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th0massin0
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RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Mar 10, 2016 4:42 pm

Hello
I have a question about installing RouterOS in vmwware ESXi. Is that senario supported?
I should use regular x86 image or CHR ?

The standard settings of virtual network card is optimal for RouterOS?
Should I install vmware tools after?
 
Sob
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:07 pm

Both x86 and CHR work, but only CHR has VMware specific drivers (vmxnet3, pvscsi). CHR is probably better in most cases.

You may experience installation problems with .vmdk provided by MikroTik. In wiki they recommend to prepare disk in some other VMware product and then transfer it to ESXi. Other way is to convert it from ide to scsi and then you can use it directly.

You can't install tools, but MikroTik had expressed interest to add some, so lets hope it happens soon.
 
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pukkita
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:12 pm

On last Ljubljana MUM a couple weeks back there was a presentation by Kevin Myers that will surely be of interest for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBmu90f8aCc

PDF available at http://mum.mikrotik.com/presentations/E ... 817868.pdf
 
th0massin0
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:36 pm

Thank you very much for your explenation, it's really helpfull.
I have another problem to consider: the pricing. I want to organize a high speed routing between vlans,
(problem described here: http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=105623 )

the cost of level4 license is $45 (without speed limit, I think) and CHR (with drivers that I desire and unlimited speed :) ) costs $250.

The question is: can I add the vmware drivers to x86 image?
 
Sob
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:06 pm

I did not test it myself (so I can be wrong), but even though there's no artificial speed limit in x86 version, isn't it limited by emulated network adapters?

And no, you can't add drivers. There's definitely no supported way, nor any unsupported hack I'm aware of.
 
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TomjNorthIdaho
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:21 pm

For me, I prefer ROS x86 in a VMware ESXi environment verses a physical Mikrotik router (when used as a router - not a switch or bridging ports).

The performance is much greater on ESXi when compared to something like the RB2011.
Example: RB2011 Bandwidth test UDP to 127.0.0.1 tops out at around 1.4 gig. However an x86 ROS under ESXi performing a bandwidth test UDP to 127.0.0.1 tops out at around 17 gig (on my ESXi system).

If you are looking for the absolute highest stability, then stay with a physical Mikrotik router. If you are willing to trade off some stability for high routing throughput, then you may want to consider ROS x86.

FYI - I have tested x86 under ESXi against CCR under ESXi and both come out about the same throughput. However, CCR can use much more Ram memory for BGP tables. The x86 ROS tops out around 2 gig ram.

Either way you look at it - all Mikrotik routing solutions are good. And if you are strictly looking for a virtual router, then consider starting out with x86 ROS (using four E1000E virtual Ethernet cards). This will get you four 10-gig interfaces and if you have 10-gig physical interfaces on your VMware ESXi server, then your x86 ROS can route between your networks at 10-gig and not even break a sweat.

North Idaho Tom Jones

Edit note: Although the E1000E virtual network cards can talk at 10-gig, the x86 ROS only shows 1-gig link speed.
Edit note: Do not add more than four networks cards. If you add a 5th network card, the port names get mixed up.
Edit note: Somewhere in these forums, I posted how to make a 10 port 10-gig virtual x86 router running on VMware ESXi. Review this information if you go past four Ethernet cards.
 
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:00 am

Good evening, I'm from Brazil, do not speak good English so already sorry errors.

I have a server running ESXI 6.0.0 and am having trouble importing the VM provided by mikrotik, I do not know if the way in which I am creating this right, I create a new machine and time to select the HD I choose the option "use HD already existing "and select the downloaded file" www.mikrotik.com "but does not work.

So I install from an ISO 6.34 and version worked, still did not get the license, put in production to test and realized that mikrotik processing was very high at around 80%, I have on average 1,200 simultaneous PPPoE and my server is "core i5 330 3.0 gHz" with 8G RAM before virtualize worked in an i3 with RAM of 2GB and processing no more than 20%, my doubt is: WILL tHE HIGH pROCESSING fOR tHE fOR ISO ACCOUNT WHERE SHOULD I CHR USE? if you can help me be grateful, but once apologize for errors

Junior,
 
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:33 am

You have two options to get CHR running:

1) Prepare virtual disk in other VMware product (free VMware Player works fine) and then transfer it to ESXi as described in manual.

2) Convert downloaded vmdk from ide to scsi, use resulting files with ESXi and it will work.
 
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:59 pm

I loaded chr in esxi, but I am having trouble getting good throughput. If I test to itself I can get somewhere around 27gbs but when I test to my old x86 machine I only get about 54mbs. I set up a vswitch just for routeros, and assigned the vswitch a specific nic. When I loaded x86 as the operating system without any hypervisor. I was able to hit the 1gbs limit between my two machines.

I feel like am not getting the machine set up correctly, let me know what information I need to post so that you guys might be able to give me a hand. thanks
 
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janisk
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Tue May 03, 2016 2:09 pm

maybe it will be easier, not yet decided if these will be made on regular basis

The CHR OVA:
http://www.mikrotik.com/download/share/RouterOS_CHR.ova

sha256sum 1b336bc01847a14dddf7ce82a4c355dd5a9cad1011fcb6e120cf84dab866905a RouterOS_CHR.ova
 
pe1chl
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Tue May 03, 2016 10:14 pm

If you do this (great!) please consider also to put VMware tools in the image.
This is useful when making snapshot backups.
 
th0massin0
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu May 05, 2016 12:55 pm

If you do this (great!) please consider also to put VMware tools in the image.
This is useful when making snapshot backups.
+1 for that
 
infused
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Tue Jul 12, 2016 10:41 pm

maybe it will be easier, not yet decided if these will be made on regular basis

The CHR OVA:
http://www.mikrotik.com/download/share/RouterOS_CHR.ova

sha256sum 1b336bc01847a14dddf7ce82a4c355dd5a9cad1011fcb6e120cf84dab866905a  RouterOS_CHR.ova
Quick bump - Can you *please* *please* *please* put out the ova's instead of the other vmware files. So much easier in big environments, and we'd start deploying it more.
 
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janisk
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:07 am

all you need to have is 1 template tailored for your use - how much RAM you want to assign, how much storage space, how many interfaces etc. Upgrades/downgrades work very well and does not change anything besides the version.
 
infused
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:49 pm

bring back the ova please.
 
virtman
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:34 am

Hi,

When the OpenVMTools will be integrated in CHR?
Whitout these tools is IMPOSIBLE to manage the virtual machine... live migration, controlled shutdown (power-off is not scriptable!!!), backup, etc.

Thank you!
 
virtman
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:44 am

Hi,

When the CHR will include support for Open VM Tools?
Whitout these tools it's impossible at all to manage the Virtual Machine: no live migration, no proper scripting shutdown (power-off is not scriptable!), backup, etc.

Please, this a real requirement!
 
Sob
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:54 am

Give it time, it will happen eventually. I mean, first MikroTik wasn't much keen on virtualization (no drivers for virtual hw, even though e.g. vmxnet3 driver was available for used kernel) and look now at CHR, what a nice piece of software it is. One day they'll realize that tools are nice too. :)
 
virtman
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Wed Dec 21, 2016 5:36 pm

Give it time, it will happen eventually. [...] look now at CHR, what a nice piece of software it is. One day they'll realize that tools are nice too. :)
Yes! But consider that the CHR is now a PRODUCT from the RouterOS line, but it lacks a functionality required for a production environment. Until it doesn't include OpenVMTools it will be outside of any production environment. So the questions is: Why as the OpenVMTools is an Open Source package the Mikrotik guys doesn't include it in the CHR?
 
nicutdk
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:48 am

Not working with full gigabit.
 
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Wed Mar 01, 2017 7:55 am

Hello! I installed mikrotik chr on Vmware
Server HP ProLiant DL360 G6 8 CPUs x Intel (R) Xeon (R) CPU E5540 @ 2.53GHz 23.99 GB RAM with network card 82599EB 10-Gigabit SFI / SFP + Network Connection with test license P10. The problem is that the outgoing speed does not rise above 100 Mb / s. CPU load is not more than 15%. Network cards are identified as 10G. On vmware use VMXNET3
 
yuriadmin
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Sun Oct 21, 2018 6:04 pm

I got the error message after upgrading the chr
Virtual Machine Message
The operation on the file "/vmfs/devices/deltadisk/4e575c2a-chr-6.42.3-s001.vmdk" failed(14 (Bad address)).
The file system where disk "/vmfs/devices/deltadisk/4e575c2a-chr-6.42.3-s001.vmdk" resides is full.
Select button.retry to attempt the operation again.
Select button.abort to end the session.

How to solve this please asap?
thanks
 
pe1chl
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Sun Oct 21, 2018 8:14 pm

Backup the config, re-create VM using .ova file, and load the backup.
 
eisa
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Re: RouterOS in Vmware ESXi

Sat Dec 17, 2022 11:14 pm

No problem.
I have used it more than 6 yrs.
Buy sriov 4port lan card.
2core(e5 2660v3)/2g ram can enough most cases.
Also using mikrotik static dns is very useful :D

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