Re: OT: anybody uses eero 6 WiFi router?
On 14.01.2022 19:02, Anssi Saari wrote:
"Alexander V. Makartsev" <avbetev@gmail.com> writes:
If I was in the market for the router for myself, I'd always choose
one from MikroTik¹.
They all have no-nonsence hardware and software design...
I can't agree with the software part. Or I guess no-nonsense can be
agreed but I just find their web config interface messy,
counter-intuitive and poorly documented.
It is probably because nobody needs or uses it. WinBox and CLI-over-SSH
are the way to go.
Cisco devices don't have very comfortable Web-GUI either and I can't
really imagine a web interface that
will be able to manage these kind of devices with this level of
complexity and look fancy and be secure at the same time.
Same goes for their proprietary
CLI. And they provide their own awful script language too.
I'll choose RouterOS CLI over IOS CLI any time of a day. It's really a
matter of personal preference.
Tab-completion\suggestion of ROS CLI really helps to get around and do
the job.
I also think, any CLI is made for scripting first and manual management
second.
I do use it on occasion when I inevitably screw something up.
Mikrotik's HW seems fine and they have a reputation for reliability
although my hEX S runs rather hot.
The only downside I can think of is somewhat advanced configuration
could be difficult for somebody, but with help from official forum and
wiki² quite manageable and as a bonus I'll learn a lot about
networking, routing.
That downside is huge. The thing is, I already know a lot about
networking and routing. What I don't know is all the Mikrotik
proprietary stuff or "the Mikrotik way". And since it all seems kind of
ass-backwards I don't particularly want to learn.
I couldn't find any "the Mikrotik way" things. Proprietary probably, but
I think it is just a Linux (BSD?) kernel, that was
highly optimized performance-wise for variety of different architectures.
When I think about it all I see is just interfaces of different kind¹,
L2 and L3 packet filter² and various tools to watch, debug and monitor
traffic.
Anything you'd find in there will have an existing RFC and all of it
build up on the same algorithms you find in Linux.
For sure, most router makers seem to think they have to add a fat
proprietary layer of crap on top of Linux. I have recent experience from
a Draytek router but at least their web interface was easily understood
even if things were placed strangely and some things were just odd. Too
bad the router didn't actually work reliably enough so I RMAd it and got
the Mikrotik.
Once again, a matter of preference. I guess some people just want a
fancy GUI dashboard to look at.
MikroTik is like C. It's low-level, really fast and powerful, but you
have to know how to use it. :)
Anyways, as soon as I have some free time I'll be setting up my PC
Engines APU2 board with Debian Linux to act as my router.
I will be delighted to see a screen shot of a web interface you made for it.
I also yet to see an SMB-grade feature-wise router for the price of a
SOHO-grade one.
¹ Bridges, VLANs, Bonding, PPP, etc, configured in the same way you
would do it on Linux, but without cryptic config lines,
where you have to verify every word you type with a man page,
sometimes more than once.
² Judging by the way it looks and works is probably a carbon copy of
iptables+ebtables with existing extensions.
--
With kindest regards, Alexander.
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