Hi,

i have a Routerboard with rOS 6.12. I have the network subnettet and the Routerboard is the router in between.
I have tried every configuration i found with igmp-proxy and PIM to get Apple Bonjour services to work.
I even created a firewall mangle rule to increase the TTL of all multicast packet for group 224.0.0.251.

Really nothing works. Has anybody a working configuration with multiple network directly attached to the router board and Apple services work ?

I did not get any reply so I started to perform some research with TCPdump and found the issue. As this might be from interest for others as well I will explain how i solved that issue.

First Apple Bonjour is a service that is similar to multicast Domain Name System (mDNS) or zero configuration. It uses the multicast group 224.0.0.251.
This multicast group is a "link-local" so all routers will not route it. It does not matter if you have igmp-porxy enabled or try anything with PIM.
The TTL is set to 1 and even if you change it with a mange rule it will not work.

So you can now surrender and reconfigure your network to a flat layer 2 domain and one big subnet. Then all Apple services will work.

OR you use a nice proxy software like the free avahi daemon from http://avahi.org. So here is how solved it.

I connected my raspberry pi with a trunk port a free port on the routerboard. i created a VLAN interface with a static IP outside of the DCHP ranges on the raspberry pi for each subnet. Then i created vlan interfaces on the router board and connected them to the bridges for the subnets.
Then i installed the avahi daemon:
and i changed those parameters from the avahi daemon config file and restarted the daemon:

...
[publish]
publish-workstation=yes
...
[reflector]
enable-reflector=yes
reflect-ipv=no

That´s all. My computers and iphone/ipads now see each other again, all can print and use the time capsule for backup.

OK that's not good news but at least it is an information I was looking for.

I definitely don't get what IGMP-Proxy and PIM are for as, after one month of trying every single thing, it still couldn't get anything going through.

I'd be interested if someone could explain what are these for as neither VLC multicast stream nor Bonjour will go through...

Hi,

i think the only way to get Apple Bonjour working on the RB without any external system would be that Mikrotik implements avahi or similar software on as a proxy on the system.
They might do this as Apple is a widely distributed brand for mobile devices and Cisco has something similar implemented to bridge between the LAN and WLAN, but i think that might depend on the number of requests.
In the meantime I have decided to improve my Raspberry Pi also as TimeCapsule replacement by attaching a hard drive and announce it vie the avahi daemon as Timecapsule in the network.
Currently I m also working on a solution for AirPrint on it, but currently i still have problems with CUPS and my Samsung printer.

For your VLC problem you should perform also a deep packet analyses as i did. From my point of view it should work with the IGMP proxy or PIM, but i have no experience with it.

First Post here;

Received my RB2011UiAS-2HND-IN like 4 hrs ago.

Have been able to get the unit up and running seemed fine except for the 2 Apple TV's I have…they played music fine from the iMac, but would not pull m0vies or TV shows across either Wifi or Wired..

PlexConnect also doesn't seem to work….Wish I had seen this post prior to the purchase….

empusas you stated "So you can now surrender and reconfigure your network to a flat layer 2 domain and one big subnet. Then all Apple services will work." Care to elaborate as to how to do this for me please?

My network is relatively simple I mainly bought the RB for its 9 usable ports (Desktop, Apple TV, Ubiquiti AP's, BluRay etc.)

Keeping one 'flat layer' so stuff works is something I can live with….albeit I'm disappointed that I'll never be able to use some of the powerful features of RouterOS….but seeing as I have little knowledge on how they work perhaps thats a good thing


Thx

Not 100% correct.

Either you flatten your network to one single subnet or if you split it, make use of a raspberry or metarouter to run avahi (advertiser/proxy for mdns).

Did you configure more than one subnet/vlan ?

Not 100% correct.

Either you flatten your network to one single subnet or if you split it, make use of a raspberry or metarouter to run avahi (advertiser/proxy for mdns).

Did you configure more than one subnet/vlan ?

No

Thx for the reply…

I bought this unit to replace a Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H and a TP-Link GB switch (the DDWRT Buffalo required almost a daily reboot to function).

2 iPads, iPhone, AirPrint, Apple TV's (one wired one wifi) need to work with iTunes on my Hackintosh

Did you configure more than one subnet/vlan ?

No

2 iPads, iPhone, AirPrint, Apple TV's (one wired one wifi) need to work with iTunes on my Hackintosh

Then you shouldn't have any issue in regard to multicast/bonjour.

It uses the multicast group 224.0.0.251.
This multicast group is a "link-local" so all routers will not route it. It does not matter if you have igmp-porxy enabled or try anything with PIM.
The TTL is set to 1 and even if you change it with a mange rule it will not work.

I just started looking at the same issue. Looking at some Wireshark captures of traffic to 224.0.0.251 from an Apple TV, I see a TTL of 255. Regardless of this, I don't see the purpose of igmp-proxy or PIM if they're aren't able to forward traffic for these addresses. 224.0.0.251 is in the 224.0.0.0 - 224.0.0.255 range designated as "link-local", but the default group address for a new RP under PIM is 224.0.0.0/4, which suggests it's able to deal with these addresses.

Has anyone confirmed that RouterOS truly won't route these multicast messages using either of these methods?

Hello together,

I bought my first Mikrotik Router and I'm new using RouterOS.
Now I have the Problem, that I can't use the Bonjour Protocol.
I own a RaspberryPi that I want to use as Avahi reflector, but I don't know how to do it.
That's my config:
ether01 - WAN
bridgeDMZ (ether03-ether06) - DMZ (10.0.1.0/24)
bridgePrinter (ether07-ether10) - Printers (10.0.2.0/24)
bridgeHDD (ether11-ether14) - Harddisk (10.0.3.0/24)
bridgeLAN (ether15-ether22) - LAN (10.0.4.0/24)
bridgeGuest (ether23-ether24) - GuestLAN (10.0.5.0/24)

Now I want to use Bonjour between bridgePrinter <-> bridgeHDD <-> bridgeLAN

I understood that the RouterOS isn't able to route Bonjour between the Subnets.

now my question is:
How can I build a Bonjour reflector between the Subnets with the raspberry pi, using one network Interface?

Excuse me, if my english isn't the best, but this is the first english question since 20 years

Hi,

i used a raspberry pi too.

First you should install the avahi deamon, tools and netatalk if you want to use it as file server too. Then perform the changes to the /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf from my post above.

Just create some tagged interfaces in /etc/network/interfaces on the raspberry pi like this: Don´t forget to add a static route: You can either restart the network service or reboot your raspberry pi now.

On the router board create now VLAN interfaces and make sure the VLAN ID and IP subnet matches with what you used for the raspberry pi(don't use the same IP!)

Assign the VLAN interfaces on the router board now to the right bridges. Then create a tagged interface on the routerboard. To do so go to Switch->Port->select Port. Then VLAN Mode=disabled and VLAN Header=Leave as is.

Hi guys!
I've just managed to run OpenWRT in MetaRouter vm inside my Mikrotik.
Then I've installed avahi-daemon and that's it. There's no need to use Rasperry Pi.

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Metarouter
Here is the wiki, but a bit complicated.
I've only used File feature to upload image, then imported it using Winbox, not sure why but web client doesn't show Metarouter menu in my case.

As anyone tried using avahi reflector to advertise services of a multifunction printer ?
The printer itself advertises bonjour frames and avahi just broadcasts them to other subnets.
I have few devices doing the same and the only thing that doesn't work at all is the scanner of the canon printer.
It shows up correctly on my Mac and Image Capture has it in the sidebar, however it ends up saying it wasn't able to contact the scanner.

Cheers

I tried a long time ago with 5.2x and failed.

Hi guys!
I've just managed to run OpenWRT in MetaRouter vm inside my Mikrotik.
Then I've installed avahi-daemon and that's it. There's no need to use Rasperry Pi.

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Metarouter
Here is the wiki, but a bit complicated.
I've only used File feature to upload image, then imported it using Winbox, not sure why but web client doesn't show Metarouter menu in my case.

Can you please provide more detailed instructions on how to install and configure the avahi-daemon after openwrt. Thanks