Hi all

I have been Ubiquiti based with about 60 customers on my rural network, but i would like to step up my game and integrate microtik routeros into the network for routing etc.

The entire network is bridged up to the CPE and so customers are being double natted. As part of the change, I will begin internally routing and making my network paths more efficient by creating a routing loop and backup wireless paths, and running my public ip addresses right up to the customers rooftop radio.

I have been using Kerio Control as my main gateway software running on a wndows pc and it works rather well. So this box would be the first one to change to a routeros box. A friend has given me an RB1100ah to play around with and i would like to know if routeros is capable of some specifics before i start learning it. Every other collegue i have talked to says i need to stop toying with kerio and up my game by going to microtik. I have a /22 also that I want to integrate and the main driver for going to the microtik is going to be the BGP which kerio+windows xp cant do, but it suits all my other requirements.

I appreaciate any help or guidance you can give me.

So here goes:

Per User Accounting.
I know there is the microtik user manager plugin you can install. I have tried this and when i visit the usermanager web page within the RB1100 it only shows two slashes on the url that the wiki tells me to go to.
Its a blank page with // in the corner. So before i continue to trouble shoot, i would like to know
- Can the usermanager tell me each month how many gigabytes each user has downloaded / uploaded
- Can the usermanager be configured to upload an xml or a text file with the statistics of each user.

I have an internal website where clients can go and see how many gigabytes they have used during the month so far. Kerio outputs an xml file which i have copied onto the web server and a php website reads this, compares the visitors IP address and looks up the data from the xml file. It then displays a usage bar that fills up as they use their data allowance. Its a nice pretty website that they dont have to login to and makes everything simple.

At the moment a batch script runs every 5 mins to copy the xml file from the kerio directory to the web server. It would be okay if i ftp'd into the RB1100 by a scheduled batch script and picked up the output file.

Without getting into radius, can I continue to do this with the microtik accounting?

Unmetered Websites
I have configured kerio so it doesnt count any data usage for data that goes to or from a specific list of ip addresses. I advertise unmetered TVNZ Ondemand (our equivalant of Hulu) and so any streaming of content from a few websites doesnt get counted against the users data usage.

Can I still do this in the microtik usermanager?

Automatic Login
Each computer inside a customers house is behind their rooftop radio / router. This means that according to kerio, its just one ip address where the user is located.
When a user goes the internet, kerio intercepts them and asks them to login. I have it preprogrammed to automatically login by the source ip address (rooftop radio) so that they never see the login page. Its like a walled hotspot garden that they never auctually see. Once a user's household is logged in, it allows them internet access, and counts their data against their user account.

I know the microtik system is designed as a hotspot, but can it accept automatic logins by the source IP address?
Eg. If household 192.168.3.233 goes online, they skip the walled garden and go straight on as username 0WandGMclean?


So currently my drivers for switching to routeros will be
- BGP
- IPv6 supported (i got a v6 subnet with my v4)
- The professionals recomendation

But to do this, I need to still keep everything the same from the customers point of view. All I need is basically a Yes / No for the above points, and the basics on what I need to accomplish them. Once someone can give me some clues as to what i need to do, I'll get back onto the wiki and start reading up on it some more.

So far I have successfully designated WAN/Lan ports, and established routing between them. But I decided that it was going to take me a week to learn this properly and it would be pointless unless I can still achieve the above criteria.

Thanks again for your help.