[HN Gopher] MikroTik RouterOS v7 stable released
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       MikroTik RouterOS v7 stable released
        
       Author : opieters
       Score  : 149 points
       Date   : 2021-12-07 15:46 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mikrotik.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mikrotik.com)
        
       | second--shift wrote:
       | Yes! been waiting for this for years. Big Mikrotik fan, recommend
       | them for nearly all applications.
        
       | ericcholis wrote:
       | Does MikroTik live in the same prosumer space that made ubiquiti
       | products so popular early on?
        
         | systemvoltage wrote:
         | I just bought a bunch of Ubiquiti equipment (UDM Pro + 10G
         | Switch Aggregate + U6-LR AP) and I've been super happy with it.
         | Putting sexy UI aside, the performance is outstanding and rock
         | solid.
         | 
         | Unifi really does unify the entire ecosystem, it's basically
         | the Apple of network gear down the quality of packging. I love
         | it.
         | 
         | I heard good things about Mikrotik but their product line feels
         | scattered and unorganized.
        
           | nullwarp wrote:
           | I've always found the Ubiquiti interface flashy but
           | borderline unusable. Things are scattered everywhere to the
           | point you need 26 clicks to get to anything and they keep
           | moving things around (especially their awful cloud UI for the
           | UDM)
        
             | systemvoltage wrote:
             | Totally agree, I am not a fan of deeply hierarchical UI.
        
         | detaro wrote:
         | On the nerdier side of that. More exotic features, lot less
         | nice UI, lots of (cheap) lower-performance options and
         | sometimes obscure product variations.
         | 
         | I.e. among people where I know what kind of stuff they have,
         | anybody vaguely technical might have an Ubiquiti AP for their
         | WiFi, whereas the people that love to tinker with networking
         | stuff have some mikrotik device somewhere to play with.
        
           | dcow wrote:
           | I landed on MikroTik for a recent build because you simply
           | can't get Ubiquity right now. And I'm glad I did, what a
           | great product. Checkout their newest RB5000 and CCR2000
           | series. Very powerful arm cores with sfp+ options at an
           | incredibly reasonable price.
        
           | brightball wrote:
           | This is also my experience. Best technical person I know
           | recommended it.
        
         | gnfargbl wrote:
         | Yes, but possibly with more ambition to be a budget alternative
         | to Cisco and Juniper. Looking at the presentations under
         | https://mum.mikrotik.com/, it seems there are quite a few ISPs
         | running on MikroTik kit, especially in less-developed parts of
         | the world.
        
           | iso1210 wrote:
           | A big complaint about routeros6 is the time it takes for a
           | full BGP table to converge - especially on the top-of-range
           | cloud core routers.
           | 
           | I don't deal much with IXPs, but I did hear somewhere that
           | there were a shockingly high number of mikrotik peers at one
           | exchange point (10%+)
        
       | iso1210 wrote:
       | Lots of changes in v7 around routing, but this seems like a
       | reasonable time to start work on it.
       | 
       | Still seems to be missing certain features - like showing what
       | routes you're advertising to a BGP peer, so certainly not ready
       | for use. Of course the way that routeros is developed, it relies
       | on users to do the testing and debugging.
        
       | halz wrote:
       | Tread softly, there are some reports1 that things like PIM/RIP
       | are not working/not implemented.
       | 
       | 1https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=180896
        
         | iso1210 wrote:
         | Massively disappointing, if that's the general direction I'll
         | need to redouble efforts to move to fortigate.
        
       | nullify88 wrote:
       | Really happy with the CRS-305 and its value for money.
       | 
       | Release candidates for 7.1 had container support which opens
       | worlds of possibilities for the switch. But unfortunately was
       | removed for the final version pending updates.
       | 
       | Edit: Container support was introduced in rc3 and removed in rc5.
        
       | vorpalhex wrote:
       | Exciting! This should include native wireguard support..
        
         | dcow wrote:
         | Yep! I've been using the beta and it's awesome. What other
         | vendors include native WG support? Historically the concept of
         | a performant VPN router pushed you into the realm of enterprise
         | level expensive hardware. Now you can do it on cheap arm cores.
         | It's game changing.
        
         | oriettaxx wrote:
         | Yes, exactly!!
         | 
         | Wireguard is a must for us now! I've been using professionally
         | on MikroTik, too, almost everything worked as expected!
         | 
         | (only some issue with being able to export settings... I hope
         | it's solved now)
        
         | Hamuko wrote:
         | I used to want Wireguard on my router. It was in fact one of
         | the reasons why I went with an EdgeRouter X.
         | 
         | Then one day, when I was away from home and actually needed the
         | VPN, it absolutely melted. Basically everything on the router
         | stopped working, and I suspect it was Wireguard since the
         | router went haywire when I was actually using it extensively.
         | Needed a hard power cycle, which I couldn't actually do.
         | 
         | These days I just leave my router to do its basic duties and
         | have a Raspberry Pi dedicated to nothing but Wireguard. Haven't
         | had issues since. The Pi 2 Model B also performs better for
         | Wireguard and I imagine that the Pi 4 could saturate my 100
         | Mb/s upload.
        
           | liuliu wrote:
           | I sort of only want WG support in EdgeRouter as WG client
           | such that my homes in different geographical locations can
           | share the same network transparently. Is that still a good
           | use?
        
         | techietim wrote:
         | I have been using the Wireguard support in the beta release for
         | most of this past year. Having a persistent connection from my
         | Android phone and my wife's iPhone was simple with the built-in
         | Mikrotik DDNS service. It makes checking on things like
         | security cameras nice if you do not want to use a cloud
         | service.
        
         | blibble wrote:
         | hopefully it's better than their IPSec support
         | 
         | I love my mikrotik devices, but they can be a bit iffy around
         | the edges
         | 
         | (e.g. if my pppoe connection reconnects the ipsec stops working
         | until the interface is bounced)
        
       | beebeepka wrote:
       | I've been thinking about going with Mikrotik at least twice but
       | never pulled the trigger because I am sort of a chicken shit.
       | 
       | Is it easy for a noob to setup things like port forwarding and
       | vlans on a router/ap box?
        
         | 28304283409234 wrote:
         | I would suggest looking at their wiki and screenshots or
         | youtube of their UI.
         | 
         | I've managed cisco amd juniper routers. And I can't make heads
         | nor tails of it.
         | 
         | As soon as you wonder off the default track, you're expected to
         | understand deep level networking terminology abstracted in a UI
         | tailored for experts.
        
           | dcow wrote:
           | To setup port forwarding you have to understand how to
           | configure the firewall, yes. This is both a drawback for
           | simple use cases but a boon for more advanced ones. It cuts
           | both ways. Personally I think it's rather unfair to call the
           | UI unintelligible. If you don't like it just ssh to it and
           | configure it that way. Everything you can do is packaged up
           | in a nice command structure.
        
         | james_in_the_uk wrote:
         | It depends on your expectations of "easy".
         | 
         | When compared to consumer router devices, then no.
         | 
         | When compared to configuring enterprise networking kit using
         | the CLI ... well ... perhaps. Mikrotik does have some short
         | cuts / UI features. But if you want to do anything vaguely
         | complex, you're going to need to put some serious time into
         | getting your head around the way the system processes packets.
         | 
         | If getting to grips with how packets flow through different
         | subsystems in your router doesn't really appeal (check out
         | https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Packet_Flow) then there
         | are better, simpler options which are still powerful.
        
         | blibble wrote:
         | it's basically a (somewhat) pretty gui around iptables and
         | /etc/network/interfaces
         | 
         | everything more or less maps directly onto raw Linux
         | functionality
        
         | core-utility wrote:
         | As someone with moderate networking experience in a Cisco
         | environment, and having set up Ubiquiti products and a pfsense
         | router, MikroTik tops the cake for worst learning curve. I
         | wasn't even trying to use it as a router, I just wanted a basic
         | L2/L3 switch with some VLANs. It's set up now and I'm happy
         | with it, but prepare for lots of trial, error, and head
         | scratching.
        
         | mindslight wrote:
         | I've got a few Mikrotik devices (CRS328, CSS326). Maybe I just
         | haven't gotten it, but I find their RouterOS WebUI extremely
         | confusing. Like go into three separate top-level tabs to assign
         | a VLAN to a port. The CLI is okay, once you get stuff working
         | and just need to duplicate/modify lines.
         | 
         | Mikrotik's SwOS is alright and has most of the options you'd
         | expect from a switch, but is missing the ability to have a
         | human readable text config. I've got a Netgear switch as well,
         | and I'd label its obtuseness on par with RouterOS. At the end
         | of the day it seems every network vendor has their own bespoke
         | proprietary UI that you have to suffer through.
         | 
         | In general I'm much more at home with Linux's iproute2/bridge-
         | utils/nft. What I really want is some low power switches that
         | can run OpenFlow or the like so I can centralize all the config
         | back to my Linux router. On a home network, most devices
         | shouldn't be talking directly among themselves anyway!
         | 
         | Another thing I really want is for network switches to have an
         | RGB LED on each port that can indicate what VLAN it's
         | configured for.
        
           | minimaul wrote:
           | I find that Winbox is much more usable than the WebUI - it
           | runs well under wine (and even on m1, you can run it under
           | wine64 under rosetta).
        
           | iso1210 wrote:
           | Yes, mikrotiks separate bridges, vlans, interfaces.
           | 
           | If you want to set ether 3, 4 and 5 to untagged vlan called
           | "Alf" with ID 11, ether 6 to untablled vlan "Bob" (id 12),
           | and ether 7 and 8 to a trunk of both Alf and Bob, you can do
           | 
           | 1) Create a bridge for Alf, and a bridge for Bob
           | 
           | 2) Assign IPs for them (assuming your mikrotik is the
           | router), and maybe dhcp pools, server etc
           | 
           | 3) add ether3, 4 and 5 as bridge ports for Alf, and ether6
           | for Bob
           | 
           | 4) Create a vlan interface on ether7 for Alf with vlanid=11,
           | add to bridge Alf
           | 
           | 5) Create a vlan interface on ether8 for Alf with vlanid=11,
           | add to bridge Alf
           | 
           | 6) Create a vlan interface on ether7 for Bob with vlanid=21,
           | add to bridge Bob
           | 
           | 7) Create a vlan interface on ether8 for Bob with vlanid=21,
           | add to bridge Bob
           | 
           | But the killer is there are two different recommended ways to
           | do it depending on the hardware.
        
             | mindslight wrote:
             | I haven't looked at my config in a while. It appears I've
             | got a single bridge, and ports get added to it with their
             | VLAN tags (for ingress, I believe) -
             | /interface bridge port         add bridge=_bridge
             | interface=sfp-sfpplus1         add bridge=_bridge frame-
             | types=admit-only-untagged-and-priority-tagged ingress-
             | filtering=yes interface=sfp2 pvid=10
             | 
             | But then I also have to define the VLAN ID for the bridge
             | (for egress, I believe) -                   /interface
             | bridge vlan         add bridge=_bridge tagged=sfp-
             | sfpplus1,_bridge, untagged=sfp2 vlan-ids=10
             | 
             | The device is a CRS328-4C-20S-4S+RM. It seems like I am
             | using the other recommended way. Which would make sense
             | because I'm not really using the "router" part of the
             | software, but rather configuring the built in switch chip
             | to do its thing.
             | 
             | Looking at the text config now it seems quite sensible, and
             | isn't far from SwOS, Linux CLI, or switch chip datasheets.
             | But I remember getting to that point in the WebUI being
             | somewhat confusing, perhaps due to the alternative in-CPU
             | way you described.
        
             | tguvot wrote:
             | you just need to remember that in case you make bridges:
             | 
             | - you need to enable hardware offloading for it
             | 
             | - different models have different limits on number of
             | hardware offloaded bridges
             | 
             | - if it's not hardware offloaded, you run all traffic
             | through cpu and kill throughput
        
               | iso1210 wrote:
               | I tend to work with CCRs, so no hardware offloading -
               | everything runs through the CPU (and normal throughput
               | isn't an issue)
        
         | sandGorgon wrote:
         | yes. but more importantly, they are extremely popular - big
         | ecosystem of freelancers.
         | 
         | you can go on fiverr and upwork and get someone to remotely
         | configure/manage it for you.
        
           | trulyme wrote:
           | Curious, would you trust someone to do that? For me when it
           | comes to network, my paranoia level is sky high. I would
           | definitely not allow some random person to configure my
           | network...
        
             | sandGorgon wrote:
             | It's no different than devops.
             | 
             | I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Everyone from banks
             | to small shops use IT configuration services.
             | 
             | Most people will supply you a resume, contact details and
             | sign a NDA. That's quite good enough.
        
         | tguvot wrote:
         | worked for me. one suggestion though, get a serial cable, so in
         | case you creative some too creative vlan config that will lock
         | you out, you could fix it without having to reset entire box
        
           | Sebb767 wrote:
           | Alternatively, make a backup before screwing with the VLAN.
           | Then resetting the box is not as much of a set-back.
        
             | tguvot wrote:
             | this is too. i guess ultimate solution is mix of backup and
             | serial<>bt or serial<>wifi dongle. this is in case you
             | gonna mess configuration frequently
        
         | grenoire wrote:
         | Yeah, got hAP ac^2 and it's literally plug and play. Port
         | forwarding etc. are all really easy.
        
         | minimaul wrote:
         | Their firewall is essentially iptables. If you can work
         | iptables, you can work the routeros firewall.
        
         | Moeancurly wrote:
         | I've been using a MikroTik router at home for 6+ years; I would
         | say that RouterOS is absolutely NOT "easy for a noob". It's on
         | the prosumer side of things, but you need to be willing to sink
         | your teeth into some fairly gritty network configuration
         | workflows.
         | 
         | Anyone posting on HN will likely be able to figure out the
         | basics, but it is definitely much less polished than other
         | prosumer products such as Ubiquiti and the documentation can be
         | a little rough around the edges.
        
         | Toutouxc wrote:
         | Both the GUI and their CLI are among the most unintuitive
         | systems I've ever seen. I definitely spent more than one
         | evening trying to configure my Mikrotik from scratch as a
         | typical home router + switch + AP. I'm no networking guru, I
         | only did some Cisco stuff a few years ago at uni, but I didn't
         | understand 80 % of the terms used in their OS.
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | Nope, it's really not for noobs. Basics things you can get via
         | click on other SoHo routers like sane default firewall
         | configuration, NAT loopback or simple VPN setup do not exist
         | here. Setting up a Mikrotik is more akin to setting up a DSL
         | connection on 1992 Linux - it's all "technically" available in
         | the UI, but the UI is just a clickable version of all the CLI
         | complexity and you need to know network terminology to get to
         | capability of a default SoHo router configuration.
         | 
         | Having said that - if you know network setup very well, then
         | Mikrotiks are very powerful and allow for network setups that
         | are much more flexible than consumer equipment.
        
           | groone wrote:
           | But once you know that you need a NAT loopback, you can
           | quickly follow instructions on internet to create that rule.
        
         | thequux wrote:
         | Most of their devices come out of the box in a sensible
         | configuration for a home router, and port forwarding/vlans are
         | very straightforward to set up. If you're really worried, you
         | can run the cloud-hosted router software in a VM to play around
         | with it and find out if it will meet your needs.
        
       | vladgur wrote:
       | So what is a good mesh wifi system that would allow me to put all
       | my IoT things on a separate VLAN? Dream Machine is not a mesh
       | system...the only alternative that I could find by googling was
       | Orbi Pro
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | What do you mean by "dream machine is not a mesh system"? UniFi
         | APs can use wireless backhaul and mesh as well. What exactly do
         | you need?
        
       | bigyellow wrote:
       | Sincere question: why would someone trust a closed source OS for
       | their router?
        
         | core-utility wrote:
         | Any ISP-provided gateway will be closed source. Cisco products
         | are closed source. Netgear products are closed source. TP-Link
         | products are closed source. Aruba products are closed source.
         | 
         | To my knowledge, the only viable open-source project is that
         | one Linksys router/AP combo, and that doesn't necessarily fit
         | the features someone might be looking for.
         | 
         | While it's nice to think everything could be open source, in
         | the hardware/firmware world it's just not common.
        
           | _joel wrote:
           | I've flashed a number of devices with OpenWRT, for a number
           | of vendors.
        
         | Arnt wrote:
         | I tracerouted to a host across the world now and poked at the
         | routers along the path. All of the routers whose vendor or OS I
         | can identify use closed source. So whatever the answers to
         | "why?" may be, it's a common thing to trust.
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Because open source hasn't caught up.
        
           | _joel wrote:
           | OpenWRT is outstanding (for my needs) on Microtik hardware,
           | not sure what you mean?
        
             | wmf wrote:
             | OpenWRT doesn't run on higher-end routers.
        
               | _joel wrote:
               | It can run on bare metal x86, surely you could get enough
               | grunt. Do you still need ASICs for packet mangling?
        
               | wmf wrote:
               | x86 router: 1 Tbps for $30K
               | 
               | ASIC router: 10 Tbps for $10K
               | 
               | And the efficiency also scales down; ASICs should be
               | faster for any budget above $2K.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | q3k wrote:
             | For your needs.
        
         | MikusR wrote:
         | Do you perform a full audit of your open source rooter?
        
         | new_realist wrote:
         | As soon as your router hands off packets to your ISP, packet
         | handling is either closed source software, or closed source
         | hardware, anyway. Even if your gateway is open source, the
         | chips it uses are not.
        
       | mmastrac wrote:
       | Does anyone know what the scripting support looks like in v7?
       | Scripts have always been a bit awkward on RouterOS (I spend ages
       | perfecting one that turned DHCP reservations into dynamic DNS
       | entries). I'm hoping they have worked on this a bit.
        
       | ok_dad wrote:
       | So, what's the best wifi gateway with extra access points for a
       | home that I don't have to screw with and doesn't spy on me or
       | have cloud crap? My ISP sent a Google wifi thing but I'd rather
       | pay a few hundred than use that for 10 bucks a month to rent that
       | thing, and I don't trust Google.
       | 
       | Edit: Thanks for all the answers, from me and anyone else who was
       | looking! I have some good ideas from the below comments and
       | hopefully this thread helps some others as well.
        
         | dprice1 wrote:
         | I used to work on a product for secure small-biz Wifi, and so
         | dogfooded my own product in my house. When that was over and I
         | took that out of my house, I had my eyes on Ubiquiti, and it is
         | an impressive ecosystem. But as others have said, it's out of
         | stock all the time, and Ubiqiti are teasing people right now
         | with their next-gen product which is available but also
         | unobtainable.
         | 
         | Eventually I picked the Asus ZenWifi system, and honestly it
         | works great (I have no affiliation with Asus). There's no cloud
         | account to create when you install it. The app is acceptable.
         | There are various security things you can turn on which seem to
         | require cloud assistance, but the core product seems to work
         | very nicely. Any time you try to turn on something which might
         | cause the system to share extra data, a popup appears to
         | explain that to you.
         | 
         | It's so powerful, Wifi-wise, that I bought three nodes and only
         | deployed two. I use it with Ethernet backhaul but it has a
         | dedicated radio for wireless backhaul. It has ethernet LAN
         | ports on each node, and each node is identical to every other
         | node (i.e. there is no "base" and "satellite"). I went from
         | spotty Wifi throughout my 2,000 sq ft house to very strong Wifi
         | throughout. I wrung my hands for a long time because I gave up
         | VLANs and some other things I wanted, and then said the heck
         | with it.
        
           | ok_dad wrote:
           | This sounds like a good plan for me, thanks for the
           | information, I will put this on my list of things to research
           | more.
        
           | dont__panic wrote:
           | I'm not sure I would call Ubiquiti "impressive" after their
           | recent bout of security breaches:
           | https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/03/whistleblower-
           | ubiquiti-b...
           | 
           | Not exactly what I want to see in the device that can
           | literally compromise all of my other devices. Am I missing
           | something -- did this turn out to be nothing, or did folks
           | decide that Ubiquiti has bounced back? This seemed really
           | really serious at the time and turned me completely off from
           | ever purchasing one of their products.
        
             | ksec wrote:
             | And that breach was from an insider?
             | 
             | https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/12/ubiquiti-developer-
             | charg...
        
             | dangoor wrote:
             | As noted in the update to the article, Ubiquiti was a
             | victim of an extortion attempt from an employee. This is a
             | pretty difficult attack to prevent.
        
               | dont__panic wrote:
               | Ah, that's a fair point. I guess at some level a
               | sufficiently privileged employee can manage this in
               | almost _any_ system. But there 's also some discussion of
               | backdoors and inadequate access control in Ubiquiti's
               | backend here that could concern privacy-minded folk.
        
               | raesene9 wrote:
               | this is true but if the details in this post
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29456593 and others
               | in that thread are to be believed, they have some serious
               | security problems.
        
             | InTheArena wrote:
             | Turns out this story was planted by the perp to tank the
             | stock after Unifi refused to give in to his "anonymous"
             | ransom demand.
             | 
             | Not great - but more classic insider attack, then security
             | breach.
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | Ubiquiti seems to have turned into a complete shit-show in
           | the last five years.
        
             | donmcronald wrote:
             | Subscriptions are coming I bet. The whole ui.com account
             | thing where they force you to create an account and link
             | new devices like the UDM Pro are the writing on the wall
             | IMO. They back-peddled on adding it to the v2 firmware of
             | Cloud Key's IIRC, but the end game is likely to get
             | everyone paying per device per month.
             | 
             | The last time they had a pay per device per month service
             | it started at $1/device/month and then they bumped it to
             | $10/device/month. Somehow they thought the one time cost of
             | a device should become an annual cost and that people would
             | adopt it. Obviously that flopped.
             | 
             | Now think of the same scenario, but everyone's gotten
             | complacent and are getting dependent on their devices that
             | are linked back to ui.com. They might not blatantly flip
             | the switch, but now that they have a hook for licensing
             | checks they can start shifting development so new features
             | are licensed for a monthly fee rather than getting them
             | free forever when you buy a device.
             | 
             | IMO as soon as the all-in-one devices that perform
             | management (ex: UDM Pro) while being linked to a ui.com
             | account get enough adoption they'll shift to some kind of
             | feature licensing or simply release new devices / revisions
             | that require "cloud licensing" or something similar.
             | 
             | They're also very flippant when it comes to breaking
             | devices in a way that prevents a connection to the
             | controller. They think SSHing into broken devices to fix
             | them is reasonable and it's not if you have to deal with
             | many sites / devices.
        
             | nullwarp wrote:
             | Yeah easily the most annoying hardware we have to manage to
             | the point where we will no longer use it.
        
               | InTheArena wrote:
               | Its gotten much much better over the last six months or
               | so. The transition to generic linux for their router line
               | was rough, but the worst seems to be over.
        
           | dhess wrote:
           | I've heard good things about TP-Link's Omada EAP series. Did
           | you happen to look into that platform?
        
             | InTheArena wrote:
             | I tried it when Unifi was in bad straits last year. It's a
             | poor copy of the Ubiquti interface. They copied the worst
             | aspects of that UX.
        
               | depingus wrote:
               | One of the nice things about the Omada AP's is that it
               | can run (and be configured) in standalone mode without
               | the need of a controller. I bought one to replace the
               | single Ubiquiti I had and its been solid; better even!
        
           | ksec wrote:
           | >and Ubiqiti are teasing people right now with their next-gen
           | product which is available but also unobtainable.
           | 
           | Any links or reference. Cant find anything with a quick
           | Google Search.
        
             | InTheArena wrote:
             | Unifi Dream Router. You must create a account on
             | store.ui.com, then enable pre-release hardware in the menu
             | options.
        
               | ksec wrote:
               | Thx, it is the same UDR with Wifi 6.
        
             | InTheArena wrote:
             | There is also the classic UDM. Also purchaseable on
             | store.ui.com. For people who want a prosumer alternative to
             | the crappy routers that telcos/cables give, this is a great
             | option. Highly recommend, but it also a gateway drug.
        
               | gorkish wrote:
               | Unfortunately the UDR which replaces the UDM costs a mere
               | $79 and delivers more functionality including Wifi 6. UDM
               | is kind of a poison pill at the moment.
        
           | duffyjp wrote:
           | I went from AirPort Extreme -> Google Wifi -> Asus RT-AX86U.
           | They all have their pros and cons but the Asus is immensely
           | more powerful. I love that it can mount a large USB drive as
           | Time Machine, and the wireless is so fast it's actually
           | usable. When there's a 2.5G WAN port you know they mean
           | business.
        
         | tw04 wrote:
         | Synology has been far and away the best I've deployed for
         | "friends and family". I've not received a single phone call for
         | support and it's the first wifi product I can say that about.
         | 
         | They also are introducing full VLAN support in DSM 1.3 which
         | should be out soon if you're a power user. Honestly if they
         | supported PoE for their extenders I probably would have
         | switched out to it. The extenders will mesh wired or wireless
         | which is nice.
        
           | nrclark wrote:
           | Do their products have much in the way of phone-home / cloud
           | access?
        
             | tw04 wrote:
             | They have a reverse tunnel that you can enable for remote
             | access, but you can disable it.
             | 
             | https://kb.synology.com/en-
             | global/SRM/help/SRM/NetworkCenter...
             | 
             | I personally like that because I can safely remotely access
             | the routers I've deployed for others if I ever have a
             | reason to. They just need to check a box to turn it on or
             | off in the GUI.
             | 
             | They also have an "experience improvement" program that
             | sends home telemetry that can also be disabled. As far as I
             | know there's no "phone home" that you can't turn off if you
             | don't want it.
        
         | imiric wrote:
         | I'm currently in the process of moving my home network from
         | Ubiquiti to an open solution with a few Mikrotik RBM11Gs to
         | serve as APs, and will probably also replace my Netgate SG-3100
         | with pfSense with likely a PC Engines machine. All will
         | probably be running OpenWrt, though if that's too limiting /
         | buggy, I'll just use plain Linux or OpenBSD on them.
         | 
         | The major benefit of this setup is that you don't depend on
         | some manufacturer for updates. Given Ubiquiti's and Netgate's
         | recently hostile actions towards users and open source, this
         | provides a great peace of mind. The other benefit is that
         | you're free to upgrade your hardware as needed, which
         | particularly for WiFi cards is great to have. Right now I'm
         | sticking with WiFi 5 because of the costs, but in the future
         | upgrading to 6E would just be a matter of changing the cards
         | (assuming they're supported by the OS).
         | 
         | Speaking of cards, I went with Compex WLE1216V5-20, which have
         | an Atheros chip and are thus much better supported on Linux
         | than Broadcom, etc.
        
           | ericd wrote:
           | I've been considering replacing my EdgeRouter with a pfsense
           | box (probably the Netgate 6100), have you been dissatisfied
           | with your Netgate?
        
             | imiric wrote:
             | I also have an EdgeRouter, but will probably replace that
             | last since it works fine and doesn't require any of the
             | Ubiquiti Controller / Cloud shenanigans.
             | 
             | I've had intermittent LAN dropouts on the SG3100 that I
             | couldn't explain from the logs. That in addition to
             | Netgate's hostility towards open source with how they're
             | handling pfSense, and the whole pfSense+ product, just puts
             | a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to supporting the
             | company. For the hardware and software stack they provide,
             | the devices are very overpriced IMO. Same with Ubiquiti,
             | though at least with Ubiquiti you're paying for a set-it-
             | and-forget-it network, as long as you're willing to fully
             | invest in their ecosystem. They're the Apple of network
             | prosumer equipment.
             | 
             | But my main interest in abandoning both is investing in
             | devices that I can upgrade and maintain independently and
             | at my own pace. It will also be cheaper in the long run,
             | though it does require some tinkering to setup.
        
             | magicalhippo wrote:
             | Unless something radical has changed in the last half year
             | or so, pfSense will be a giant PITA if you have
             | "residential" IPv6. That is, anything but a completely
             | static prefix.
        
           | simplyaccont wrote:
           | i build in the past a few times APs with compex cards. the
           | problem it's that some of them have extra large form factor
           | and won't fit standard mpcie slots. i had to build an adapter
           | :/ eventually instead of upgrading to new iteration i got a
           | couple of netgear r7800 and flashed them with openwrt. the
           | router is on separate x86 box
        
           | donmcronald wrote:
           | Have you ever looked at VyOS (https://vyos.io/)? IIRC EdgeOS
           | was a fork of Vyatta and Vyatta became VyOS. Their LTS
           | pricing doesn't work for small businesses, but the rolling
           | release might be an option for home use.
           | 
           | It's sad that everyone only wants to accept huge amounts of
           | cash these days. Take VyOS as an example. The smallest
           | licensing option they have is $6k per year for _unlimited_
           | installs. That makes it completely unobtainable for a person
           | that I build firewalls for, so we don 't even evaluate it.
           | 
           | In terms of percentages, we could probably add about 15% to
           | every firewall sold and that could be passed along to a
           | software vendor. If we had a self serve portal where we could
           | download LTS releases and generate _lifetime_ licenses we 'd
           | send them 15% of our firewall (sales) revenue and they'd
           | basically never hear from us.
           | 
           | In real numbers that would be about $1-1.5k a year as long as
           | we could pay per device as we sell/install them. Using
           | pfSense as an example it'd be in the range of $10k since we
           | started using pfSense and, in the last 5 years, I think I've
           | only had 1 issue I couldn't figure out on my own where I had
           | to go ask on their forum.
        
         | 60Vhipx7b4JL wrote:
         | how about openwrt/openwisp?
        
           | ctoth wrote:
           | As far as I understand, no Wi-Fi 6 routers actually run
           | Openwrt. The only way to get somewhat open software on your
           | Wi-fi 6 or newer device is to use Merlin's fork of Asuswrt.
           | Merlin is pretty big on not making large modifications
           | though, so, for instance, it's very difficult to get Docker
           | running on the device because the default Kernel doesn't ship
           | with a lot of necessary modules. There are some nice apps
           | that use the router directly like Diversion but I would
           | really love a little device that managed everything from VLAN
           | tagging to running little docker appliances and also provided
           | a fast modern AP. Imagine an app store where the moderate
           | power user could click and install apps on their router that
           | all lived in little containers.
        
             | JeremyNT wrote:
             | > As far as I understand, no Wi-Fi 6 routers actually run
             | Openwrt.
             | 
             | This is no longer the case. Some devices (albeit not too
             | many) now have working 802.11ax [0].
             | 
             | I know most about the Linksys E8450, which does require a
             | newer snapshot of OpenWRT (it's not yet in a stable
             | release).
             | 
             | [0] https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-
             | wifi
        
           | icybox wrote:
           | I'm running Netgear N600 / WNDR3800 with OpenWRT since day
           | one. So if you (can) plan for OS before buying, you can dodge
           | a bullet when $VENDOR stops giving f*cks. That particular box
           | has been released in 2011! Mikrotik is good enough (tm)
           | probably, but it's licensed/closed-source. bcantrill once
           | mentioned that "Infrastructure software should be open-
           | source" and I'm adhering to this mantra for 10 years now.
           | Dodged many bullets coming my way ... (i.e. if you want to
           | buy something, can you plan for linux/BSD OS when vendor just
           | doesn't care anymore?)
           | 
           | Would like to hear ideas about Apple's airports running
           | custom NetBSD ... are you guys still running those as
           | edge/internet routers with wifi or have you pushed them to
           | the inside of the network and promoted some other box to the
           | firewall role? I'm kinda stuck in the conundrum "it's unix
           | with PF, it can handle itself" and "it's does not get updates
           | anymore".
        
         | bigyellow wrote:
         | PC Engines with OpenBSD or Debian Linux. 100% open source
         | hardware, firmware and software, not this closed-source
         | "RouterOS" which is probably bugged.
        
           | dehrmann wrote:
           | I tend to use OpenWRT on Mikrotik devices, but I used a board
           | from PC Engines, and I was was impressed by it. The hardware
           | is very standard, and their support was good. I had a
           | question about the max power the mini PCI port could supply.
           | I got an answer and info on a change I can make that adds a
           | capacitor to help in this scenario.
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | Yes, this is easily superior to most options;
           | Debian/OpenBSD/whatever is far more trustworthy than any
           | commercial offering (and many noncommercial options), and
           | hostapd isn't especially hard to set up - a bit of effort up
           | front and then you can just sit on it for years with no more
           | maintenance than installing updates (and even that can be
           | automated with unattended upgrades in Debian). The result is
           | a capable little box that will get security updates
           | indefinitely and which only serves your interests.
        
             | zajio1am wrote:
             | I also use PC Engines Alix with Debian as home router and
             | it is in many ways superior to commercial options, but
             | quality of wifi drivers in Linux is long-term issue.
             | 
             | Also note that in unpatched hostapd channel bonding (40MHz
             | and more channels) does not really work. There is a check
             | whether neighboring channel is crowded (which always is due
             | to overcrowded spectrum) that disables channel bonding.
             | AFAIK Openwrt has patch that allows to override this check,
             | but Debian does not.
             | 
             | As a result, i get consistently higher wifi speeds from
             | commercial wifi APs than from my Alix router.
        
           | _joel wrote:
           | Lovely little systems. Used them to build VPN gateways and
           | for our OOB access at POPs etc.
        
           | ahepp wrote:
           | I agree that this is what I would want to use, but doesn't
           | the lack of any kind of specialized switching hardware make
           | it uncompetitive in terms of price/power consumption/speed?
           | 
           | I have on order a mikrotik rb5009UG+S+, which has nine
           | gigabit ethernet ports, one 2.5 gigabit ethernet port, and a
           | 10g sfp+ cage. It has zero fans and benchmarks show it
           | capable of 10 gigabit routing. It costs less than $200.
           | 
           | I love vyos, and I would definitely prefer an open source
           | router. But people I talk to love their mikrotik products. It
           | doesn't seem like the old ones are being abandoned.
        
         | djanogo wrote:
         | Unify Dream Machine, it's constantly out of stock, you have to
         | keep checking Ubiquiti website to get it. It has cloud access
         | which is used by app to monitor or control it from outside of
         | your house, but you can disable it.
        
           | bigyellow wrote:
           | > It has cloud access which is used by app to monitor or
           | control it from outside of your house, but you can disable
           | it.
           | 
           | Nope, don't trust them to do that after
           | https://community.ui.com/questions/Ubiquiti-ignoring-auto-
           | up...
        
             | djanogo wrote:
             | Having owned UDM for over a year with auto update off, they
             | never pushed any forced update, I always do it manually
             | every few months. Based on number of updates[1] that they
             | push I can totally give them benefit of doubt that it was a
             | bug.
             | 
             | They have dozens of products which they update constantly,
             | picking one bug at one time as malice and blacklisting a
             | company is not correct. If you go that route you won't have
             | any company left to buy from.
             | 
             | [1]https://community.ui.com/releases
        
             | InTheArena wrote:
             | You don't need it. You can disable the cloud access
             | starting with the latest firmware.
        
           | nullwarp wrote:
           | We use UDM's at work and I really feel like they are half
           | baked products at best. I'm really not a fan and we've
           | stopped using them completely in new installations because of
           | it and have gone back to MikroTik hardware which has never
           | given us issues.
           | 
           | I also just find the UDMs interface an absolute shit show to
           | navigate and find things.
        
             | sebazzz wrote:
             | I'm not a fan, but surely the prosumer version has one! Due
             | to system load being above 1 all the time it causes quite
             | some heat, and thus fan noise. Crappy firmware, never
             | fixed.
        
             | specto wrote:
             | Agreed... their old edgerouter was much better. Hoping
             | their unifi OS (containerization of their platforms on
             | their hardware) becomes more flexible without the hacks
             | people use now. Until then, I'll keep using my
             | edgerouter...
        
         | davidandgoliath wrote:
         | Ubiquiti amplifi hd. I use the mesh stuff.
        
         | cycomanic wrote:
         | I heard good things about PCengines APU products (e.g. see here
         | https://teklager.se/en/products/routers/apu3d4-open-source-r...
         | I'm not affiliated). You essentially run openwrt or pfsense on
         | your own hardware. Alternatively, many people are now putting
         | pfsense/opnsense on their own hardware. In particular thin-
         | clients are very capable and some can be easily be retrofitted
         | with multiple ethernet ports (however, prices have gone up
         | significantly for some of these over the last year). The one
         | thing you need to be careful with is wifi hardware
         | compatibility.
         | 
         | Some instructions here: https://boratory.net/pfsense-firewall-
         | futro-s900/
         | https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?resources/introduc...
        
           | ValentineC wrote:
           | > _The one thing you need to be careful with is wifi hardware
           | compatibility._
           | 
           | I'd suggest using old consumer routers as access points.
        
         | darkr wrote:
         | Not sure if it passes the "don't have to screw with" test (as
         | configuration generally requires a decent level of networking
         | knowledge), but I'm quite happy with Mikrotik Audience access
         | points/routers.
        
         | InTheArena wrote:
         | If you can get your hands on it - Check out the pre-release
         | Unifi Dream Router. PoE (to drive other AP), Gateway and built
         | in AP all in one.
        
         | dont__panic wrote:
         | Hot take: All routers completely suck right now, and most of
         | them are built to spy on your network at worst and accidentally
         | expose you to cyberattacks at best.
         | 
         | There are two choices, the way I see it:
         | 
         | 1. Invest in a decent router (probably $150-200 at least) and
         | throw openwrt on it. You'll need something with serious CPU
         | beef because openwrt relies more on software than hardware, and
         | most routers use hardware for QoS etc., hence the price tag.
         | You'll also need to actually understand the multitude of
         | settings offered by openwrt if you care at all about security
         | or performance -- this is nontrivial if you aren't already a
         | network engineer.
         | 
         | 2. Buy a used Apple Airport router. The last generation support
         | AC wifi, which is... basically as fast as the best things out
         | there right now, barring wifi 6E. On the plus side: this comes
         | with mostly sane defaults and good performance, I easily get
         | 600+ mbps up/down on my gigabit internet. On the downside... I
         | think you can only configure airport routers through macOS (and
         | a mostly-dead iOS app), and they don't let you configure _all_
         | the settings you might want. A fair tradeoff for good, non-
         | footgun defaults IMO, but YMMV.
         | 
         | There's also the third option of creating some bespoke
         | raspberry pi + wifi hardware solution for yourself, but that's
         | likely to get you punched by your flatmates when it inevitably
         | reboots incorrectly during a power outage or overheats or
         | whatever and suddenly you need to spend 2 hours debugging
         | problems without a working wireless connection and everyone
         | else is pissed they can't use the internet. Unless, of course,
         | you're a brilliant network engineer who would never make a
         | silly mistake or have a bug in their custom router solution.
         | 
         | Which I guess is why most people use Google or Amazon spyware
         | for internet in their homes.
        
           | Integer wrote:
           | You could try Turris Omnia, it has beefy hardware and sane
           | defaults. Or some other solutions with OpenWRT pre-installed.
        
             | dont__panic wrote:
             | Thanks for this suggestion, I'll have to keep an eye on
             | this the next time I need a router. Definitely on the
             | pricey side, but given that it's fully open source, that's
             | a con I can live with.
        
           | ValentineC wrote:
           | > _1. Invest in a decent router (probably $150-200 at least)
           | and throw openwrt on it. You 'll need something with serious
           | CPU beef because openwrt relies more on software than
           | hardware, and most routers use hardware for QoS etc., hence
           | the price tag. You'll also need to actually understand the
           | multitude of settings offered by openwrt if you care at all
           | about security or performance -- this is nontrivial if you
           | aren't already a network engineer._
           | 
           | Why not OPNsense on an old x86 box?
           | 
           | > _but that 's likely to get you punched by your flatmates
           | when it inevitably reboots incorrectly during a power outage
           | or overheats or whatever and suddenly you need to spend 2
           | hours debugging problems without a working wireless
           | connection and everyone else is pissed they can't use the
           | internet._
           | 
           | I thought for a couple of years that my OPNsense setup would
           | pass the Family Acceptance Factor, but one day (a few months
           | back!) it spontaneously wiped itself of its settings --
           | requiring me to plug in a monitor, reconfigure it to boot,
           | and restore my settings from a backup.
           | 
           | My (very annoyed) family had to ask why we had to jump
           | through hoops, and not use a simple consumer router like
           | everyone else.
           | 
           | I'd imagine that OpenWrt would be the same, or worse.
        
             | quesera wrote:
             | In my (extensive) experience on several different hardware
             | platforms, OpenWRT is far more stable and featureful than
             | stock firmware.
             | 
             | In the worst case, stock firmware would require a hard
             | reset (power cycle) every few weeks. I've had OpenWRT
             | firmware running without interruption (on UPS) for _years_
             | at a time.
        
           | ok_dad wrote:
           | Thanks for that, it is what I figured. I have a really old,
           | nice, router running one of the WRT-like OSes and I really,
           | really don't want to do that anymore. I have a small family
           | and do not want to mess with this stuff. I might just bite
           | the bullet and hook up a few more of the Google routers. I
           | hate using Google, and don't trust them, but I probably trust
           | them more than most other brands in this space. Also, I can't
           | argue that I don't get good performance from their stuff. The
           | only problem is, if I turn off the cloud features with this
           | thing, I can't even do port forwarding or anything! Who the F
           | puts that behind a cloud? Anyways, thanks for the answer.
        
             | dont__panic wrote:
             | Yeah, I've been frustrated with the router space for a
             | while recently so I figured you might benefit from my
             | research (and likely bias as well). Too bad others in this
             | thread downvoted me without responding, though -- if
             | anybody can recommend a decent answer to this question that
             | I didn't cover or explain why I'm wrong, I'm happy to admit
             | that. I would really like there to be a decent router out
             | there for my use case.
             | 
             | The biggest reason I don't use a Google router or something
             | of that ilk is exactly what you mentioned in this comment:
             | I don't want basic functionality like port forwarding
             | locked behind some cloud account that I might have to pay
             | for monthly eventually (or might get shut down). At least
             | my current hardware will likely work perfectly until the
             | hardware fails.
        
               | yardstick wrote:
               | What's your opinion on Mikrotik devices?
        
               | dont__panic wrote:
               | I looked into them a while back, and they do generally
               | seem to be capable devices. I think they fall into the
               | too-footgun-y category I mention above, though -- if you
               | don't already know a lot about networks, you can easily
               | leave gaping holes in your network security since there
               | are so many options to screw up. They're a bit on the
               | expensive side, too, and honestly even trying to figure
               | out which router to buy was enough of a nightmare to
               | dissuade me.
        
               | cycomanic wrote:
               | I think the reason why you got downvoted is because you
               | made broad sweeping statements without anything to back
               | it up. It also does not reflect my experience, the amount
               | of routers running open source systems that one can buy
               | is much larger than it has ever been (I pointed out some
               | options further up the thread), ASUS uses dd-wrt IIRC and
               | others. Also the openwrt/pfsense/opnsense solutions are
               | not really slower than commercial offerings, many
               | offerings now are capable of running OpenVPN at
               | reasonable speeds, in particular if your CPU has AES-NI
               | support.
               | 
               | The way it was written your statement sounded like a
               | Apple shill really.
        
         | comeonseriously wrote:
         | I use an Edgerouter-x with an eap225 AP located centrally. I
         | have not noticed any spying.
        
           | lephty wrote:
           | +1 for the TP-Link EAP225 and its brethren (they have a cloud
           | management portal, but with just a handful of units they can
           | be managed individually or via self-hosted management
           | server).
           | 
           | I use mine with a Mikrotik RB4011. A very stable and reliable
           | combination.
        
         | djhworld wrote:
         | I've been building a little TP-Link Omada setup for my home.
         | There is a cloud option for the controller software or you can
         | buy the hardware controller (or...run it yourself)
         | 
         | Was going to go all in on Ubiquiti but was put off when reading
         | about the reliability issues, plus was way more expensive.
         | 
         | Pleased with my router + access point + PoE switch + hardware
         | controller :)
        
         | ksec wrote:
         | It is a real shame Apple stopped their AirPort Express. But if
         | you could still get one 2nd hand it is great.
        
           | InTheArena wrote:
           | I know it's "in" to shit on ubiqitui right now - but the new
           | Ubiquti Dream Router and the older Unifi Dream Machine are
           | the best spiritual successor I have seen to this device. The
           | UDM comes out of the box with the switch and AP, which
           | performas well, while the UDR also has PoE switches and WIFI
           | 6 in case you want to run other APs or security cameras.
           | 
           | And before anyone else jumps in with old information,as of
           | the latest firmware, it does not require cloud access. And
           | the PPoE performance problem has been fixed.
           | 
           | It was a bumpy transition for a bit because they moved off of
           | Vyatta to generic Linux for the routers.
        
         | willis936 wrote:
         | I bought a used Ruckus R610 on ebay for a modest $160 (not
         | including power adapter). I am extremely happy with the
         | hardware performance and the stability and options of the
         | Unleashed firmware.
         | 
         | It says it supports a gateway mode, but as a power user I want
         | a bit more control than what I would expect a WAP to offer. I
         | use an EdgeRouter-4 running whatever the latest official
         | release is. Having separate boxes grants me freedom to do
         | things like mess with Wi-Fi settings while my SO watches a show
         | on Apple TV connected via Ethernet. It's the little things.
         | 
         | I often think of a pfSense build, but then I remember how happy
         | I am with the performance and efficiency of a dedicated box.
        
           | wcfields wrote:
           | Before Ubiquiti turned into a garbage fire my go to
           | recommendation for power/performance/budget was used Ruckus
           | APs and pfSense router.
        
           | c0nsumer wrote:
           | FWIW, I do OPNsense on a dedicated box (Protectli FW4B) and
           | then an R610 for wireless, with an eBay special EOL'd Brocade
           | switch in the middle.
           | 
           | A dumber switch would be just fine, but I wanted something
           | with 802.1at POE and good VLAN support because I like to
           | break things up a bit.
           | 
           | OPNsense is darned handy, and I like that it does more than
           | an EdgeRouter would, like terminate a Wireguard VPN. The R610
           | works wonderfully, and the switch... well... it's a switch.
           | Once configured it's kinda transparent.
           | 
           | Moving houses soon, so I got a second R610 to fill in signal
           | on what I perceive will be dead spots due to plaster+lathe
           | construction, and in testing thus far it all seems to Just
           | Work. And like you appreciate, since it's all modular it's a
           | lot easier to maintain than the UniFi stuff when things go
           | sideways.
           | 
           | Very, very happy with this setup.
        
             | squarefoot wrote:
             | > I do OPNsense on a dedicated box (Protectli FW4B)
             | 
             | Interesting, thanks. Looks similar to one I'm considering
             | to purchase when I'm moving next year. I'd be using
             | OpnSense too.
             | 
             | https://www.ipu-system.de/index.html
        
           | gonzo wrote:
           | I own Netgate and run R610s at work and at home, if that says
           | anything.
        
       | InTheArena wrote:
       | I would really like to see a open source alternative that can
       | interface with all sorts of different hardware to manage my
       | infrastructure with a single pane of glass. Sorta Ubiquti - but
       | leveraging things like the Unifi API & the new REST api on
       | Microtek to get me out of vendor lock in.
       | 
       | I don't think I have ever seen anything along those lines out
       | there.
       | 
       | Im actually happy with my unifi setup - but there are some things
       | (like multiple load balanced WAN ports) that should be easy to
       | do, but instead are impossible.
        
         | jedahan wrote:
         | OpenWISP looks to be the furthest along, though right now I
         | think it only supports OpenWRT
         | https://openwisp.io/docs/index.html
        
         | ctoth wrote:
         | I know that the Asuswrt integration with Home-assistant lets me
         | manage devices which is kind of cool, but I too would love a
         | little deeper access via a 3rd party app. Most of these things
         | use web scraping or ssh to the device though, not an actual API
         | as very few routers give access to one.
        
         | cedricgle wrote:
         | There is some OS tooling in the SDN realm, like Stratum[1] for
         | example, or a P4 board for the serious. But the hardware behind
         | it isn't cheap.
         | 
         | I wish router for personal use were as "easily" programmable as
         | an OpenFlow compatible equipment with a external controller.
         | Even if you need some extra tooling to reach all the feature of
         | RouterOS, like a compute node for the DNS. I don't know if this
         | kind of evolution will ever reach the consumer space.
         | 
         | [1] https://opennetworking.org/stratum/
        
         | ahepp wrote:
         | I've always wondered if one could use SNMP for this.
        
           | trulyme wrote:
           | Doubtful. Some basic stuff is supported across almost all
           | devices (interface names, speeds, status,...), but more
           | detailed info varies widely between vendors, their OS
           | versions and devices. SNMP SET support is mostly a joke and
           | not worth the trouble. Better use whatever API each vendor
           | came up with.
        
       | lormayna wrote:
       | I am a huge fan of Mikrotik. In the past, I have been worked for
       | an ISP, and we made fantastic stuff with them. A CCR box that
       | costs less than 1000EUR can handle the same number of users, with
       | advanced QoS queueing than an equivalent Cisco that costs 20x.
       | Having (almost) the same features to ever model, from the big
       | boxes to the core routers, it's a big plus, they are very
       | flexible, and they have almost all the features that a carrier-
       | class router needs (the big lack at that time were OSPF-v3 and
       | multi-core BGP). Once you learn the CLI and some quirky
       | configuration, it's worth the money.
       | 
       | The only problem is the availability: they are not stable as a
       | Cisco/Juniper, but you can add several layers of redundancy with
       | a fraction of the costs. Also the support is very basic.
        
       | noja wrote:
       | Wireshark support is here!
        
         | pilsetnieks wrote:
         | I think you meant Wireguard; you could make a packet capture
         | for Wireshark a long long time ago already.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | candiddevmike wrote:
       | I wish I could install Debian on my mikrotik devices, I don't
       | need a CLI or GUI--give me networkd or ifupdown instead.
        
       | Arnt wrote:
       | Oh neat.
       | 
       | I wish to declare that I'm a Mikrotik fanboy. My hardware is ten
       | years old, doesn't break, and Mikrotik supports it on the latest
       | versions, apparently without plans to ever sunset the support.
       | Ooh aah.
        
         | stingraycharles wrote:
         | Big supporter of Mikrotik here, it's a perfect middle ground
         | between consumer "crap", and $10,000 enterprise network
         | equipment.
         | 
         | Rolled out a 10gbit / 25gbit network at home. My biggest
         | complaints are:
         | 
         | * Wireless is really difficult to get "decent speeds". I also
         | have my ISP's router and a Draytek at home, these easily do
         | 500mbit, and it's nearly impossible to get my router board to
         | do the same. When asking support there's mainly a lot of hand-
         | waving "you'll never get better than 100mbit anywhere anyway",
         | etc. Even if other router vendors use hacks / cheats to achieve
         | what they do, I would want an explanation what exactly it is
         | they're doing, and why Mikrotik can't do that.
         | 
         | * I know their Linux Kernel supports certain features, I would
         | really like an "escape hatch" so I can just run traffic shaping
         | commands manually. Eg if I want to use RED with ECN, the lack
         | of a UI checkbox shouldn't be the limiting factor;
         | 
         | * Upgrades while being in their development branch has been a
         | big pain, many times losing crucial configurations; I guess
         | this is fair game when I'm on the beta channel.
         | 
         | * Hardware is a bit underpowered for my needs, but I guess
         | that's why enterprise equipment is 10x - 50x as expensive.
         | Doing traffic shaping on anything more than 1gbit is pretty
         | much impossible; probably the best solution is to use some
         | dedicated hardware with a whole bunch of network cards inside.
        
           | james_in_the_uk wrote:
           | Top tip - if your Mikrotik APs will run OpenWRT, do it.
           | 
           | https://openwrt.org/toh/mikrotik/common
           | 
           | Standalone wireless on Mikrotik is bad. CapsMan is even worse
           | as it seems to hobble some of the standalone settings.
           | Mikrotik are good at engineering routers but bad at
           | engineering Wifi drivers.
           | 
           | I tried _every which way_ to get Mikrotik wifi to work well,
           | at reasonable speed, without dropping packets when roaming.
           | No dice.
           | 
           | Now I have three HAP AC running OpenWRT, connected to a CCR
           | for switching and a HEX S for routing, the latter two still
           | running RouterOS 6. 5 VLANs, PoE, queues, several forwarded
           | services, Solid as a rock.
           | 
           | (I've said it now... massive network wobble likely on the
           | way).
        
             | oynqr wrote:
             | The HEX S is really nice for OpenWRT too :)
        
           | iso1210 wrote:
           | You can always run routeros on X86 hardware. I think the
           | problem with things like mangle rules run into. Had loss and
           | a hell of a lot of reorders at just 500mbit through a CCR1036
           | the other week, disabled 100 or so mangle rules and it
           | vanished, but from looking at other routers I think it's more
           | of a limit in the linux kernel (perhaps just the 2.6 one).
           | Maybe routeros7.1 will be better, something to test in the
           | coming weeks.
           | 
           | 10/25 feels like a CCR2004? Or are you just talking
           | switching.
           | 
           | If routing remember it isn't full bandwidth - the 170gbit of
           | ports is squished into 2x25 before hitting the CPU[0]. Not
           | sure how much is offloaded to the PIPE.
           | 
           | [0] https://i.mt.lv/cdn/product_files/CCR2004-1G-12Splus2XS_2
           | 004...
        
           | Arnt wrote:
           | It's possible that they still haven't merged the smallish
           | patch described here: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/con
           | ference/atc17/atc17-h...
           | 
           | The hardware is underpowered because they optimise for people
           | who deploy a hundred routers on mountaintops, with excellent
           | lines of sight but poor access for replacement. Underclocking
           | severely helps reliability.
        
         | nullwarp wrote:
         | Yeah huge fan of MikroTik stuff, all of it has been running
         | flawlessly for me for so long.
         | 
         | Works great, the interfaces are a little basic, but they are
         | extremely fast and absolutely work flawlessly.
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | The release notes say "completely new NTP client and server
       | implementation". Anyone know what they went with?
        
         | aequitas wrote:
         | systemd-timesyncd? ;)
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-07 23:02 UTC)