HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router

rafal_opilowski

From some time, I had a though about getting my home-lab. Prior to that, I've decided to prepare my networking for it and ditch the router given by my ISP for MikroTik to optimise the network. It turned out it's not easy - why? Check it out on my latest blog post!

zulux

For me, the era of MikroTik is sort of... now. Don't get me wrong, they make powerful and feature-complete stuff, but their UI sort of assumes you really know what you're doing. I don't know what I'm doing. But my LLM does. I've been able to set up site-to-site VPNs with Mikrotik in fifteen minutes now, rather than the day-long exercise of googling and praying.

cyberax

Mikrotik is really a sweet spot for routers. It's feature-rich and it has a nice Web UI (or WinBox that is now cross-platform). And Mikrotik as a company is just amazing; they still support hardware that is almost 15 years old. Other routers: 1. OpenWRT is a bit too basic, and updates are hit-and-miss. 2. Ubiquity is a bit too Apple-like, with its reliance on apps and integration. 3. Cisco is WAY too expensive, and too complicated to set up without having Cisco experience. I'm now eagerly waiting for them to release the next generation of their routers. hEX Pro looks perfect to replace my aging CCR2004.

hendry

Switched to Ubiquiti, I'm quite happy except for their lack of a sane MCP.

1over137

I’ve been very happy with Mikrotik. Chose them partly to reduce dependence on US tech too.

redlewel

I'm more than happy with VyOS. Throw that in proxmox and you have an open source JunOS with zero license headache. I do use Mikrotik for 2.5g switching though, zero complaints.

bdavbdav

Frustratingly I couldn’t find a Mikrotik that would offer me a few SFPs, and a 2.5 or two. I wanted ideally just 3 SFPs - two WAN for LB / Failover and one up to switch. 2.5g WAN would do but would rather SFP for future use. UDM-SE it is for now.

SlavikCA

About 2 years ago I tried to use Mikrotik, as the router for my ATT Fiber. It's royal pain. Basic router setup is not hard. Port forward to expose web server? Can be done after heavy docs&forum reading, but hair pinning never worked for me. I checked their WiFi AP. It's UI is hard even for senior software engineer. In the end I got opnSense installed in VM on Proxmox and it's my router for last 2 years. I'm using 2 Mikrotik switches with their simplified UI to operate VLANs. Zero complains.

Jnr

I just got a backup ISP at home and connected fiber directly to Mikoritk using SFP dongle instead of the box provided by ISP. Scripts on RouterOS handle network checks for failover, DNS updates, etc. I got that Mikrotik home router 10 years ago and it is still performing great and handles most of the use cases without issues.

BLKNSLVR

I can't read the nearly-white (or super-thin font) text on the white background. Is that representative of using mikrotik hardware?

stroebs

I've been a MikroTik fan since the beginning of my career some 15 years ago now. I have used the MikroTik router and Ubiquiti AP combination ever since. With that said, I can absolutely agree that their UX is terrible for anyone who doesn't specifically know how to configure a MikroTik router. The fact that you have to configure FQ-CoDel yourself and some bufferbloat protection isn't just a built-in option is absurd for anyone using it as a home router.

luizfelberti

I love MikroTik, but ffs just let me install something else on it. SONiC or any other Linux would be awesome. I love their hardware, but their software is absolutely awful. Is there any manufacturer out there who produces high quality hardware that is not locked down?

mistic92

I went with omada and I'm happy for now

nubinetwork

I hope there is a part 2, where they make sure the internet can't access their management interfaces...

HackerThemAll

Mikrotik is not a mere replacement for plug and play routers such as TP-Link and the like. It's a very advanced device offering countless networking features, including multiple VPN server options, advanced Layer 2/bridging/switching features - VLANs, nested VLANs (Q-in-Q), VXLAN, spanning tree protocols (STP, RSTP, MSTP), 802.1x authentication, bridge-based firewall and bridge-based NAT, data center bridging (a.k.a. "lossless Ethernet"). Advanced Layer 3 features such as BGP, policy routing, traffic shaping, VRRP, hardware layer 3 acceleration. Then containers, matter/thread protocols, mesh networking, advanced wi-fi features such as centrally-managed network (CAPSMAN), multiple/virtual access points, hotspots, and many many more. Advanced firewall for both IPv4 and IPv6. On top of that scripting, SSH server, NTP server, DNS cache. API client for advanced integrations, and built-in scheduler, packet sniffer for troubleshooting, safe mode for automatic rollbacks of recent changes in case when the admin gets cut off due to a dangerous change. It'd be really hard to enumerate all that RouterOS offers. And all that is available from tiny home/SMB office devices starting at 40 USD, through dedicated wireless point to point bridges, to a big Ethernet switches/routers with 400G interfaces. Of course it doesn't compete with high end NVIDIA Spectrum-X, Cisco or Juniper, but is good enough for 95% of networks. It works great as a plug&play home/office router, too thanks to Quick Set, but for more sophisticated setups, a knowledge of networking protocols is mandatory. The more fancy setup, the more in-depth knowledge is required. Just like with programming and all stuff in life.

denkmoon

Just use linux! Why use someone else's non FOSS, locked down linux, when you could truly own your router? It's a great educational experience I would recommend to anyone interested in networking. Grab debian, grab a system with 2 NICs, make it your router/firewall/gateway.

hk1337

I am glad, I am 99% sure it's the case, that I don't have to do CGNAT with ATT. Sounds like a pain. I like ipv6 but I have been thinking of disabling it lately because i cannot technically setup static leases with ipv6 like i can with ipv4, so technically the ipv6 for one of the services in my homelab could change and cause problems.

self_awareness

In Poland, Play sets up IPv6 by default. One call to ISP to disable the hidden firewall on their router gives us full IPv6 network transparency, no NATs are needed anymore. I highly recommend after installing a firewall appliance (for example OPNsense, but probably Mikrotik should have it as well). IPv6 "feels" like how networks should work since the beginning. IPv4 feels like a legacy technology. They of course also have a DS-Lite AFTR gateways to tunnel the IPv4 traffic. In practice, everything works (for me at least).