Configuration Step-by-Step

Create an account in Vultr

• Vultr website:
• Register a new account

• Check your mailbox and confirm your email address to activate your account.
• Complete your profile, enter your CC information and fill up your billing address.
• From the left side menu bar click on the product button.

• Under Instances, find a plus button and click to create a new instance.

• Deploy a new instance and choose “Cloud Compute” option

• Find a location where you want to host your service
• For the-dude monitoring and notification service, it’s recommended to create more than one instance in different locations to monitor your customer’s services more efficiently. 
• For Usermanager/Radius-server it is recommended to host the RouterOS in a location with the shortest route path to your colocation. 
• For VPN service depends on the number of your customers and distribution it is recommended to have multiple instances close to each group of the customer to reduce latency and security risk.
• For cloud-based CAPsMAN the shortest route-path is the best. Redundancy is always important, make sure to create more than one instance for your CAPsMAN
• Hotspot controller is one of the most popular RouterOS services. Depending on the number of Routers and simultaneously registered customer you need to choose enough resources for your instance. A redundant instance is recommended. 
• We are going to use Vultr to install MikroTik RouterOS to use the-dude monitoring and notification package used to monitor our core and business customers.

• MikroTik RouterOS are available for x.86 CPU architecture in .iso format and Cloud-Hosted-Router in VHDX/VMDK/VDI/OVA/RAW formats. To install MikroTik RouterOS on Vultr instance we could use the RouterOS for x.86 architecture. So, the server-type we should choose to create our instance should be from ISO Library. 

• Make sure to choose SystemRescueCD as Server-Type

• For the-dude, we don’t need anything more than 25GB SSD. You could always upgrade your service if required. 

• It is important to backup your server, and IPv6 is a good option if you are using IPv6 in your network infrastructure. 

• Press the “Deploy Now” button and wait for the installation to be done.

The server is ready, a public IPv4 address has been assigned to your instance and it’s ready to go to the RouterOS installation process.   

• Click on three dots and  choose “View Console” option:

Install RouterOS

To install MikroTik RouterOS in the below URL, scroll down on the “Cloud Hosted Router” section and find “Raw disk image” for either long-term or the stable version. Right-click and copy the download URL.

• From the below URL copy the link location for "MikroTik RouterOS CHR, Raw Disk imge"

https://mikrotik.com/download

• Open a text editor and paste the URL for safekeeping.
• Click on "View Console" under the three-dots and press enter to "Boot SystemRescuedCd using default options"

• Use the wget command to retrieve the URL link you pasted in your text editor by typing it inside of the *View Console" window.

wget https://download2.mikrotik.com/routeros/x.xx.x/chr-x.xx.x.img.zip

• Use the unzip command to extract the raw disk image.

• Use the dd command to write the raw disk image to the Vultr virtual disk.

dd if=chr-x.xx.x.img.img of=/dev/vda

• Under the Settings, Custom ISO section of your server instance, click the Remove ISO option. Your server will be rebooted.

Choose "Server Details"

From top-menu-->Settings

Wait for the server to reboot

Your RouterOS is ready now

Type “n” and create a new login password for the new RouterOS as quickly as possible and delete the default admin user.

/user add name=username password=strong=pass group=full

/user print

/user remove 0

Activate MikroTik RouterOS License

Download the latest winbox software from the below URL; 

https://mikrotik.com/download

Connect To: Your Vultr instance IP address
Login: Username
Password: P@55w0rd

Activate RouterOS license

By default, the new RouterOS comes with a free RouterOS license and you have to activate the license. 

To activate the RouterOS you need to have an account with MikroTik.com

Activate RouterOS license

Login to your MikroTik account and find "All CHR keys" from the left menu bar.

You should be able to find the RouterOS software ID here.

Don't forget to write a note for the Software key and Upgrade the RouterOS.

Note: to use the-dude deature and be able to enable the service you must activate the license to P1, P10, or Pn

Configure the-dude step-by-step

From System-->Packages make sure the-dude package is installed

If you could not find the-dude package you should install it manually.

You need to download the-dude package for the same CPU architecture and the same RouterOS version

From the below URL find "The Dude server" package under "Cloud Hosted Router" section

https://mikrotik.com/download

When the-dude-server download finished, drag and drop the package into your router.

Now you need to reboot your router from /system → reboot for the-dude package installation to be done.

Enable The-Dude Service

• To enable the-dude service you need to open New-Terminal and type: 

[admin@MikroTik] > /dude set enabled=yes

• Connect to the-dude server using dude-client

Note: Dude-client is a windows based software.

• Download dude-client from the below URL and make sure it’s the same version as the-dude-server version and install it on your windows PC. 

https://mikrotik.com/download

Note: Dude-Client uses the same port/protocol/username/password winbox use. 

The-dude service is ready to use.