How to install Mikrotik In PC / Virtual Enviroment

You can install Mikrotik on regular PC but a dedicated Mikrotik Router Boards are available to install You can get various Router Boards on the official websitehttp://www.routerboard.com/ So, before install Mikrotik on Real hardware, I want to explore on   Virtual environment. I will use Virtual Box but you can use VMware   Workstation on Windows or Linux Systems. According to the Mikrotik, basic requirements are IA32 Hardware requirements

• CPU and motherboard – advanced 4th generation (core   frequency 100MHz or more), 5th generation (Intel Pentium, Cyrix 6X86,   AMD K5 or comparable) or newer uniprocessor (multi-processor systems  are  not supported) Intel IA-32 (i386) compatible architecture with PCI   local bus
• RAM – minimum 32 MiB, maximum 1 GiB; 64 MiB or more recommended
• Non-volatile storage medium – standard ATA/IDE   interface controller and drive (SCSI and USB controllers and drives are   not supported; RAID controllers that require additional drivers are not   supported; SATA is only supported in legacy access mode) with minimum  of  64 Mb space; Flash and Microdrive devices may be connected using an   adapted with ATA interface.

Step 1: Create a Virtual Machine

• Open Virtual Box & Click on New

• Click on Next
• Enter name of Virtual OS (as you wish) & select operating system type ( choose Linux – Other linux)
• Enter amount of RAM (64 MB is sufficient for Demo, you can increase it to 2GB)
• Click on Next( No need to change the values)
• Finally click on create

Finally We have created  a Virtual Machine of Mikrotik Now step 2: Install MikrotikNote: Before start Machine go to  Settings-> Network -> Select  Network Adapter (If you have working  interface LAN / WLAN then you can  choose Bridge if you don’t have then  Select host only)

• Start the Virtual Machine in Virtual Box Home.
• Follow the Wizard & click on next
• Select installation media (Physical Disk / ISO file) You can download ISO image from Mikrotik official website
• Finally click on start

• Select packages & press i to install & follow instructions
• It will format the HDD & automatically install the Mikrotik.

Congratulations you have installed Mikrotik but before enter to reboot remove the Media or ISO image. Now you can access OS by the console, but if you are not familiar   with  CLI then you can use Mikrotik Graphical tool named Winbox. You can Download it from official Mikrotik Site (Download Section) but there is problem, OS doesn’t have any ip so you can access by the MAC.

• Run the Win box & click on marked button

• It is prompting you to 2 connection, just click on MAC Address
• Enter user name : admin & Password : Block
• Connect

If you getting any problem then you can assign IP Address to the OS or want to connect Winbox by the IP

• Go to Virtual Machine Console
• Enter User name : admin & Password is blank so enter
• First of all check the interfaces

[admin@Mikrotik]>interface print It will show ether1 as interface, now assign IP Address to interface

[admin@Mikrotik]>ip address add address=192.168.1.50/24 interface=ether1 (* If you are using bridge interface  and you physical interface in  the 192.168.1.0/24 network then you can  assign this ip. If you selected  Host-only Interface then assign  192.168.56.101/24 as IP because in the  Virtaulbox host-Only adapters  works in this network.) Now again as well as last connect the Winbox by the IP address This is Winbox GUI Interface.   Congratulations you have installed & access the Fresh Mikrotik OS.