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Install Mikrotik From Usb Stick

How to obtain and install TrueNAS on physical hardware.

How To Install Mikrotik From Usb. How to install TCL on a USB stick There are two ways how you can do that. Perform full installation If you choose the first method, you can make a USB installation from the installation CD. They will be almost identical. You can boot from it. The Wireless out of band management USB stick (Woobm-USB) is a useful assistant for any network administrator. Simply plug it into any RouterBOARD USB port and it will allow you to access the console of that device over wireless. It sets up as a wireless access point and has a simple web interface where you can access a fully featured terminal. Netinstall is a tool designed for Windows operating systems to reinstall MikroTik devices running RouterOS. Always try using Netinstall if you suspect that your device is not working properly. In short, the Netinstall procedure goes like this: Connect your PC directly to the ETH1 port (Usually Ether1, the port labeled BOOT or as otherwise. MUM Brazil 2008 MikroTik 6 USB Ethernet RouterOS Supports: – Planet 10/100Base- TX USB Ethernet Adapter UE-9500 – Linksys Instant EtherFast 10/100 USB Network Adapter USB100TX See the Device Driver List in the RouterOS.

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Hardware Requirements

The following is a list of minimum hardware requirements to install and run TrueNAS.It is recommended to examine your specific storage and sharing requirements and install TrueNAS on hardware that exceeds these requirements, to best meet your performance needs.

  • RAM: An absolute minimum of 8GB of RAM is required to run TrueNAS.When your system will have more than 8 storage drives, add an additional 1 Gb of RAM for each additional drive.For example, a TrueNAS system that has 12 storage drives will need 12 Gb of RAM, at minimum.

  • Operating system device: The TrueNAS operating system requires 8 GB of space on a device that is separate from the storage disks.It is strongly recommended to use a 16 GB or greater SSD or hard drive for the operating system.Using a USB stick as a boot device is not recommended, because the build quality or device lifetime varies too much to reliably use as the operating system device.

  • Storage disks and controllers: TrueNAS supports hot-pluggable SATA drives when AHCI is enabled in the BIOS.TrueNAS is predominantly tested using Western Digital hard drives.Therefore, we recommend WD Red Plus drives when the system has fewer than 8 storage drives, WD Red Pro drives when the system has 8-16 drives, and WD Ultrastar drives for systems with more than 16 storage drives.Always make sure to use a hard drive with conventional magnetic recording (CMR) techology and avoid drives with shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology for best results with TrueNAS and OpenZFS.A list of supported disk controllers is found in the FreeBSD Hardware Notes.

  • Network Interfaces: The Ethernet section of the FreeBSD Hardware Notes indicates which interfaces are supported by each driver.We recommend using Intel or Chelsio interfaces for best performance.

BIOS Settings for AMD Ryzen processors

If the system that will have TrueNAS installed uses an AMD “Zen” processer, you might want to update your motherboard BIOS or change a few settings before starting the installation process.

Install mikrotik from usb stick flash drive

First Generation Zen Processors

Community members have reported a stability issue on 1st Generation AMD Ryzen processors that does not appear to occur with later generation processors.

Fixes reported by the community are:

  • Updating the motherboard BIOS according to the manufacturer recommendations
  • Disabling CoolNQuiet
  • Disabling C-States in the BIOS

Second Generation Zen+ Processors

Community members have reported a stability issue on 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen “Zen+” processors that does not appear to occur with later generation processors.

Fixes reported by the Community are:

  • Updating the motherboard BIOS according to the manufacturer recommendations
  • Disabling C6 in the BIOS

Preparing the Install Media

The latest STABLE version of TrueNAS CORE can be downloaded from https://www.truenas.com/download-tn-core/.Open the link and click Download Now to save the TrueNAS installer .iso file to your local system.

The TrueNAS installer can be run from a CD or USB stick.The method of writing the installer to a device varies between operating systems.The following sections explain how to write the installer when you have either Windows or a generic Linux operating system installed.

To use the installer with a CD, download your favorite CD burning utility and burn the .iso file to the CD.Then insert the CD into the TrueNAS system and boot from the CD.

Windows

To write the TrueNAS installer to a USB stick on Windows, plug the USB stick into the system and use Rufus to burn the .iso file to the stick.Win32 Image Writer can also burn write the TrueNAS installer, but only when the USB stick does not have a previous TrueNAS installer.

The USB stick will not be recognized by Windows after the TrueNAS installer has been written to it.To reclaim the USB stick after installing TrueNAS, use Rufus to write a “Non bootable” image, then remove and reinsert the USB stick.Alternately, diskpart can be used to clean the USB stick.Be very careful with diskpart, as choosing the wrong disk can result in irretrievable data loss!

Linux

To write the TrueNAS installer to a USB stick on Linux, plug the USB stick into the system and open a terminal.First, make sure the USB stick connection path is correct.There are many ways to do this in Linux.Typeand note the path to the USB stick, shown in the NAME column of lsblk.

Next, use dd to write the installer to the USB stick.Typein the CLI.If this results in a “permission denied” error, use sudo dd with the same parameters and enter your administrator password.Be very careful when using dd, as choosing the wrong “of=” device path can result in irretrievable data loss!

Installing TrueNAS

With the installer added to a device, you can now install TrueNAS onto the desired system.Insert the install media and reboot or boot the system.At the motherboard splash screen, use the hotkey defined by your motherboard manufacturer to boot into the motherboard UEFI/BIOS.

Choose to boot in UEFI mode or legacy CSM/BIOS mode.When installing TrueNAS, make the matching choice for the installation.For Intel chipsets manufactured in 2020 or later, UEFI is likely the only option.

If your system supports SecureBoot, you will need to either disable it or set it to “Other OS” to be able to boot the install media.

Select the install device as the boot drive, exit, and reboot the system.If the USB stick is not shown as a boot option, try a different USB slot.Which slots are available for boot differs by hardware.

After the system has booted into the installer, follow these steps.

Select Fresh Install to do a clean install of the downloaded version of TrueNAS.This will erase the contents of the selected drive!

When the operating system device has enough additional space, you can choose to allocate some space for a swap partition to improve performance.

Enter a password for the root user to log in to the web interface.

After following the steps to install, reboot the system and remove the install media.

Congratulations!TrueNAS is now installed.

The next steps are to either wait for the system to boot and access the web interface or boot the system and configure the console setup menu.

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Last modified October 8, 2020: Change Article Title for Installation (b5870cf6)

Use a USB modem for backup Internet on a Mikrotik router.

Background

I received as SMS from my dad:

Internet out for over 12 hrs. Have you ever set up Mikrotik with 3G modem?

I’d convinced my dad to replace an ageing (and occasionally faulty) router with a Mikrotik device a while back.He had purchased a hAP, and configured it based on my Mikrotik home router article.I’d reviewed what he did and tweaked a few things.And it’s been running quite smoothly since then.But even the best router can’t do much when there’s no Internet to route!

He runs a business from home, and extended Internet downtime is bad.So I referred him to the article I wrote about using an Android device for 4G / LTE Internet access.

Except he was using a 3G USB Modem rather than an Android phone, so it didn’t quite work as nicely as I’d hoped.

Goal

Document and configure my dad’s router to allow him to use a 3G / LTE USB modem as a backup Internet connection if his Optus cable connection fails.(And maybe help a few other people on the Internet as well)!

Unlike my holiday LTE setup, failover will be important: automatic will be preferred, but outages aren’t very frequent, so simple manual steps will be allowed.

Prerequisites

  • A Mikrotik router with USB port,
  • A supported USB 3G / LTE modem (see peripherals and supported hardware)

0. Ensure your USB modem can connect to the Internet

If your modem doesn’t work, it will be a pain to troubleshoot on your router.So double check it connects successfully in a more supported environment (eg: Windows laptop).

Install Mikrotik From Usb Stick Flash Drive

My dad is using a Huawei E1762 USB 3G modem.Which has minimal documentation on the Internet.

1. Plug the USB modem into the router’s USB port

Depending on your router you may need a USB adapter cable.My dad’s hAP has a full size USB port, so he just plugged it in.

2. Check the USB device

Check in System -> Resources -> USB for the modem you just connected.If there’s nothing there, it may not be supported and you’ll need to find an alternative.

3. Create a PPP or LTE Interface

My dad’s modem is a 3G device, so he created a new PPP Client in Interfaces -> New -> PPP Client.You may need to set an APN, username or password (check with your service provider for this information); dad’s using an Optus service so his APN is yesinternet.The Status should change to waiting for packets…, then link established and finally connected.

If you have a newer and faster LTE / 4G modem, an LTE interface should automatically be created.However, you may still need to set an APN, username or password.

You should also set the default route distance to 2.This will force the router to prefer your primary link over the 3G / LTE one.

Install Mikrotik From Usb Drive

At this point we should have a working cellular interface.You can test it by disabling your main Internet interface (eg: Cable / ADSL / Ethernet / whatever) temporarily (remember to turn safe mode on before you accidentally delete it!!).Your Internet should still work and you should see activity on the PPP / LTE interface.

You can use Tools -> Ping to test connectivity from the router itself (eg: to 8.8.8.8).

4. Check your route table

IP -> Routes

You should see two default routes.Your router will prefer the primary connection (ie: cable, ADSL, etc) to the cellular one because it has a smaller distance.

However, both the primary and cellular interfaces will always be “up”, as far as routing is concerned (because the ethernet cable is plugged in).That is, even when your primary interface service does down, the router will keep trying to send traffic over your cable / ADSL / fibre link (even when the packets can’t go anywhere).

To switch over to the cellular backup interface, you should disable your primary interface.(And remember to re-enable it when it’s working again, of course).

This is a slightly manual process.However, if your primary interface is very reliable and you don’t really mind a few minutes down time while someone notices the Internet has dropped, logs into your router and clicks disable, then it is perfectly functional.(My dad prefers this approach, because cellular data is an order of magnitude more expensive in Australia, and he wants to know when he’s switched over to 3G).

5. Configure routing for failover

But we can automate the switch from primary to backup interface (and back again) using a few simple routing rules.Be warned: this assumes a particular IP address as the default gateway; it is not picking it up automatically from DHCP.

We need to set the Check Gateway option to ping, so the router can detect when a link has gone down.Unfortunately, the default route created from DHCP does not let us do that - all fields are read only.

So, make a copy the default route.Set Check Gateway to ping.And then disable this route.

Next, hop over to IP -> DHCP Client and set Add Default Route to no.Your primary interface’s dynamic default route will disappear.

Back to the route table and enable the manual default route.Now should now have 2 routes to the Internet: primary via cable / ADSL / whatever, and secondary via 3G / LTE.

Install Mikrotik From Usb Stick Adapter

My dad simulated an Internet failure by turning off his cable modem (but not removing the ethernet cable).The router sees the ethernet port as still connected, but it can’t actually reach the Internet.It takes about 30 seconds for the router to notice and switch to routing over the backup 3G interface.After plugging the cable back in, it took another 30 seconds to switch back to the primary cable interface (mostly the cable modem sorting itself out).

Important: All this assumes your Internet gateway does not change. That is, we just hard coded a default gateway into your router.In other words, if your gateway ever changes your Internet will break and you’ll probably forget to check the route table.You should only do this if you have a static IP address, and even then be very wary.

Routing References

We’ve followed the simple failover configuration, but if you have more complex requirements or more than 2 WAN links, you may want to consider a more advanced failover configuration.And a forum post with further failover information.

Conclusion

Install Mikrotik From Usb Stick On

You can now have your Mikrotik router configured with a backup WAN interface using a 3G or LTE USB modem.And some very simple routing rules to switch to the backup link if the primary fails.(Or, you can just disable the primary interface).