This will be the first of several posts on configuring the new MikroTik CRS309-1G-8S+IN for use in a VMware home lab. Today’s first post will introduce MikroTik’s RouterOS and will focus on VLAN trunking. Please note that although this was written for the CRS309, this should be applicable to all CRS3xx series switches, including the popular CRS317.
RouterOS vs SwOS
MikroTik’s RouterOS firmware that comes pre-loaded on the switch is very feature rich with loads of L3 functionality. It has everything from BGP/OSPF, to firewalling, NAT, DHCP services – you name it. It’s a multi-purpose firmware that was originally created for MikroTik’s routers. Today, it works with many of their other products, including switches, and wireless devices. Because of this, it feels more like router firmware adapted for use with switches as opposed to something designed especially for them. Configuring RouterOS on the CRS309/CRS317 can be challenging and there is a learning curve to overcome – even for those with a lot of networking experience. Things get easier when you learn the terminology and understand what does and does not apply to a switch within RouterOS.
The CRS309 also includes ‘SwOS’ – a straight-forward L2 firmware that is designed especially for their switches. I found SwOS’s UI to be very intuitive and a lot more like what I’d expect to see on a switch. If you are not looking to use any of the advanced L3 features that RouterOS offers, I’d highly recommend using SwOS instead. There is no need to flash back and forth from RouterOS to SwOS and vice-versa. Both firmware packages coexist in the flash memory and you can easily switch back and forth as required.
Although SwOS could suffice for my needs in the home lab, I’m not one to shy away from a challenge and really want to be able to take advantage of some of the L3 features. If I could get them to work, I could potentially retire one or two virtual machines that I currently use for routing and firewalling.
802.1q VLAN Trunking
One of the first things I tried to do with the CRS309 was get a bunch of VLANs created and all the interfaces configured as 802.1q VLAN trunk ports. This is probably the most common VMware home lab requirement with 10Gbps networking. Each host will have a limited number of interfaces, so VLAN trunks are critical to separate out the various services.
When you get into the RouterOS WebFig interface, you’ll find several places where VLANs can be configured. My first attempt was under ‘Switch’ and ‘VLANs’ – sounds logical enough:
But clearly this doesn’t work. There is also a section for VLANs under ‘Interfaces’, but this is for VLAN interface creation, which I’ll get into later. One of the first things to keep in mind with RouterOS is that a lot of the configuration relating to the switch – including VLAN configuration – is done in the ‘Bridge’ section – not the Switch section.
From the CRS3xx series manual:
“Since RouterOS v6.41 bridges provide VLAN aware Layer2 forwarding and VLAN tag modifications within the bridge. This set of features makes bridge operation more like a traditional Ethernet switch and allows to overcome Spanning Tree compatibility issues compared to configuration when tunnel-like VLAN interfaces are bridged..”
Another important thing to remember is that any VLAN related configuration you do in the bridge does not come into effect until an option called vlan-filtering is set to ‘yes’ for the bridge itself.
vswitchzero 