Networking Lab with MikroTik RouterOS

MikroTik RouterOS is a good, low-cost way to get hands-on with networking concepts without buying physical hardware. This post covers running it as a VM, exposing its WebUI and SSH through a reverse proxy, and connecting to it from the host machine.

Prerequisites

Download the ISO from the MikroTik website.

1. Create the VM

In VirtualBox, create a new VM with type Other/Unknown (64-bit).

• Enable VT-x in system settings
• Attach mikrotik-7.10.1.iso to the CD drive
• Boot and press i then Enter to install

2. First Boot

Log in to the console:

user: admin
password: (empty)

Request an IP from the internal DHCP server:

/ip dhcp-client add interface=ether1 disabled=no
/ip address print

Expected output:

[admin@MikroTik] > ip/address/print
Flags: D - DYNAMIC
Columns: ADDRESS, NETWORK, INTERFACE
#   ADDRESS           NETWORK      INTERFACE
0 D 10.0.2.15/24      10.0.2.0     ether1

3. Port Forwarding

VirtualBox's NAT network can forward ports from the host to the guest.

Traffic hitting localhost:9090 and localhost:8080 now redirects to the guest.

4. Access Methods

Option A: Nginx Reverse Proxy

Create /etc/nginx/conf.d/local_proxy.conf:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name webfig.ir;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
    }
}

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Add to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1       webfig.ir

Now http://webfig.ir reaches the MikroTik WebUI.

Option B: SimpleProxy (No Nginx)

sudo apt install simpleproxy
sudo simpleproxy -L webfig.ir:80 -R 127.0.0.1:8080

Option C: SSH

ssh -p 9090 admin@127.0.0.1

Add to ~/.ssh/config for convenience:

Host mikrotik
    HostName 127.0.0.1
    User admin
    Port 9090
    KexAlgorithms diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256

Then just:

ssh mikrotik

Option D: Winbox via Wine

sudo apt install wine
wine winbox64.exe

References

• AskUbuntu: Port forwarding
• SimpleProxy manpage
• Baeldung: Mapping hostnames/ports
• SuperUser: MikroTik SSH