Tip of the day

Need a wireless bridge between two buildings or a quick backhaul link? Have a pair of RouterBoard 411's with their original Level 3 license lying around? Then great, you have exactly what you need to build a point to point link. "What? I thought I needed a level 4 license for one of the boards to be an access point? The level 3 license won't let you use "ap-bridge" mode." You are correct! However, for a single client point to point, you can use "bridge" mode on the wireless card that will act as the AP end of the link. In "bridge" mode (as opposed to "ap-bridge") the AP acts as a normal AP but will only allow one client to associate. The link can still be routed or bridged in "bridge" mode, the difference is only the number of clients it will support.

ISP Supplies stocks most MikroTik RouterBoards.

RouterBoard 1100 Top Seller for 2011

I guess there is a lot to be said for pent up demand. After nearly six months of shortage, the MikroTik RouterBoard RB1100 is finally back and we have a shelf full and more on their way. Get yours today before they run out at ISP Supplies.

New Product From MikroTik

WOW! What a great new product. The new MikroTik SXT for less than $90.

RouterBOARD SXT 5HnD is a low cost, high speed 5GHz wireless device. Dual chain 802.11n and Nv2 TDMA technology help to achieve even 200Mbit real throughput speed. Complete with a ready to mount enclosure and built-in antenna, this is the perfect CPE. Powered by RouterOS, it is also the most advanced router, bandwidth controller and firewall.

• Solid all-in-one design: quick and easy to mount
• Tower friendly one hand enclosure access
• 5GHz 802.11a/n wireless onboard
• One 10/100 Ethernet port
• 16dBi dual chain antenna built-in
• Signal strength LED indicators on back
• USB 2.0 port, voltage and temperature monitors
• Extended L2MTU support to avoid fragmentation overhead in MPLS, QinQ etc.
• Includes pole mounting bracket, mounting ring and PoE adapter
• RB/SXT

MikroTik User Manager Automatic Rate Limits

Usermanager is MikroTik's version of radius and is a great way to centralize AAA on your network. In addition, it also has facility to allow users to buy credits on your network through hotspot, however, the only limitation it can automatically create is a time limitation. You can create packages that allow access for a day, week, month, etc., but in order to set a rate limit for that customer and their package, you have to manually make that change to the user in Usermanager.

I needed a way to automatically accomplish this so I enlisted the help of my script guru, Andrew Cox. Although I have never met Andrew in person, I can tell you he is a bright guy who is one of the few people I know that truly speaks MikroTik's scripting language. As usual, Andrew rose to the challenge and wrote a few lines of code that function perfectly.

A few notes, first the script uses the user property "credit-price" to determine which package the customer purchased, therefore, you need to have unique prices for each rate limit. For example, if the Gold package is 128k/64k and costs $25, then users that buy the 64k/64k package that costs $25 will get the same rate limit. In this example, just change the price slightly on one of the packages and it will work correctly. For example, make the 128k/64k package $19.95 or something similar.

So, here is the code, past it into a new script item through Winbox, set the scheduler to run it once every minute or so and you will enjoy the benefits of automatic rate limits with self created user accounts.

-- Script---
#Script to add rate limit's to newly created user-manager accounts.
#Written by Andrew Cox | http://www.mikrotik-routeros.com

:local counter
:local check

#Loop through all users in user-manager
:foreach counter in=[/tool user-manager user find] do={

#Check to see if comment contains "RLA" (short for 'rate limit added'). If it doesn't, this account hasn't had a rate limit set yet.
#We only check the first 3 characters, this means you can continue to use the comment field for whatever you like so long as you leave the 'RLA' untouched (if present)
:set check [:pick [/tool user-manager user get $counter value=comment] 0 3]
:if ($check="RLA") do={

#Has RLA, rate limit is already set so ignore

} else={

#Doesn't have RLA Set rate-limit based on initial purchase pricing
:if ([/tool user-manager user get $counter credit-price] ="1000") do={/tool user-manager user set $counter rate-limit="256k/128k" comment="RLA"}
:if ([/tool user-manager user get $counter credit-price] ="2500") do={/tool user-manager user set $counter rate-limit="256k/128k" comment="RLA"}
:if ([/tool user-manager user get $counter credit-price] ="4500") do={/tool user-manager user set $counter rate-limit="96k/48k" comment="RLA"}
:if ([/tool user-manager user get $counter credit-price] ="6000") do={/tool user-manager user set $counter rate-limit="128k/64k" comment="RLA"}
:if ([/tool user-manager user get $counter credit-price] ="7500") do={/tool user-manager user set $counter rate-limit="256k/128k" comment="RLA"}

}

}
--- End of Script---

RB1100's

In case you think it is too good to be true...

lol...

RouterBoard 1100's Are Back

After one heck of a long dry spell, we have a shipment of MikroTik RouterBoard 1100's ready to ship. These boards were out of production due to a shortage of chips but are now hitting our shelves and leaving as fast as they came in. Order yours today!

Router-On-A-Stick - 802.1Q Trunking With MikroTik

Router-On-A-Stick is a phrase referring to the connection of a 802.1Q capable switch to a single router interface. By trunking across the Ethernet interface and assigning separate Vlans to each of the switch's ports or groups of ports, it is possible to create a configuration that simulates a router with many separate physical Ethernet interfaces. Consider the following example:

In this example, a router with a single Ethernet interface is trunked to a MikroTik switch. In practice, this same configuration can be used between two switches or two routers. The purpose of this article is to show the steps required to setup the MikroTik RB250GS switch as a trunked switch in the router-on-a-stick configuration.

To log into the RB250GS switch, simply web browse to 192.168.88.1 from a computer on the same phyical network segment with an IP on the same subnet, 192.168.88.0/24. The default user name is admin with no password.

All settings may be left at the defaults with the exception of a few.

In this example we are using Vlan Id's 1, 200, 300 and 400. Note that the switch will respond to http requests to its IP address on all ports. This behavior is a bit different than Cisco IOS that responds to untagged traffic via an IP bound to Vlan 1. The way the OS is built, there is no need for a default gateway or a subnet mask.

Selection of the Vlan ID and the assignment to the ports is your choice, decide what Vlan ID's you will use and where you will assign them.

In this example we need two ports for devices on Vlan 300 on Ports 3 & 5 and one port for device on Vlan 400 on Port 4 and one port for a device on Vlan 200 on port 2.

1. Begin by clicking on the VLAN tab and make the following changes, assuming the trunk port will be Port1 (the port that is connected to the router).

2. The VLAN page determines how the switch strips the Vlan tags with specific Vlan ID's from the packets as they exit these ports. Setting Port 1 to Vlan Mode "enabled" and VLAN Header to "add if missing" makes Port 1 a trunk port.

3. When done, your VLAN page should look similar to this:

4. Next, click on the VLANs tab. This is where you create the Vlan Id's to be used on the switch and on which ports these tags will be applied. So, for example, in this scenario, if I create a Vlan interface on the router with a Vlan ID of 200, that traffic will appear on the switch on ports 3 & 5.

5. Here is the example:

6. The last step is to change the IP address, system identity and the password on the System tab and configure the router.

The router configuration is a standard one for Vlans, create Vlan interfaces attached to the Ethernet interface that is connected to the switch (in this example Ether1) and match the Vlan ID numbers you assigned to the switch. Then bind your IP addresses to the Vlan interfaces and you will be set.

ISP Supplies sells the RB250GS, and it is a great bargain for the price point.