Nothing Runs Like a Deere

A John Deere that is! I am conducting MikroTik Training this week in beautiful Des Moines, Iowa with the kind folks at John Deere. The details of my training are top secret but it is exciting to see corporate interest in this powerful product.

Started in 1837, this well known company is 107th on Forbes 500 and probably one of the best known and most respected names in the farming, mining and construction industries. Thanks for having me guys!

Next week I get some rest and then I am off to Dallas, Texas for a week of advanced MikroTik Training.

RouterOS Compact Export

Compact Export

Ever exported a config from RouterOS and saw tons of lines of garbage you didn't need or sometimes even recognize? If so, you will love this!

Starting from v5.12 compact export was added. It allows to export only part of configuration that is not default RouterOS config.

[admin@SXT-ST] /routing ospf> export compact

# jan/02/1970 20:16:32 by RouterOS 5.12

# software id = JRB7-9UGC

#

/routing ospf instance

set [ find default=yes ] redistribute-connected=as-type-1

/routing ospf interface

add disabled=yes interface=wlan1 network-type=point-to-point

/routing ospf network

add area=backbone network=10.255.255.36/32

add area=backbone disabled=yes network=10.5.101.0/24

add area=backbone network=10.10.10.0/24

[admin@SXT-ST] /routing ospf>

Compact export introduces another feature that indicates which part of config is default on RouterOS and cannot be deleted. As in example below '*' indicates that this OSPF instance is part of default configuration.

[admin@SXT-ST] /routing ospf instance> print

Flags: X - disabled, * - default

0 * name="default" router-id=0.0.0.0 distribute-default=never

redistribute-connected=as-type-1 redistribute-static=no

redistribute-rip=no redistribute-bgp=no redistribute-other-ospf=no

metric-default=1 metric-connected=20 metric-static=20 metric-rip=20

metric-bgp=auto metric-other-ospf=auto in-filter=ospf-in

out-filter=ospf-out

Licensing 3.65 GHz

The process of getting a FCC license for 3.65 can be daunting. In addition, there isn't much information out there about how to register sites using gear that doesn't cost thousands of dollars. In particular, I am speaking of Ubiquiti 3.65 or Ubiquiti + MikroTik 3.65 GHz products.

I posted a link HERE to get you to the HowTo. I hope this helps you in your process!

Four Training Classes Scheduled

Four New Training Classes for 2012. Sign up now and claim your seat!
Start your year right by enrolling in basic or advanced MikroTik training
Ready to train and have some fun? Learn more...

MTCNA MikroTik Certified Network Associate
January 10-12 Houston, Texas
Enroll Now

MTCRE, MTCWE, MTCTCE MikroTik Advanced Training
February 21-24 Dallas, Texas
Enroll Now

MTCNA MikroTik Certified Network Associate
March 27-29 Houston, Texas
Enroll Now

MTCRE, MTCWE, MTCTCE MikroTik Advanced Training
April 24-27 Dallas, Texas
Enroll Now

European MUM Scheduled

I found out today the European MUM will be held in Warsaw, Poland March 15-18. We have tons of MikroTik in stock at ISPSupplies.com or MikroTik Training at LearnMikroTik.com.

Mikrotik Sextants on their way

The new MikroTIk SEXTANT is very similar to the popular SXT unit, just slightly bigger. Inside is the brand new RB711-5HnD dual chain wireless device, with high performance, high output power, and low power requirements.

Easy to use and quick to deploy, SEXTANT is ideal for point to point links.

I think this will be your new favorite CPE so hurry and come get some!

Keeping RouterOS Queues on Top

One frustration I have recently dealt with is the dynamic simple queue behavior in MikroTik RouterOS that started sometime after version 3. Somewhere in there, they started adding new, dynamically created queues (created by MikroTik HotSpot or UserManager/PPPOE) to the top of the list instead of at the bottom.
This really causes an issue with static queues you might have in place for prioritizing traffic like VOIP. When the dynamic user queues are inserted above your VOIP queue, VOIP traffic from that user's target IP no longer has priority. I contacted support@mikrotik.com and Janis Megis from MikroTik indicated it was a requested feature that would be added at some point in the future. This caused me a lot of grief recently workign with a large HotSpot deployment on a RouterBoard RB1200.

Until then, here is a solution.

Create a script with the following code:

/queue simple move [find name="VOIP"] [:pick [find] 0]

In this code, I have a simple queue named UDP that I always want at the top of the list of queues. You can repeat this code for other queues to be placed below this queue like this:

/queue simple move [find name="VOIP"] [:pick [find] 0]
/queue simple move [find name="VIDEO"] [:pick [find] 1]
/queue simple move [find name="SSH"] [:pick [find] 2]

Then, create a scheduler job to run the script every 10 seconds or so and you should be in QOS heaven!