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In this article, I am going to discuss another Essential fact of MikroTik RouterOS. In the following pages, you will find examples of some of the most important RouterOS features.

The most critical RouterOS features

• Wireless
• Hotspot
• Quality of Service
• Web Proxy
• Tools
• The Dude
• Licenses

Wireless

A variety of Wireless technologies are supported in RouterOS, the most basic of them being the wireless access point and client. Also, whether it’s a small home hotspot network or a citywide mesh network, RouterOS will help you in all situations. In Addition, some of the features supported by RouterOS:

• IEEE802.11a/b/g/n wireless client and access point
• Nstreme and Nstreme2 proprietary protocols
• Client polling
• RTS/CTS
• Wireless Distribution System (WDS)
• Virtual AP
• WEP, WPA, WPA2 encryption
• Access control list
• Wireless client roaming
• WMM
• HWMP+ Wireless MESH protocol
• MME wireless routing protocol

RouterOS also features the proprietary NStreme wireless protocol, which extends connection range and speed when using MikroTik routers at both ends. Also, this has helped achieve the current non-amplified Wi-Fi link-length world record in Italy. Also supported is NSteme dual, which allows the use of two antennas at each end, one for receiving and one for transmitting.

Hotspot

The MikroTik HotSpot Gateway provides public network access to clients via wireless or wired connections. So The user will be presented a login screen when first opening his web browser. Once a login and password are provided, the user will be allowed internet access.

This is ideal for hotels, schools, airports, internet cafes, or any other public place where the administrator doesn’t have control over users’ computers. No software installation or network configuration is needed; the hotspot will direct any connection request to the login form.

 Extensive user management is possible by creating multiple user profiles, each with configurable uptime, upload and download speed limits, transfer limits, and more. Hotspot also supports authentication against standard RADIUS servers. MikroTik’s own user manager provides centralized management of all users across your networks.

• Plug-n-Play access to the Network
• Authentication of Local Network Clients
• User Accounting
• RADIUS support for Authentication and Accounting
• Configurable bypass for non-interactive devices
• Walled garden for browsing exceptions
• Trial user and Advertisement modes

Quality of Service

Bandwidth Control is a set of mechanisms that regulate data-rate allocation, delay variability, timeliness, and reliability. Quality of Service (QoS) enables the router to prioritize and shape network traffic. Some features of the MikroTik RouterOS traffic control mechanism are listed below:

• Limit data rate for certain IP addresses, subnets, protocols, ports, and other parameters
• limit peer-to-peer traffic
• Prioritize some packet flows over others.
• Use queue bursts for faster web browsing
• Apply queues on fixed time intervals
• share available traffic among users equally, or depending on the load of the channel

RouterOS supports the Hierarchical Token Bucket (HTB) QoS system, which includes CIR, MIR, burst, and priority support. It provides both advanced queuing and an easy solution for basic QoS implementation, known as Simple Queues. PCQ was introduced to optimize massive QoS systems, where most queues are identical for different sub-streams.

For example, a substream can be downloaded or uploaded for a specific client (IP) or connection to the server. The PCQ algorithm is straightforward: initially, it uses selected classifiers to distinguish one sub-stream from another. Then it applies individual FIFO queue sizes and limits to each sub-stream. Next, it groups all sub-streams and applies a global FIFO queue size and restriction.

Web Proxy

RouterOS includes a custom-built MikroTik proxy server for caching web resources, accelerating user browsing by delivering cached content at local network speeds. MikroTik RouterOS implements the following proxy server features:

• Regular HTTP proxy
• Transparent proxy
• Access list by source, destination, URL, and requested method (HTTP firewall)
• Cache access list to specify which objects to cache, and which not.
• Direct Access List to specify which resources should be accessed directly, and which through another proxy server
• Logging facility
• SOCKS proxy support
• Parent proxy support
• Cache storage on external drives

RouterOS can also act as a Transparent Caching server, with no configuration required in the customer PC. RouterOS will take all HTTP requests and redirect them to the local proxy service. This process will be entirely transparent to the user, and the only difference they will notice will be increased browsing speed.

Equipment

To help you manage your network, RouterOS also provides a wide range of small network tools to optimize your everyday tasks. Here are some of them:

• Ping, traceroute
• Bandwidth test, ping flood
• Packet sniffer, torch
• Telnet, SSH
• E-mail and SMS send tools
• Automated script execution tools
• CALEA data mirroring
• File Fetch tool
• Active connection table
• NTP Client and Server
• TFTP server
• Dynamic DNS updater
• VRRP redundancy support
• SNMP for providing graphs and stats
• RADIUS client and server (User Manager)

The Dude

The Dude Network Monitor is an application by MikroTik that can significantly enhance your network management capabilities. It will automatically scan all devices within specified subnets, draw and layout a map of your networks, monitor the services of your devices, and alert you in case some service has problems. Not only can you monitor your RouterOS devices, but you can also monitor any device that is accessible by Ping or provides SNMP information.

You can create traffic and availability graphs, generate outage reports, and utilize the Dude as a Syslog server for your RouterOS device log files. Also, The Dude can manage your RouterOS device configurations, automate their software upgrades, and mass configure them. Best of all – The Dude is free of charge.

License

After installing the free trial version of RouterOS on a PC, you will undoubtedly want to keep using it. To do this, you need to purchase a license key. There are four types of RouterOS license keys available, indicated by a “level number”.

The lowest level is 3, which has wireless client functionality and a limited number of active users, and the highest is level 6, which doesn’t have any limitations, as you can see in the table on the left. It’s essential to note that regardless of the license level chosen, all RouterOS installations enable the use of an unlimited number of interfaces, include limited technical support via email, and remain operational without interruption. In fact, the RouterOS license allows you to install any upgrades.

That MikroTik might release, up until the last upgrade of the next major release, since you purchased your key. If you want, you can keep using RouterOS on that final release – the RouterOS license never expires. Therefore, it’s also important to note that each license is bound to the drive it’s installed on, which means that each Router needs a separate license key.

All RouterBOARD devices made by MikroTik are already preinstalled with a licensed RouterOS version and don’t require additional purchases.

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