SO ON.

3rd: IN MY PERSONAL OPINION, MT IS THE BEST PRODUCT IN THE MARKET, SO MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT.

4th: MY CRITIC IS A “FRIENDLY CRITIC”, what i’m trying to do here is improve the product and increase the user base.

So again:

As a it manager, i chill every time one of my it professionals tells me he or she wants to leave. why?

MT MANUAL IS POORLY WRITEN
MT SUPPORT IS WEAK AND BASED ON BASIC ANSWERS
MT SUPPORT TAKES LONGER THAN EXPERECTED TO ANSWER
YOU HAVE TO SPEND PRECIOUS TIME READING THE FORUM POSTS TO LEARN SOME BASIC STUFF THAT SHOULD BE IN THE MANUAL

so i conclued:

MT is hard to learn even for experienced users
MT manual is only a basic product reference

What is my main expectation?

MAYBE MT PEOPLE WILL MAKE IT SIMPLE AND WELL DOCUMENTED, so i can spend my time growing my network instead of reading forum posts and wiki’s.

Thx

14

Hi people

I think you are all wasting your time with the entry level IT dude. If they call a normal ethernet router / AP a “propper” router, then they obviously don’t know much about IT, especially routing.

Just for their information, 90% of all wireless ISP’s are using the Mikrotik “piece of shit”.

Perhaps those newbies should visit a place where MT is implemented and come back to the forum with a different attitude.

Regards, Giepie