router os reference manual is enough?

Generally speaking... NO

Start with reading (until you understand them) every single RFC you can find regarding IP, TCP, UDP, routing, RIP 1 & 2, OSPF, VRRP, BGP etc etc... and while reading, try to build and test it in real life....

The RFCs ARE the holy grail when it comes to IP based standards, no matter what someone tells you "we do industry standard so we are right" (read M$).... if they do not follow the RFCs you will get interoperability problems! You will still have problems even if they claim to follow the RFCs but if you understand them and now how to track/trace against the RFCs you will be able to hit your supplier over the head with real hard facts when they aren't doing things properly!

Then go ahead with basic, intermediate and expert courses in Cisco.. same here, build and test while reading. I'm not saying Cisco is the best thing since sliced bread but there's a lot of them out there so chances are you will run into them...

Then move onto something more obscure... MS RRAS and ISA! By now you should be fairly well versed in IP and routing and tunnels so this shouldn't be so hard... except for MS way of doing IPSEC which plainly sucks!

After that you should be able to tackle any route/IP/network problem out there... apart from some hardware related but that is a completely different issue

Basically... you need to understand the bits and bolts that builds up an IP packet, a RIP route packet, the route tables, DHCP configs etc etc before you can really USE anyones routers properly.

Lot's of people skip the basic understanding and then start raving about hardware/software that isn't working properly while the original problem lies in bad configuration due to "lack of knowledge" and/ or "will to learn"

If you want to focus on MTs then a very sweet way of simulating large, complex systems is to use vmware to install many routers in a single box... search this site for my posts on a topic labeled "policy-based routing" where I've shown a testbed I built with 6 MTs inside my normal PC!

Anyway, I'll step of the soap-box now

Best regards

/Jörgen

IMHO you can read as much as you like, and still be completely clueless Experience, experience, and more experience... That's 99% of everything that counts for me...

Yes, experience is necessary... that's why I have added the "build and test" instructions

However if you do not have an understanding of WHY a netmask looks like it does or WHAT a port number is etc etc then you will never gain any experience no matter how much to work with the stuff.... that's when we see configurations with two (or more) default gateways pointing two different ways or (my favorite hate object) MS RRAS used as VPN concentrator on a machine with Active Directory installed!

No matter how many times you explain how fundamentaly wrong an idea is they still do it over and over, just because it can be done so it must be ok... "otherwise the wizard shouldn't allowe me to configure like this"!

Trying to gain experience by hands-on tasks without knowing what you are doing is like telling someone that they can learn to be an electrician by rewiring their house... with no prior knowledge!

/Jörgen

also I suggest to visit at least ONE Mikrotik training or MUM, it will help a LOT

Butch Evans and WISP-Router also put on a very good MT training seminar.

Also, RFCs are dry and very boring. While if you know the RFC, you will truely know exactly how something is supposed to work, but reading the RFCs will probably make you wish you never wanted to know anything. You can more than likely get what you need to know from the various certification courses. I took Cisco's and while I don't plan on doing a lot of Cisco work, it taught all of the basics quite well. Once you know how to work one router, they're all pretty much about the same.

thanks

oh yeah, and: http://training.mikrotik.com