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MikroTik RouterOS Cloud-hosted router#

MikroTik RouterOS cloud hosted router is identified with mikrotik_ros kind in the topology file. It is built using vrnetlab project and essentially is a Qemu VM packaged in a docker container format.

Managing MikroTik RouterOS nodes#

MikroTik RouterOS node launched with containerlab can be managed via the following interfaces:

to connect to a bash shell of a running MikroTik RouterOS container: 

docker exec -it <container-name/id> bash

to connect to the MikroTik RouterOS CLI 

ssh admin@<container-name/id>

serial port (console) is exposed over TCP port 5000: 

# from container host
telnet <node-name> 5000
You can also connect to the container and use telnet localhost 5000 if telnet is not available on your container host.

Info

Default user credentials: admin:admin

Interface naming#

You can use interfaces names in the topology file like they appear in MikroTik RouterOS.

The interface naming convention is: etherX, where X is the port number.

With that naming convention in mind:

  • ether2 - first data port available
  • ether3 - second data port, and so on...

Warning

Data port numbering starts at 2, as ether1 is reserved for management connectivity. Attempting to use ether1 in a containerlab topology will result in an error.

The example ports above would be mapped to the following Linux interfaces inside the container running the MikroTik RouterOS VM:

  • eth0 - management interface connected to the containerlab management network (rendered as ether1)
  • eth1 - first data interface, mapped to the first data port of the VM (rendered as ether2)
  • eth2+ - second and subsequent data interfaces, mapped to the second and subsequent data ports of the VM (rendered as ether3 and so on)

When containerlab launches MikroTik RouterOS node the management interface of the VM gets assigned 10.0.0.15/24 address from the QEMU DHCP server. This interface is transparently stitched with container's eth0 interface such that users can reach the management plane of the MikroTik RouterOS using containerlab's assigned IP.

Data interfaces ether2+ need to be configured with IP addressing manually using CLI or other available management interfaces.

Node configuration#

MikroTik RouterOS nodes come up with a basic "blank" configuration where only the management interface and user is provisioned.

User defined config#

It is possible to make ROS nodes to boot up with a user-defined startup config instead of a built-in one. With a startup-config property of the node/kind a user sets the path to the config file that will be mounted to a container and used as a startup config:

name: ros_lab
topology:
  nodes:
    ros:
      kind: mikrotik_ros
      startup-config: myconfig.txt

With such topology file containerlab is instructed to take a file myconfig.txt from the current working directory, copy it to the lab directory for that specific node under the /ftpboot/config.auto.rsc name and mount that dir to the container. This will result in this config to act as a startup config for the node via FTP. Mikrotik will automatically import any file with the .auto.rsc suffix.

File mounts#

When a user starts a lab, containerlab creates a node directory for storing configuration artifacts. For MikroTik RouterOS kind containerlab creates ftpboot directory where the config file will be copied as config.auto.rsc.