Basic Mikrotik Configuration with PPPoE Server

To begin with, we need to set up the Mikrotik with an IP address. All Mikrotik routerboards have a serial port attached to them. Attach a serial cable from your PC to the Board, and open the widows program Hyperterminal. The name is irrelevant, so you may type whatever you’d like, and click “ok”

Next, be sure to select COM1 as the used port and click “Ok”

Next thing is configure the baud rate for the terminal. The Bits per second should be set to 9600, and the Flow control set to none. Click “Apply” and “Ok”

You may now plug power into your unit and you should be able to see the unit booting up, and eventually you find yourself at a login screen as above. The Login User name is “admin” and the password is left blank.

You will now be in the command interface of the Mikrotik Router. What we are going to do now, is give the router’s Ethernet port an IP address. You will only need to give one interface an IP address here, as the others can be configured later in a much easier fashion. Type “setup” and push enter.

Push “a”

Press “a” again

Type “ether1” to assign an IP address to that interface.

Next, assign an IP address of 192.168.1.1 and a Subnet of /24

Press “x”

Press “x” again and let the changes take place.

Now you may open your Internet Explorer and browse to the IP address of the Router (192.168.1.1) and you will be taken to the above screen. Under the Winbox section, click “Download it” and save the Winbox utility to your desktop. After you have saved the utility, close Internet Explorer.

Open the Winbox utility and type in the related address and user name. Click “Connect” This will open Winbox and allow you to configure the Router.

You should now be in the Winbox utility. The first thing we are going to do is configure our WLAN (wireless card) to be an access point, so as to allow clients to connect to the Router.

Step 1 is to enable the card. To do this, select wlan1 and click the blue tick at the top of the interface list. Now the card is enabled, we need to access it. To do this, double click wlan1.

You should now see a wlan configuration window. Click the “wireless” tab.

The first thing to do in this window is set the “Mode” to “ap bridge”, as this tells the Router that wlan1 is an Access Point. Next, set the band to which frequency you will be using and set the SSID to a name of your choice. For this document, I will leave the SSID as MikroTik. Click “Apply” and “Ok”

Close the Interfaces window. Now that we have set up the wireless card as an Access Point, we need to give it an IP address. In the menu on the left, click “IP” and “Addresses”. Here you will see out previously configured address for the Ether1 port. Click the + icon to add a new address.

In the Address field, type 192.168.2.1/24 and in the Interface box, select “wlan1”. Click “Apply” and “Ok”

Your wlan card/Access Point now has an IP address. Please note that each interface on a Mikrotik Router has to have an IP address on a different range in order for the Router to work properly. Now we have an access point set up with a configured Ethernet port, we need to have some sort of connection to the internet. To accomplish this, we need to set up a basic form of routing.

The first thing we need to do is set up a default gateway for the internet. Let’s assume there is an ADSL Modem connected to ether1, and the modems IP address is 192.168.1.2 we will need to add a default route (gateway) to this IP address. Click “IP” and “Routes” and click the + to add a new route.

Leave the “Destination” as 0.0.0.0/0 and change the “Gateway” to the IP address of the ADSL Modem (192.168.1.2). Click “Apply” and “Ok” Now we have a default gateway to the internet, we can set up a PPPoE Server. First of all we will discuss exactly what a PPPoE connection is. You may have dealt with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) at some stage and have had to have a User name, and a Password to access their service. This exact setup is a PPPoE connection. In other words, instead of configuring client IP addresses and Gateways etc, all you have to do is type in your user name and password, and it all gets done for you. Services such as ADSL and Sentech make use of this utility because, as you can imagine, it becomes a lot easier to manage client accounts via a user name and password than static IP addresses. Another feature of the PPPoE feature, especially in regard to Mikrotik, is bandwidth management. You can limit users’ download speeds and monitor their activity on the internet while connected.

Click the “PPP” button on the left hand menu to open up the PPP configuration window.

Next, in the center of this window, there is a “PPPoE Server” button which you need to click. This will bring up the PPPoE server list. Click the + icon to add a new PPPoE sever.

Set the “Service Name” to a name of your choice or leave it blank. For this document I shall call it “Mikrotik”. Next set the interface you would like to use. Due to our clients accessing the router via wireless, set the interface to wlan1. The last setting is the “Authentication”, this should be set to “pap” only. Click “Apply” and “Ok” The next thing we are going to configure is an IP Pool. An IP Pool is a pool of IP addresses that the Router is allowed to give to clients once they have dialed up to the Mikrotik. In simpler terms, it very much like a DHCP server.

In the left hand menu, click “IP” and then “Pool” and click the + icon to add a new Pool.

Give the Pool a name of your choice. Then add the IP range that the Mikrotik Router is allowed to distribute to clients. The range given here is 192.168.2.10-192.168.2.200 Click “Apply” and “Ok”

Go back to the PPP configuration window and go to Profiles. This is where we add a bandwidth management profile and limit certain clients on their speed. Click the + icon to add a new profile.

In the “General” tab of the New PPP Profile, name the profile according to the speed limit that you would like to set. For this document I have named it “64KB” The “Local Address” and “Remote Address” fields will have pool1 selected (The IP Pool we created earlier). Next click the “Limits” tab.

In the “Limits” tab, we will limit the actual bandwidth to 64KB by typing 64000 in the “Rate Limit” field. This stands for 64000 bits (64KB). Click “Apply” and “Ok”

Next, go to the “Secrets” tab and click the + icon to add a new user.

Add the user name and password according to your specifications. Set the “Service” to use “PPPoE” and in the “Profile” box, select our newly created 64KB profile. Click “Apply” and “Ok” That is the PPPoE server set up and ready to go. What needs to be configured now, is the client side of the network. We need to create a PPPoE dial up account on the client computer.

On your desktop in Windows XP, right click on “My Network Places” and go to “Properties”

Next, click on “Create a new connection” in the left hand window.

Click “Next”

Select “Connect to the Internet” and click “Next”

Select “Set up my connection manually” and click “Next”

Select “Connect using a broadband connection” and click “Next”

Enter a name for the connection e.g., Mikrotik and click “Next”

Enter in your user name and password according to the account you created in Mikrotik, and click “Next” then click “Finish”

You can now connect to the Mikrotik router and the internet via your user name and password, and the connection will be limited to 64KB.