MikroTik RouterOS Installation on VMWare or Vbox

Introduction

reference: http://www.mikrotik-routeros.net/routeros.aspx

MikroTik RouterOS is the operating system of MikroTik RouterBOARD hardware, based on the Linux v2.6 kernel.

Preparation

  1. Download image

Download the vhdx file of the version you want, e.g.

https://download.mikrotik.com/routeros/7.1.1/chr-7.1.1.vhdx

Let’s check its basic info at first

$ qemu-img info chr-7.1.1.vhdx
image: chr-7.1.1.vhdx
file format: vhdx
virtual size: 128 MiB (134217728 bytes)
disk size: 72 MiB
cluster_size: 8388608
  1. Covert VHDX to VMDK (if using VMWare)
$ qemu-img convert -f vhdx -O vmdk chr-7.1.1.vhdx chr-7.1.1.vmdk
$ qemu-img check -f vmdk chr-7.1.1.vmdk
No errors were found on the image.

Notice: Here -f and -O mean the formats of input and output files. The command should be qemu-img covert [option] [arg] <input file> <output file>

Virtual Machine Configuration (VMWare)

  1. Install OS later

  2. Linux > Other Linux 2.6.x kernel 64-bit

  3. LSI Logic SAS

  4. IDE

  5. Use an existing virtual disk > the vmdk > convert

Basic Use of RouterOS

Default password: admin, no password

CLI

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Command+Line+Interface

Virtual Ethernet Adapters in Promiscuous Mode

  1. Add read and write accesses of virtual network adapter

For all users:

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/vmnet0

reference: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/287

  1. Virtual machine configuration

Network adapter > Custom