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HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

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Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#121

Post by wink »

Jnr wrote: post #24
SlavikCA wrote: post #16

About 2 years ago I tried to use Mikrotik, as the router for my ATT Fiber. It's royal pain. Basic router setup is not hard. Port forward to expose web server? Can be done after heavy docs&forum reading, but hair pinning never worked for me. I checked their WiFi AP. It's UI is hard even for senior software engineer. In the end I got opnSense installed in VM on Proxmox and it's my router for last 2 years. I'm using 2 M…

It should be doable by most software engineers. They did teach some basic CCNA course in the university as part of computer science studies and the concepts taught there should help a lot with configuring any router, including RouterOS. It could also be helpful to watch some guides on routing and firewall on Linux, since RouterOS is just Linux with a very specific UI on top.

I dunno. I've worked with linux routers for years and I've had a lot less problems than with mikrotik.

I still like them but it's usually not the networking knowledge that trips people up.

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#122

Post by justsomehnguy »

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #111
graton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related they let you download the entire documentation in an LLM friendly format. https://manual.mikrotik.com/llms-full.txt Their front page documentation specifically mentions it: https://manual.mikrotik.com/docs/introduction#machine-readab...

> LLM friendly format Is that not just markdown? is there a specific way of formatting docs that's "friendly" to LLMs now?

It's just a lazy export of their wiki/Confluence in a .md format.

Ctrl+F in it for 'command provides information about RF' and the same on https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/224559120/Wi...

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#123

Post by kalleboo »

jmb99 wrote: post #108
alt227 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a Xeon for a router just because you want to use linux is a wild choice.

I’ve been running a Supermicro X10SLH-LN6TF as my router, and it’s very well suited for the job. Power use is very high for a home router, but reasonable for a 1U router - especially considering the era it’s from and its capabilities (routing 5-8Gbps per stream depending on firewall config, able to handle a couple active streams, and line rate routing with no firewall). I wouldn’t suggest anyone buy something like th…

FWIW, I got 10 Gbit at home 2 years ago and built my router for $100 using a ThinkCentre M720q Tiny running on a Core i3-8100T (a mini-PC from 2019).

It draws around 15W idle, going up to 30W at full bore. For comparison, the 10G rental router from the ISP drew 15W no matter what (idle or full bore routing). This is with a 10GBase-T SFP+ which probably influences the power draw vs using a DAC.

It has no issues maxing out at 9.4 Gbit routing with a single or multiple streams of iperf3 with your basic IPv4 NAT+some port forwards config.

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#124

Post by nopurpose »

chpatrick wrote: post #106

I gave it a shot but I really didn't see any benefit over OpenWRT which is plain old Linux. There's also some really good value hardware that you can install OpenWRT on, I picked up a Xiaomi AP for like $30, flashed OpenWRT and it works great.

Any recommendations for hardware?

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#125

Post by mindslight »

msmagh wrote: post #49
luizfelberti wrote: post #32

I love MikroTik, but ffs just let me install something else on it. SONiC or any other Linux would be awesome. I love their hardware, but their software is absolutely awful. Is there any manufacturer out there who produces high quality hardware that is not locked down?

You can easily install openwrt on most of MikroTik routers. Rb5009 is also supported now if you need more powerful router. https://openwrt.org/toh/mikrotik/rb5009ug_s_in

Four devices is not "most". You had me excited that I might be able to abandon the proprietary UIs on my CRS326/CSS326. And I know those aren't the "real router" devices, but Mikrotik certainly refers to them as routers.

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#126

Post by hack1312 »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #72
hack1312 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please link a SFF box or SoC with: - 1x10GB SFP+ - 1x2.5GB Ethernet w/ PoE In - 7x1GB Ethernet w/ PoE In/Out - powered by DC jack, 2 pin, or PoE - Similarly sized to 220 × 125 × 22 mm (approx 8.66 × 4.92 × 0.86 inches) - Max power consumption 150W - Silent - ~$300 And I can replace my RB5009Upr+S+IN.

Looks like OpenWrt supports that model, so going that route would be an option of not having locked down software.

Super interesting, I wouldn’t have thought to check that compatibility

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#127

Post by socalgal2 »

za_creature wrote: post #38
socalgal2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I tried Microtik. Seemed like it was written by DOS people from the 70s or 80s, made difficult on purpose. I ended up switching to back to Ubiquti.

They run linux and offer ssh but with a custom shell that mirrors the "web shell" in usefulness. Ubiquiti sucks nowadays but Microtik is simply insane.

> They run linux and offer ssh but with a custom shell

That feels like DOS with short character limits etc. It's attrocious.

> Ubiquiti sucks nowadays

Actually the general consensus is that they are amazing. You're in the minority

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#128

Post by denkmoon »

hack1312 wrote: post #62
denkmoon wrote: post #52

Just use linux! Why use someone else's non FOSS, locked down linux, when you could truly own your router? It's a great educational experience I would recommend to anyone interested in networking. Grab debian, grab a system with 2 NICs, make it your router/firewall/gateway.

Please link a SFF box or SoC with: - 1x10GB SFP+ - 1x2.5GB Ethernet w/ PoE In - 7x1GB Ethernet w/ PoE In/Out - powered by DC jack, 2 pin, or PoE - Similarly sized to 220 × 125 × 22 mm (approx 8.66 × 4.92 × 0.86 inches) - Max power consumption 150W - Silent - ~$300 And I can replace my RB5009Upr+S+IN.

Yeah, I will concede the hardware is nice and they offer things nobody else really does. Which makes it even more of a shame that I can’t install my own OS properly on it.

Fwiw I like protectli’s boxes. Not quite as featureful nor as cheap but it’s great kit.

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#129

Post by denkmoon »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #56
denkmoon wrote: post #52

Just use linux! Why use someone else's non FOSS, locked down linux, when you could truly own your router? It's a great educational experience I would recommend to anyone interested in networking. Grab debian, grab a system with 2 NICs, make it your router/firewall/gateway.

> Grab debian, grab a system with 2 NICs, make it your router/firewall/gateway. The problem with this (assuming you meant a generic (x86?) system) is that you won't get wire speed processing (no hardware offloading), so network performance will suffer. Unless you buy a dedicated router board (which is typically ARM), like say something like the Banana Pi BPI-R4. But installing/configuring a standard distro line Debia…

A 15 year old 1ghz quad core (apu2) can route gigabit just fine, passively cooled. An N150 can do 2.5gbit, probably 10gbit but i haven’t personally tried.

Using Openwrt is fine but doesn’t quite match the educational experience of starting from a scratch Debian.

Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

#130

Post by protocolture »

Hikikomori wrote: post #99
walrus01 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really would question any "professional" network engineer that can't tell the difference between a switch and a router... https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in Each of the mikrotik switches even comes with a block diagram linked on its product page, showing for instance a single 1.3 Gbps between its L2 switch chip and its CPU. https://cdn.mikrotik.com/web-assets/product_files/CRS305-1G-...

I mean thats a swouter.

Scroll down to the ethernet test results.

In lab optimal conditions it can route 1.2G

It has 4 10G SFP+ ports.

If you enable Queues AND Firewall Filters you will be down below 500M of throughput. Potentially less. If you ask this thing to do anything complex its going to shit itself.

Now have a look at the block diagram. Note that the internal link between the 800MHz processor and the switch chip shows 1.3G.

It would be an embarrassing cock up to deploy this as a router for a client. Even if you only need 1.3G of routing, there are better products.

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