Hello!

Just to share with you my experience with trying to install and run RouterOS on ESXi 4:

When choosing "Linux" as OS, RouterOS was booting from the CD image but during the installation couldn't find a HDD to be installed on. Actually it was not finding the the (SCSI) HDD controller because RouterOS can only recognize an IDE controller!
I messed around a bit trying to figure out on how to add the appropriate driver but it didn't seem to be a straightforward way to do it (it might not even be possible).

Then, I though of not choosing Linux as the guest OS but instead, to choose an OS that would not support SCSI out-of-the-box, an OS like Windows 3.1 or Windows 98.

BINGO!

The HDD was presented to the guest as been an IDE drive and the RouterOS installed successfully.

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I then came across another very strange problem that had to do with the NICs.
Although I could see the RouterOS host from winbox (running in another virtual host) using Layer 2, and I could proceed with configuration, I couldn't have Layer 3 communication.
Attempting to ping the RouterOS host from a host on the same (virtual) network, I was not getting a reply although I was getting a proper ARP entry on the host I was pinging from. Strange...
I found a work-around though, by performing a disconnect-connect on the NICs (from the Virtual Infrastructure Client by editing the (running) virtual host), then network was working flawlessly! Odd but nevertheless it works!

Greetings!

thank you for sharing your findings

Someone is already using in production on ESXi 4?

nobody ?

I had test it.

When I setup a MT in DELL R200 server, it fail for the SATA DVDROM can not be supported by MT 3.3.

Then I installed the ESX 4.0.

You can choose the SATA HD in the VM configuration page.

Then upload the ISO to VMware ESX 4 storage(Local HD).

Build up a new VM use inside ISO file.

The Nic mode all work normal in the ESX 4.

I do hope MT can support SATA CDROM/DVDROM to fix the issue.

I was able to get the router to work under VMWare ESX 4.0

RouterOS does not support SCSI controllers, which the is default for VMs under ESX.

It's rather easy to get around this limitation.
I setup the VM as Other Linux 2.6 32 bit, based on the RoterOS documentation which states that is uses Linux Kernel 2.6 (I'm pretty sure other OSs would work as well).

After creating the VM, add a virtual disk and specify the IDE controller instead of the SCSI controller.

The rest is history. It should work like a charm.

We've been running an instance of ROS 4.x as an ESX 4 VM guest for several months now on a Dell R200.

Our implementation handles multiple VPN's and an instance of the Dude package.

However, we have seen very frustrating results from the VM itself - and have had to limit it's CPU and Memory allocations (as the VM would take up every bit of the resources we gave it, regardless of the amount). No change in performance despite the difference in allocated resources (running at 2GHz w/ 2Gb of RAM, for example, runs exactly the same as 400MHz w/ 512Mb of RAM.... and the VM takes up 100% of both at all times.)

We've been hesitant to set up any other instances (which we had originally planned) because of this resource-hogging issue.

Obviously, there is no way to install any of the VMWare tools within the VM, so it cannot leverage any kernel-level optimizations.

100% CPU? and what usage does RouterOS show?..

Installed it last weekend. (Ver 4.6)

ESXi (Latest release 4.1? I think ???)

Platform = Dell 2900, 2X Dual Core, HT = ON, (8 Logical Cores) 8GB Ram, 5X 72G SAS, 2X 160 SATA (Raid0)

VMs:
1) 2K8 32Bit AD,DNS
2) 2K8(R2) SQL 2008
3) ROS 4.6
4) 2K8(R2) Exchange 2010
5) 2K8 32Bit Web server.

Yes the "Other Linux" with IDE is the way to go..
I installed it via NetInstall loaded up fine...

Set up the interface on the VM as E1000 and applied an IP Etc...

Ping to everywere ok.. Winbox ok..

I havent tried it, but I want to play with "Wrapping it arround" some of the other VMs..
IE: Use it as the entry point to the VM network structure..

1) Create seporate VMWare switches and place the RouterOS interface and a VM on each switch. then one more switch to present to the "outside world"... then place that all behind my 433UAH to protect the VM host..

Makes my brain hurt !!
Sounds like FUN !!!

if you are placing router before the server - why would you add one more virtual device in between and vice versa? IMHO that would be overkill for production environment, Ok for testing purposes thought.

Yeh just screwing arround...

Tho it does add some security..
IE Web server can ONLY see the SQL port on the database server, NOT the file system Etc...

We use something simialr at work for one of our servres that uses ISAM files (I DID NOT DO IT !!! ) we allow term services, but block all else, and the users dont have access to the file system via the application they are locked into..

it makes sense to up router before server and in firewall drop everything else, but allowed services, thus, protecting server.

It works very well in my VMware server, I've set up a complete network with servers, switches, VLANs and routers. Great software solution, you'll only need a server with one network interface and a VLAN aware switch. What I would like to see now, is a VMware tools package. Here is the GPL source code.


http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/data ... pen_source

http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/

discovery huh?
this might come in handy if i had Linux OS.
But I'll keep that in mind just in case

Have you done any performance testing with this?

I have 2 identical R310's, 4 core, 4GB Ram, 2 on board nics and 2x 2GB PCIe NICs.

Loaded up an identical config on both, with the aim to bond the 2 PCIe NIC interfaces then speed test between the two units..

I tested the performance on a single interface between the two units, 419.5Mbps average (receive). Not impressed with the overhead ESXi puts on the network.

Unfortunately ROS won't see the RAID card in the machines so I've had to go down the VM route. I need 4GBps throughput!!

Any suggestions, experiences?

Have you done any performance testing with this?

I have 2 identical R310's, 4 core, 4GB Ram, 2 on board nics and 2x 2GB PCIe NICs.

Loaded up an identical config on both, with the aim to bond the 2 PCIe NIC interfaces then speed test between the two units..

I tested the performance on a single interface between the two units, 419.5Mbps average (receive). Not impressed with the overhead ESXi puts on the network.

Unfortunately ROS won't see the RAID card in the machines so I've had to go down the VM route. I need 4GBps throughput!!

Any suggestions, experiences?

I run multiple VMs with ROS on Dell servers, HP servers and noname servers since ESXi 4.1 and now on ESXi 5.
The performance is as if the ROS is running natively on hardware.
In general ESXi's network overhead is minimal IMO. I haven't had any network issues neither with ROS or any other OS running on ESXi.

I've done bandwidth tests and get 900-950mbits in/out with no sweating.

The configuration is pretty much the defaults with the exception of adding an IDE virtual disk for ROS to install onto.
Other than that no special configuration was done on the ESXi.


I haven't tried bonding multiple interfaces to achieve speeds over 1gbit to be honest.
Maybe you could try ESXi's bonding options instead of Mikrotik?
I believe ESXi's implementation is 'heavy duty' so it might work better, plus it's some layers below the layer of the VM's networking stack.

Hello,
I use RouterOS guest inside ESXi 4/5 servers. The goal is firewalling for VM network and EoIP bridging between diffirent ESXi machines to give VMs single transparent network to talk each other.
Used it already over one year on ROS 5.x, but all this time have two annoying problems:

1. RouterOS with multiple CPUs take 100% CPU and stop responding.
This happens approximately one time per week, the solution is: give VM one one core, AND turn off the option System->RouterBoard->Hardware->CPU->Multiple CPUs option. RouterOS with single CPU and turned on option still stuck sometimes.
Multiple CPU not really necessary, but problem still here.

2. Problem with bridge inside RouterOS VM.
I found, when i reconfigure some global options of Distributed Virtual Switch, for example turn on/off Cisco Discovery Protocol, the bridge interface inside RouterOS stop forward packets. The solution is: disable/enable bridge interface.
Sometimes this happens without touching DVSwitch.

Im using workarounds already, but maby somebody know how to prevent the source of this bugs?

Have you done any performance testing with this?

I haven't tried bonding multiple interfaces to achieve speeds over 1gbit to be honest.
Maybe you could try ESXi's bonding options instead of Mikrotik?
I believe ESXi's implementation is 'heavy duty' so it might work better, plus it's some layers below the layer of the VM's networking stack.

RouterOS support LACP (802.3ad) implementation for load balancing but ESXi not(at least now).
Many low/medium level switches, DLink for example, have only 802.3ad, so RouterOS can solve the problem.

Many low/medium level switches, DLink for example, have only 802.3ad

btw, D-Link switches support static LAG, so no need for 802.3ad. moreover, 802.3ad has longer init time compared to static groups, so we don't use LACP

Hi guys
i am using RouterOS in esxi 4,5 for many years.
i am haven't any problem and their will be work very well...
thank you mikrotik