Note that there are a couple of limitations of using the Cloud Hosted Router (CHR). The main issue is that the default license doesn’t allow for more than 1Mbps on each interface.
We’ll create a tunnel between two Mikrotik RouterOS routers. Once we have the tunnel connected, we can then route traffic between them.
Note: You can add Preshared keys, but we don’t cover that in this post, just to keep things simple. Check out the following post if you want to add Preshared keys.
Here is how we will want our routers set up. The WireGuard PtP IP is the IP addresses used on both ends of the tunnel. The WAN IP is the IP of each Router. Local IP on Host B is setup to distribute DHCP.
Host A
WAN IP: 172.16.0.1 WireGuard PtP IP: 10.1.1.1/30
Host B
WAN IP: 10.0.0.2 WireGuard PtP IP: 10.1.1.2/30 Local IP: 192.168.0.1/24
We need Host A to be able to access Private IP’s (192.168.0.0/24) behind Host B.
We’ll pretend that the 172.16.0.1 address is a public IP, and Host B, is behind some sort of NAT network.
To create the Point-to-point, or PtP, we will create a WireGuard VPN tunnel, and then add routes from Host A to Host B.
For each Mikrotik we need to create a WireGuard interface, and then a peer. One of the peers needs a keep alive if we are behind a NAT.
Wireguard Setup Overview
Here is an overview screenshot of what our WireGuard settings will look like. Host A is on top, and Host B on the bottom. On the left are the WireGuard interfaces, and the right contains the Peers.
We copy the Public Key from the remote WireGuard interface, to the Public Key on the local Peer. I.e. The Host_B Peer contains Host_A’s Interface Public Key and vice verse
Host A
If you want to, you can use the WinBox GUI to setup and configure the router.
In the Allowed Addresses, put 10.1.1.0/30 and 192.168.0.0/24*.
Finally, put in the Public Key from Host B. Note that we can’t do this until we create the WireGuard Interface on Host B, so you’ll need to come back for this step.
*The Allowed Address sets which addresses work on the other side of the tunnel. If we don’t specify 192.168.0.0/24, then we won’t be able to route to those addresses. If we don’t add 10.1.1.0/30, then our tunnel won’t work at all. Since we only need to route to the 192.168.0.0/24 network from the Host A side, we don’t need this IP range on Host B.
That should be it. Verify that there is a connection. From Host A, ping 192.168.0.1 or any other remote device.
Troubleshooting
Unfortunately, there appear to be some wonky bugs with WireGuard on RouterOS. It does appear to be getting better, but here are a couple things to check if the tunnel is not connecting.
Verify that the Firewall is not blocking WireGuard. You can allow the WireGuard port in the Firewall.
Try disabling and re-enabling the Interfaces and/or Peers
Verify that all the routes for the PtP are in /ip/routes. If not, try manually adding the route (10.1.1.0/30) on the WireGuard interface on both routers.
Add a keep alive if a router is behind a firewall/NAT.
Reboot and or Upgrade the RouterOS version and firmware.
Cisco’s can be rebooted with the reload command. The reload command allows you to specify how many minutes like
reload 5
to reload in 5 minutes. We can also reload at a specific time. For instance
reload 13:30
will reload the router at 1:30PM.
For a Cisco config to remain permanent, we have to “write” i.e. save the config. By default, making changes, for instance an IP address on an interface, will get wiped on a reboot or reload.
We can take advantage of this behavior to “test” changes on a Cisco router.
Example:
Run the command “reload 10” to reboot the router in 10 minutes. The plan is to cancel the reload after making sure our changes work
Make the needed changes to the Router.
After verifying that everything is working, run the “reload cancel” command to cancel the reload
Now we can run “write” to save our new config
To recap reload 10 will reload a router in 10 minutes If we loose access to the router while making changes, once 10 minutes has expired, the router will reload, returning it to the last know working state. The reload cancel command will cancel the reload. write will make our config persistent across reboots/reloads
Setting up OSPF between Mikrotik routers is not too difficult. The following commands should work with RouterOS version 7+. Run these commands on each Mikrotik changing out the router-id.
Create a Loop-back interface
First it would be a good idea to create an loopback interface that will stay up. We’ll use this address as the router-id. This should be unique per router.
First we’ll create the instance. Use the address from the above loopback address. Technically you can use whatever id you want as long as it is a 32 bit “address” and is unique.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If this router is also the default gateway, you’ll need to specify the “originate-default=always” option to share the default gateway over OSPF to the other routers. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to share the default route.
Create OSPF Area
Now we can create an OSPF area. For a simple OSPF setup, we’ll just use the default 0.0.0.0 area.
Now we can add an instance. This is responsible for what networks get shared with OSPF. If you want to do all the addresses on the router, then use 0.0.0.0/0. If you only want to do specific networks, run an entry for every network, changing 0.0.0.0/0 to the network of interest.
After that we can check to make sure things worked.
/routing/ospf/neighbor/print
You should see at a neighbor. It can take a little bit for the neighbors to show up.
You can also check the routes on the router.
/ip/route/print
OSPF has a default distance of 110, so checking the routes is a quick way to verify the routes are getting updated. Do note that if you have a static route in with a lower distance, that will take precedence over OSPF.
The following is some basic info on STP and RSTP. This list is not comprehensive. Refer to the link at the bottom of the page for more in depth details.
RSTP Priority
Default Priority is 32768 + VLAN ID
For example, if we are using vlan 10, then our default priority is 32768 + 10 = 32778
RSTP Priority can be set from 0 – 61440 in increments of 4096.
RSTP Port Roles
Ports can fill 1 of 4 roles.
Port Role
Description
Root Port
Port closest to the Root Bridge (Switches going to the Root switch)
Designated Port
Ports going away from the Root Bridge (To clients)
Alternate Port
A “backup” port for the Root port. If the Root Port fails, this port takes over
Backup Port
Essentially a backup port for the designated port
RSTP Port Roles
RSTP Port States
A port can be in one of 3 states. Well technically 4 states if you include down/unplugged.
Port State
Description
Discarding
Port discards packets (Alternate and Backup Ports)
Learning
Port learns MACs and doesn’t forward data
Forwarding
Port forwards data and learns MACs
RSTP Port States
RSTP Port Types
There are 3 port Types. Not to be confused with port States or Roles.
Port Type
Description
Point to Point
Switch to Switch
Point to Point Edge
Edge of Network. Connected to a PC, Printer etc.
Shared
Half Duplex, Port connected to a Hub
STP/RSTP Port Types
RSTP Timers
There are three RSTP timers. STP has the same timers, but the MaxAge is 10 seconds, and the Forward Delay is used for both Learning and Listening states which takes a total of 30 seconds to complete.
Timer Name
Default Value
Description
Hello Timer
2 Seconds
Time between Hellos created by Root
MaxAge
6 Seconds (Hello Timer * 3)
How long a Switch should wait before trying to readjust the network
Forward Delay
15 Seconds
Delay used for Learning/Listening in STP. Shouldn’t be necessary if legacy bridges are not used.
RSTP/STP Timers
Port Cost
There are technically two types of cost. The newer cost values were introduced so we could use faster ethernet speeds.
By default Cisco switches use the old cost values, but they can be changed to use the new ones.
spanning-tree pathcost method long
Ethernet Speed
Old Cost
New Cost
10 Mbps
100
2,000,000
100 Mbps
19
200,000
1 Gbps
4
20,000
10 Gbps
2
2000
100 Gbps
N/A
200
1 Tbps
N/A
20
STP/RSTP Path Cost
More information can be found at the following link.
So if I want to continuously ping a website, say incredigeek.com, I can put in the following
ping -n 0 incredigeek.com
Hit return and we are off to the races. But wait. I can’t get it to stop. Ctrl + C, doesn’t do anything, Ctrl + D or Ctrl +Z don’t help either.
Okay well fine. We’ll launch another terminal and ssh into it again and see what we can do. Excellent, now we are in aaand… wait… why are the ping results showing up here too? Help!!!
Buried in the heart of the helpful help command are these lines.
ping -- Send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts
pingend -- End ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts
You don’t say. Well lets try typing in pingend with all the commotion going on in the terminal.
SSH+> pingend
Ping statistics for 142.250.191.206:
Packets: Sent = 3, Received = 3, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
Well good to know. Saves having to reboot the device.
