I have to decide between 2 Routers, the RB1200 and the RB1100.

The RB1100 range has an "Ethernet Bypass Mode" which sounds intriguing....

In the device's manual it states the following:

Bypass mode is used to cross-connect the two RJ45 connectors (Ether11 and Ether12) electrically thus creating
an extended Layer 1 network. Traffic present on either network (Internal or External) is seen on the other
network immediately.
If the router would stop working for some reason, the ports would be connected together as if there would be
no router in between. You could configure your network to allow this, and in case of hardware failure, the
communications would still work, as if the (broken) router wouldn't exist there.

Sorry for sounding like a total noob, but I don't quite understand this? Can someone rephrase it or explain it in plainer more practical terms?

My questions:
1. Does the bypass switch simply connect eth11&12 as if they had a cable that linked them?
2. In what kind of setup would one typically require this bypass functionality?
3. Can this functionality possibly enable me to implement a type of automatic failover for the router? E.g, failover to RB750 if the RB1100 goes offline...
4. or, will the failover always have to be a manual action of switching on/off the bypass switch?
5. Any example diagrams/implementations that anyone could provide to better explain this functionality?

Thank you in advance!

1. Yep
2. We´re using them as transparent QOS-System; Therefore we´re able to bypass the box in case something goes wrong...
3. No
4. Yep
5. I could; But simply said our 1100s is tranparent between our Network and the Customer Net. So switching to bypass simply disables QOS

Hope that helps.

just some commends:

you have to manually select if by-pass mode is enabled or disabled by switching the switch, when that is done, depending on setting set by manual switch - when router is not working (eg. you unplug the power) bypass mode will kick in for these ports and data will pass through the device as if it was not there.

yes, in case of problems, you don't have to flip the switch! this was interpreted incorrectly by poli5681. switch simply decides whether you will want to use this feature or not.

Ok i am a little confused. We just bought a RB1100AH and my questions are:

Which ports would be best to connect the ISP lines (we have 2 lines) ports 12 and 13? And on port 11 to have a cable to a backup router? Since ports 1->5 are switch group one and 6-10 are switch group.

What i still don't understand is if the bypas switch is turned on and the router is powered on and configured and all will it work with that bypass switch on without a problem and in case the router fails or the power to this router goes down the backup router will kick in bypasing ISP line 1 from port 12 to the backup routers interface or we manually have to switch from normal to bypass?

traffic will go through and you do not have to change any setting if bypass switch is on. as that is the reason why that feature is introduced.

traffic will go through and you do not have to change any setting if bypass switch is on. as that is the reason why that feature is introduced.

just to clarify, this mean, if the unit is faulty, the cable connect to that 2 bypass port just look like join together?

yes, in case of problems, you don't have to flip the switch! this was interpreted incorrectly by poli5681. switch simply decides whether you will want to use this feature or not.

will the bypass activate in the following situations:

1) power outage?
2) router freezes?
3) during reboot?

thank you.

You can take a look at this:
http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=106092

AFAIK, it only gets activated on power failure. Unfortunately it does not when it freezes, not even after soft shutdown! During boot and reboot, you can hear the relays clicking "open"-"close" during the first few seconds