SwOS

SwOS
Summary
SwOS is an operating system designed specifically for administration of MikroTik Switch products. SwOS is configurable from your web browser. It gives you all the basic functionality for a managed switch, plus more: Allows to manage port-to-port forwarding, broadcast storm control, apply MAC filter, configure VLANs, mirror traffic, apply bandwidth limitation and even adjust some MAC and IP header fields.

Connecting to the Switch

Open your web browser and enter IP address of your Switch (192.168.88.1 by default) and login screen will appear.

SwOS default IP address: 192.168.88.1, user name: admin and there is no password.
Note: MikroTik neighbor discovery protocol tools can be used to discover IP address of Mikrotik Switch. Manual:IP/Neighbor_discovery

Interface Overview
SwOS interface menu consists of 10 tabs: Link, Forwarding, Statistics, VLAN, VLANs, Static Hosts, Hosts, SNMP, ACL and System. Description of buttons in SwOS configuration tool: Append - add new item to the end of the list Apply All - applies current configuration changes Cut - removes item from the list Clear - resets properties of the item Discard Changes - removes unsaved configuration Insert - add new item to the list (places it before current item) Sort - sort VLAN table by VLAN-IDs; sort host table by MAC addresses

Change Password - changes password of the switch Logout - logout from current Switch Reboot - reboot the switch Reset Configuration - reset configuration back to factory defaults

SwOS Choose File - browse for upgrade or backup file Upgrade - upgrade firmware of the Switch Restore Backup - restore Switch using selected backup file Save Backup - generate and download backup file from the Switch

System Tab
System Tab functions: performs the following

General information about Switch Switch management Configuration reset Backup and restore configuration Firmware upgrade

Property IP Address Identity Allow From Allow From Ports Allow From VLAN IP address of the Switch

Description

Name of the Switch (for Mikrotik neighbor discovery protocol) IP address from which the service is accessible. Default value is '0.0.0.0/0' - any address List of switch ports from which the service is accessible VLAN ID with which the service is accessible (VLAN Mode on ingress port must be other than disabled in order to connect) Enable or disable Mikrotik neighbor discovery protocol

Mikrotik Discovery Protocol Watchdog MAC Address Version Uptime

Enable or disable system watchdog. It will reset CPU of the switch in case of fault condition MAC address of the Switch (Read-only) Firmware version of the Switch Current Switch uptime

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Note: SwOS uses a simple algorithm to ensure TCP/IP communication - it just replies to the same IP and MAC address packet came from. This way there is no need for Default Gateway on the device itself.

Firmware Upgrade
Firmware can be upgraded/downgraded by selecting firmware file and pressing upgrade button. Switch will reboot automatically after successful upgrade.
Note: Manual power cycle is necessary 5 seconds after upgrade button is pressed if you are upgrading from SwOS v1.0

Link Tab
Link Tab allows you to: Configure Ethernet ports Monitor status of Ethernet ports

Property Enabled Link Status Enable or disable port Current link status (Read-only)

Description

Auto Negotiation Enable or disable auto negotiation Speed Full Duplex Flow control Specify speed setting of the port (requires auto negotiation to be disabled to specify) Specify duplex mode of the port (requires auto negotiation to be disabled to specify) Enable or disable flow control

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Forwarding Tab
Forwarding Tab provides advanced forwarding options among switch ports, port locking, port mirroring, bandwidth limit and broadcast storm control features.

Property Forwarding Port Lock

Description Forwarding table - allows or restricts traffic flow between specific ports Port Lock - Enable or disable MAC address learning on this port Lock On First - Enable or disable MAC address learning on this port (MAC address from the first recieved packet will still be learnt) Mirror Ingress - Whether traffic entering this port must be copied and forwarded to mirroring target port Mirror Egress - Whether traffic leaving this port must be copied and forwarded to mirroring target port Mirror To - Mirroring target port Ingres Rate - Limit traffic entering this port (bps) Egress Rate - Limit traffic leaving this port (bps) Storm Rate - Limit the number of broadcast packets transmitted by an interface Include Unicast - Include unicast packets without an entry in host table in Storm Rate limitation

Port Mirroring

Bandwidth Limit

Broadcast Storm Control

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Statistics Tab
Provides detailed information about received and transmitted packets.

Packet Flow
Packet processing through RB250GS is described here: Atheros8316 packet flow diagram [1]

VLAN Tab
VLAN configuration for Switch ports.

SwOS

Property VLAN Mode VLAN mode for ingress port:

Description

disabled - VLAN table is not used. Switch ignores VLAN tag part of tagged packets optional - Handle packets with VLAN tag ID that is not present in VLAN table just like packets without VLAN tag enabled - Drop packets with VLAN tag ID that is not present in VLAN table. Packets without VLAN tag are treat as tagged packets with Default VLAN ID strict - Same as enable, but also checks VLAN support for inbound interface (drop packets with VLAN tag ID and ingress port that are not present in VLAN table)

Default VLAN Switch will treat untagged ingress packets as they are tagged with this VLAN ID. VLAN tag itself will be added only if there is ID VLAN Header = add if missing specified on egress port Force VLAN ID Whether to apply Default VLAN ID to incoming packets with VLAN tag

VLAN Header

leave as is - if VLAN header is present it remains unchanged always strip - if VLAN header is present it is removed from the packet add if missing - if VLAN header is not present it is added to the packet (VLAN ID will be Default VLAN ID of ingress port)

Example
802.1Q Trunking With MikroTik [2]

VLANs Tab
VLAN tables specifies certain forwarding rules for packets that have specific 802.1q tag. Basically the table contains entries that map specific VLAN tag IDs to a group of one or more ports. Packets with VLAN tags leave switch through one or more ports that are set in corresponding table entry. VLAN table works together with destination MAC lookup to determine egress ports. VLAN table supports up to 4096 entries.
Property Description

VLAN ID VLAN ID of the packet Ports Ports the packet should be mapped to

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Hosts Tab
This table represents dynamically learnt MAC address to port mapping entries. When Switch receives a packet from certain port, it adds the packets source MAC address X and port it received the packet from to host table, so when a packet comes in with destination MAC address X it knows to which port it should forward the packet. If the destination MAC address is not present in host table then it forwards the packet to all ports in the group. Dynamic entries take about 5 minutes to time out.
Note: RB250GS supports 2k host table entries.

Property MAC Ports

Description MAC address (Read-only) Ports the packet should be forwarded to (Read-only)

Static Hosts Tab

Static host table entries. Static entries will take over dynamic if dynamic entry with same mac-address already exists. Also by adding a static entry you get access to some more functionality.

Property MAC Ports Mirror Drop MAC address

Description

Ports the packet should be forwarded to Packet can be cloned and sent to mirror-target port Packet with certain MAC address coming from certain ports can be dropped

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ACL Tab
An access control list (ACL) rule table is very powerful tool allowing wire speed packet filtering, forwarding and VLAN tagging based on L2,L3 protocol header field conditions. SwOS allow you to implement limited number of access control list rules (32 simple rules (only L2 conditions are used); 16 rules where both L2 and L3 conditions are used; or 8 advanced rules where all L2,L3 and L4 conditions are used). Each rule contains a conditions part and an action part.
Property From MAC Src MAC Dst Ethertype VLAN Description Port that packet came in from Source MAC address and mask Destination MAC address and mask Protocol encapsulated in the payload of an Ethernet Frame VLAN header presence: VLAN ID Priority any present not present

VLAN tag ID Priority in VLAN tag

IP Src (IP/netmask:port) Source IP address, netmask and L4 port number IP Dst (IP/netmask:port) Destination IP address, netmask and L4 port number Protocol DSCP IP protocol IP DSCP field

Property Redirect To

Description Whether to force new destination ports (If Redirect To is enabled and no ports specified in Redirect To Ports, packet will be dropped ) Destination ports for

Redirect To Ports Mirror Set VLAN ID Priority

Clones packet and sends it to mirror-target port Changes the VLAN tag ID, if VLAN tag is present Changes the VLAN tag priority bits, if VLAN tag is present

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SNMP Tab
SNMP Tab consists of settings to monitor the Switch remotely.

Property Enabled Community

Description Enable or disable SNMP service SNMP community name

Contact Info Contact information for the NMS Location Location information for the NMS

Reinstall SwOS firmware

It is possible to upload and install SwOS firmware on RB250GS using BOOTP. This example shows how to reinstall SwOS using RouterOS. Configure IP address and DHCP server with BOOTP enabled on the installation router. /ip address add address=192.168.88.254/24 interface=ether1 /ip add /ip add /ip add pool name=dhcp_pool1 ranges=192.168.88.1 dhcp-server address-pool=dhcp_pool1 bootp-support=dynamic interface=ether1 disabled=no dhcp-server network address=192.168.88.0/24 gateway=192.168.88.254

Upload new SwOS firmware file to the router filesystem. [admin@MikroTik] /file> print # NAME TYPE 0 swos-1.2.lzb .lzb file Configure TFTP server. /ip tftp add allow=yes disabled=no ip-addresses=192.168.88.1 read-only=yes \ real-filename=swos-1.2.lzb Hold the RESET button of the switch when starting it. After few seconds ACT LED will start blinking. Wait till ACT LED blinks twice as fast and release RESET button.

SIZE 38142

CREATION-TIME sep/02/2010 08:40:17

SwOS Make ethernet connection between the switch and ethernet port you configured DHCP server on. After few seconds new firmware should be successfully uploaded and installed.

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References
[1] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ Manual:Packet_flow_through_Atheros8316 [2] http:/ / wiki. mikrotik. com/ wiki/ SwOS/ Router-On-A-Stick

Article Sources and Contributors

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Article Sources and Contributors

SwOS Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?oldid=22901 Contributors: Kirshteins, Marisb, Normis

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

File:swos_login.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_login.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins Image:Icon-note.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Icon-note.png License: unknown Contributors: Marisb, Route File:swos_system.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_system.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_link.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_link.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_forwarding.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_forwarding.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_statistics.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_statistics.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_vlan.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_vlan.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_vlans.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_vlans.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_hosts.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_hosts.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_static_hosts.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_static_hosts.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_acl.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_acl.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins File:swos_snmp.png Source: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/index.php?title=File:Swos_snmp.png License: unknown Contributors: Kirshteins