Dear Mikrotik guys,

Why is webbox somewhat neglected, to us we dont need it but the market needs it.After purchasing a router simple ppl first try to connect with a router thru web on default ip.Yes ofcourse it works with mikrotik but lets put our self in the place of them,when they logon they find a lot of scary things for them winbox ,telnet ,graphs and all they need is just to enter there username and password.After they find it up on the right corner they realize its the webbrowser access ofcourse after spending alot of time reading what was in the page.They log in, the webbrowser looks so different to them,its almost dead very poor design even on the cheapest chinse broadband router you would find a much relaxing interface.No network wizard, hmm, They start searching for LAN ,WAN they can not find it, they give up or try to call a computer guy to help.

Is it that hard to get the big part of the market which are these ppl, a simple miniboard 150 with nice enclosure and a nice web interface will cost the same like broadband routers in the market.All they need is ip address,gateway,DNS,auto nat,dhcp,and a firewall.Queue under "Bandwidth Managment" will be a plus with them.Thats it

Even for new IT guys its nice to have good looking web interface,it will give an impression coz looks do matter to some ppl.We are years trying hard to convince ppl to move to mikrotik but mikrotik is leaving the explaination part on us and neglecting the "plug and play" characterstic found in almost all competitors.

Difference between a toy and a real piece of equipment. Cisco's web interface sucks too.

Cisco bought linksys and cisco is providing SoHo equipment with very easy network wizards, in cisco you have soho,meduim,large business,service providers in mikrotik everyone the same you choose your packages instead packages and modules to be choosen upon customer needs.

kthameen
better know what you are talking about first.

OK, i work with Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, Linksys and Alcatel/Lucent gear on a daily basis, and I have to say Linksys is SOHO junk. They are trying to move into larger environments such as the SME space but their firmware is very buggy.

A good example are:
The DHCP-Relay bugs on the AG300 that have been there for the last 6 firmware releases.
The inability to block deny traffic via the default gateway and allow it only via the VPN on the AG300's last 8 releases
The fact that on the SFE2000 and SGE2000 switches (including the POE models) they filter multicast L3 packets by default with a setting that does not show up in the config, meaning you have to know it is a bug to turn it off! (this makes a lot of Unified Communication's desktop clients break, as well as Cisco IP phones do weird things)

With other vendors you can easily reach someone to report a bug and get it followed up on, with Linksys you can not. And if you do get hold of someone chances are their Chinese is better than their English.

What is shocking is that Allied Telesis use the EXACT same chipset and base firmware (albeit with 64MB ram instead of 128MB) as the SFE2000/SGE2000 in the 8000 series switches, but they work 100% correctly.

With Mikrotik you get excellent support, you can have a say in how the product evolves, and you get the modular flexibility and it is all provided at a reasonable cost.

Why is webbox somewhat neglected

RouterOS is not exactly targeted at people with no previous experience with routers. But anyway, we are making a new web interface which could be ready sometime this year.

Why is webbox somewhat neglected

RouterOS is not exactly targeted at people with no previous experience with routers.

Normis:

This is interesting. I know several guys that, like me, entered the world of networking because the regular SOHO stuff usually can´t do what we want and the stuff that can is mostly to expensive or too complicated if you are new to networking.
I think lots of MT supporters became so because it is reasonably priced and after some learning curve easier managed then the high-end market stuff (Cisco etc.)
Although I am not using the web interface because winbox is for me the ultimate tool for visualizing what I am doing I do think MT markets consists for a great deal out of ´newbie´ network operators and if MT would market that sector better they might become even more popular then they are already becoming!

So, while maybe ´aiming´ at the sub-high-end users don´t forget the low and medium segment!
In that respect more simple ´how to's´ should be made, maybe even in special section of the Wiki.
And is the Wiki actually checked by you guys? I have the feeling that some Wiki examples are not finished or even lacking info or are otherwise not the best way to solve a problem....

What MT might also emphasise is that some options work better or more simple between MT boards then for instance between third party hardware running ros of between MT hardware and third party hardware.
This is not always clear in the manuals or the wiki.

rgds.

rudy

Why is webbox somewhat neglected

RouterOS is not exactly targeted at people with no previous experience with routers. But anyway, we are making a new web interface which could be ready sometime this year.

We do not use Webinterface, as Winbox is just fine and much more responsive
as a webinterface can be.
What I would like to see is a super simple userinterface for WISP-Customers.
They should see signal strength, our logo, phonenumber and may be some help
text. That's all.
My experience is that it makes no sense to give customer to much control
of the device. It just generates work. If they really need more control they can
plug a router behind the CPE.

Stefan

In that case, why not notice the lack of default configuration in the first place?
Just as I said, we will work on a better web interface.

In that case, why not notice the lack of default configuration in the first place?

This is a more complicated stuff I do not dare to wish ).
There is no default client configuration that fit every Wisp needs.
Of course it would be great when on first bootup the client get`s all
configuration from the AP. But for this the client has to scan all
frequencies in every country.
What would be handy is a netinstallmode where I can put Images
and Configuration on my laptop and the client fetches all stuff
at first boot from ether1. This would save 5-10minutes setuptime
per client.

Stefan

In that case, why not notice the lack of default configuration in the first place?

This is a more complicated stuff I do not dare to wish ).
There is no default client configuration that fit every Wisp needs.
Of course it would be great when on first bootup the client get`s all
configuration from the AP. But for this the client has to scan all
frequencies in every country.
What would be handy is a netinstallmode where I can put Images
and Configuration on my laptop and the client fetches all stuff
at first boot from ether1. This would save 5-10minutes setuptime
per client.

Stefan

it's already possible to put config files on the router when netinstalling it.

using netinstall you can set up a script that will be loaded into your router while installing, and after /system reset-configuration this configuration will be loaded by default, but then you have to reinstlall router by yourself prior giving it away to customer.

as normis noted

In that case, why not notice the lack of default configuration in the first place?

This is a more complicated stuff I do not dare to wish ).
There is no default client configuration that fit every Wisp needs.
Of course it would be great when on first bootup the client get`s all
configuration from the AP. But for this the client has to scan all
frequencies in every country.
What would be handy is a netinstallmode where I can put Images
and Configuration on my laptop and the client fetches all stuff
at first boot from ether1. This would save 5-10minutes setuptime
per client.

Stefan

it's already possible to put config files on the router when netinstalling it.

Learned s.th. new . I'll try this when the next bunch of clients arrives.

Thanx,
Stefan

Why is webbox somewhat neglected

RouterOS is not exactly targeted at people with no previous experience with routers. But anyway, we are making a new web interface which could be ready sometime this year.

Thank you normis for the reply, thats great news. As I mentioned I didn't mean to simplfy the whole mikrotik with a web interface or make it simple for non networking people, my point was to get a new product out of mikrotik to compete for example with linksys,US robotics,net gear, etc which will create a big revenue to mikrotik with little investment.So guys dont compare a cisco 2600 series with a linksys SOHO router because I mean a mikrotik just with simple features like dhcp,dns,etc. and I am sure mikrotik will out preform the mentioned products in this market.

Best Regards,

An idea would be: let the WISP (or ISP) build the custom webbox interface for its customers...
IE: We have a lot of customers that ask us to do port forwarding on the CPE (we don't give passwords of those CPE to the customer and we wont do it in the future)
At the moment we made a pre-configured list of ports forwarded to NAT addresses but a User-friedly web interface with restricted permissions would be useful to avoid those kind of problems. Something like the customization of the Hot spot login i mean.

Hi,
I have a software that can do this for you.
It's a client application you can release to your customers that enables to modify ip addresses, firewall rules, dns etc.
This software can be customized with your logo and other features.

Bye.
P.

I would be interested in this software. can you shoot us a call and we can talk about this...

@kthameen

my assumption from working with/and selling mikrotik gear for several years now is, that all the userunfriendly interface is 50% buisnessmodell ( spend more cash on education and consulting) and 50% lack of knowledge about design of user interfaces ...

the lack of interface design is a problem of most routerfirmware - since most of these interfaces are made by software engineers and not by designers for user interfaces .... thats a big difference ...

from my point of view is a complex userinterface (without integrated helpfeature ) not a indicator for high quality of the powerful firmware with its lots of special features - its acutally a barrier for not so advanced user but potential good costumers who want to use the product now and not after their administrators became mikrotik certified consultants ... ok the experienced user might say: "you are exaggerating" - but show a mikrotik newbie with some basic networking a mirkotik interface ....

Hi,
I have a software that can do this for you.
It's a client application you can release to your customers that enables to modify ip addresses, firewall rules, dns etc.
This software can be customized with your logo and other features.

Bye.
P.

Hi Procad,

I am really intersted in your software, how can I contact you.

Leave a mail in the forum.
I'll contect you by it.

F.

routeros interface is not intended for home users that do not understand ip networks. webbox is a small step towards them.

while you are learning networking and techniques you can browse through interface easily.

like - i want to ad ip address, so i go /ip address add address=<address> interface=<intended interface>


for simple interfaces that would suit everyone starting age of 3 to any value you wish you can use API to create interface for functions you need.

i doubt that home user needs advanced firewall features, OSPF at home, authoritative DHCP server.

i really suggest you to attend MUMs and training sessions when possible, as that will add a great value to your business if you are using RouterOS.

routeros interface is not intended for home users that do not understand ip networks. webbox is a small step towards them.

while you are learning networking and techniques you can browse through interface easily.

like - i want to ad ip address, so i go /ip address add address=<address> interface=<intended interface>


for simple interfaces that would suit everyone starting age of 3 to any value you wish you can use API to create interface for functions you need.

i doubt that home user needs advanced firewall features, OSPF at home, authoritative DHCP server.

i really suggest you to attend MUMs and training sessions when possible, as that will add a great value to your business if you are using RouterOS.

I really suggest you should read what I wrote again coz you are out of subject,Thank you for the training thing coz we do training

Not hardly. His post was dead on.