In most Routers/Firewalls/HotSpots I have used, there is some very simple & consistent method of giving a friendly/memorable name to a client, which is used throughout the interface. Usually it works by treating the 'Hostname' field as a multi-purpose field that would contain in the worst case a Mac Address (if the client does not set a host name), otherwise the HostName , but where the field contents can be overwritten with a friendly name identifying the host in a language I understand a little better than hexadecimal...

As a RouterOS newbie I really struggle with the lack of a consistent approach to this - for example in DHCP Server I can add a 'Comment' to give a friendly name to a client, but that comment remains local to only the DHCP window - if I navigte to 'Kid Control' I lose my DHCP assigned comment, but here, (in Kid Control) instead of 'Active Hostname' I have 'Name' - and here I can override that name into a friendly name (which will not appear anywhere else in RouterOS...)

If I open My Mikrotik Home app and navigate to 'Clients', I see a MAC address if the client did not supply a Hostname - and again here I need to navigate to 'Edit device Details', and rename the device with my friendly name...

Open Dude Server... Here we go again - no friendly name, and another need to rename the client.

...and so on... I actually found myself writing down MAC addresses with a pen and paper... and I can barely read my own writing...

If RouterOS can't be consistent about this, at least it would be helpful if 'DCHP Client Comment' could be 'Global' - and an available column anywhere I see the MAC address assoicated with that client, seen EVERYWHERE in all RouterOS windows, apps etc.

Your DNS server is responsible for providing that name, I would think ?
IP / DNS / Static would be the place to look IF your router is also acting as your DNS server.

DNS only applies to IP, there is no equivalent database/mapping for name to MAC address.

The hostname which appears in the DHCP server leases list is provided by the client in the DHCP request, so may be anything and is not guaranteed to be unique.

With iOS15 came the Private Wi-Fi Address feature that uses different MAC-address for every Wi-Fi network, AND also doesn't send device's name to DHCP-server anymore. So. it's much harder now to keep eye on new devices in DHCP-Server -> Leases. And if you switch off Private Wi-Fi Address feature in Settings -> Wi-Fi -> networkname (to see device's name again in DHCP-server), then this network will have a text "Privacy Warning" under the network's name in Wi-Fi netoworks list. User won't like it and will switchi Private Wi-Fi Address on again.

Thanks, but none of those responses really get close to the core issue. This is a home network but with many (60+) Devices. All mobile devices have been set to use hardware MAC, and all devices have Static DCHP Leases. I have even gone one step further, with a script that sends me an Email every time an unknown device receives an IP Address: (DHCP Server -> DHCP -> Scripts) ...so I have very good control over what is on my network, and I have added a 'Comment' identifying each device - but the only place I can make use of that comment is on the 'DHCP Server' -> 'Leases' Tab. Anywhere else, and I am back to the lottery of IP Addresses, MAC Addresses, & Host Names (if the device was kind enough to provide a host name) I have no way to reliably see the clients with a 'friendly name' across the entire Mikrotik experience. There are different methods per app and per window to 'name' a client - and none of those methods are consistently used across the various interfaces.

Compare that for example to my TP Link Omada Controller - I simply click 'Name' (A name which has been derived from the client Host Name if supplied, or the MAC Address) then rename it to whatever I want. Now that friendly name is seen wherever I see that client across the entire interface, alongside MAC Address and IP Address.

I do not believe there is currently any RouterOS equivalent method of giving a client a 'friendly name' that is used globally across all windows and apps.

Thanks, but none of those responses really get close to the core issue. This is a home network but with many (60+) Devices. All mobile devices have been set to use hardware MAC, and all devices have Static DCHP Leases. I have even gone one step further, with a script that sends me an Email every time an unknown device receives an IP Address: (DHCP Server -> DHCP -> Scripts)

I do not believe there is currently any RouterOS equivalent method of giving a client a 'friendly name' that is used globally across all windows and apps.

I'd imagine not, but several workarounds.

Since you have static DHCP lease entries, you can use the "address-list" option as the unique name field. It populate IP>Firewall>Address List with the same with IP address (but no MAC there)., but you'd have at least a list of names (and then use those names in firewall rules to restrict to the user level using a friendly name). The "Address List" can be used as column in winbox to proximate a name. Only side-effect is you have a few unused Address Lists in IP>Firewall>AddressLists.

Alternatively you could try new User Manager in V7 at somepoint, and then use RADIUS to auth your users. A bit overkill for a typical home, but your whitelisting your clients already, 60 devices, etc... That give you even more ability to set a "name", and likely add another measure of control.

DNS only applies to IP, there is no equivalent database/mapping for name to MAC address.

This is what I am looking for - a global 'MAC address --> friendly name' label that can be seen wherever that MAC Address is displayed.

Since you have static DHCP lease entries, you can use the "address-list" option as the unique name field.

Thanks - this is useful, I have added the 'Address List' column to DHCP Server, but guess what, you can't add it anywhere else, like Kid Control, Mikrotik Home App, and it is not visible in log entries, etc. I guess there is simply an acceptance in the RouterOS community that you must take multiple additional steps to translate an IP Address / MAC Address back into an understandable "Johns Mobile" or "The PC in the Conference Room"

Alternatively you could try new User Manager in V7 at somepoint, and then use RADIUS to auth your users. A bit overkill for a typical home, but your whitelisting your clients already, 60 devices, etc... That give you even more ability to set a "name", and likely add another measure of control.

But would that name be visible everywhere I see the corresponding IP/MAC? I suspect not...

Fully agree

As i am a newbie it took for me at least an hour to figure out which MAC address / IP i need to block under KID control. Generally since i have like 20 devices connected it is difficult to track under different Router OS functions (DHCP Pool,etc.) the devices as there is no global "friendly name" possibility to add. And what seemed to be strange that i.e mobile phone internal MAC address after connecting to router was getting a different MAC... my only option to recognize what is what was to switch OFF/ON devices and look for what disappears/pops up in the list of connected devices.

Hope to have this centralized in some future update.

[...] And what seemed to be strange that i.e mobile phone internal MAC address after connecting to router was getting a different MAC... [...]

No, this is exactly how things are designed to work.
It does not depend on MikroTik.

Excellent request, I submitted it as an idea for consideration at the MT support site.

It is true that MikroTik is a bit lacking in this, in other home routers there is an integration between DHCP and DNS, so any device getting an address via DHCP will automatically get a DNS forward and reverse entry with e.g. the name hostname.local (when you are lucky you can configure the .local part to something else).
It is possible to do this with MikroTik routers, but it requires scripting. And that is a bit hard to do for the newbie user, unless they can find some good-quality ready-made script to do it.
It could be a solution when MikroTik provides ready scripts for such purposes so you only need to connect them to the DHCP service.

Also, some home routers have an internal MAC address to name table, not as a DNS service, but as part of the DHCP service (similar to DHCP static entries in RouterOS) and refer to devices under this name everwhere in the user interface. RouterOS does not offer that, and it is hard to add that using scripts as you cannot add a custom column to data tables. It would have to be done via comments, and dynamic entries (like Kid Control devices that have been automatically found) cannot have comments.

Someone should be asked to (re)do this script...

Joke apart, is impossible to have it: empty hosts or duplicate names...
Real examples of duplicate device names among different MAC:
Redmi7A-Redmi-A
Galaxy-A6
Galaxy-A3-2017
C530-IP
and other problems...
like number at the start:
16173WL82191696

It is not guaranteed that the name is unique (e.g. you may have multiple Galaxy-A6 names) but it can be solved by adding some suffix when it is a duplicate.
At least when you see a Galaxy-A6 and a Galaxy-A6-97-8a-03 (say those are the last 3 bytes of the MAC) you know that these are the kids' telephones, and you do not have to look at all the other devices when you want to restrict them.
And as said, some other home routers do have this. It isn't impossible.

One could claim that MikroTik isn't a home router, and in the past that was true, but several recent additions (both the RouterOS and the product line) show that MikroTik's intention is to take a part of that market.
So it could be useful to add this kind of features.

But first fix BGP!

BGP, boring geek problem? Big Giant Pita?
I like the idea of the name thingy first LOL......

BGP
Best Gateway Protocol

In most Routers/Firewalls/HotSpots I have used, there is some very simple & consistent method of giving a friendly/memorable name to a client,

As a RouterOS newbie I really struggle with the lack of a consistent approach to this - for example in DHCP Server I can add a 'Comment' to give a friendly name to a client, but that comment remains local to only the DHCP window - if I navigte to 'Kid Control' I lose my DHCP assigned comment, but here, (in Kid Control) instead of 'Active Hostname' I have 'Name' - and here I can override that name into a friendly name (which will not appear anywhere else in RouterOS...)

If I open My Mikrotik Home app and navigate to 'Clients', I see a MAC address if the client did not supply a Hostname - and again here I need to navigate to 'Edit device Details', and rename the device with my friendly name...

Open Dude Server... Here we go again - no friendly name, and another need to rename the client.

Isn't the answer to this to set the Hostname on the client?

"Active Hostname" means the hostname that the client is announcing for itself.

Kid Control is based on MAC address for a reason, everything else is just 'fluff' to help you see things a bit easier..

If you need to write your hostname and MAC address down to keep track of them, arrange your Winbox windows to keep your DHCP server comments visible or just copy and paste into notepad..

since when does one have control over hostname? The admin has control over the router only, not the settings on the devices.

Isn't the answer to this to set the Hostname on the client?

Except that for many devices, you have no control over that - Especially IoT devices. For example:
Of my five Amazon Echo devices, one shows a Host Name of "amazon-" followed by 9 hex digits that are not the MAC. The other four have no Host Name.
Of my four Techin outlets, they all have a Host Name of "ESP_" followed by the last 6 digits of the MAC.
Of my four Wyze outdoor switches, all four have a Host Name of "Wyze Outdoor Plug"
Of my 14 currently connected Wyze V2 cameras, none have a Host Name
Of my 13 currently connected Wyze V3 cameras, all have a Host Name of "WyzeCam"
My Garmin GPS has a Host Name of "rogue"
My one window air conditioner that has WiFi does not show a Host Name.

Most of the computers, and phones have a Host Name that reflects what is configured in the device.
This is all reported on the DHCP server leases listing of my RB4011 router.

My Garmin GPS has a Host Name of "rogue"

Oh.......
My Garmin DriveSmart76 is called.... "koala"!!!

My Garmin GPS has a Host Name of "rogue"

Oh.......
My Garmin DriveSmart76 is called.... "koala"!!!

Mine is a DriveSmart65. I do like the GPS and the ability to update it via WiFi. It's fast enough that by the time I back into driveway, the GPS has connected to the WiFi, connected to my NTP server (not sure why a GPS needs to check in with an NTP server), and it has checked in with the Garmin servers to determine if there is an update.

Isn't the answer to this to set the Hostname on the client?

Well if you can tell me how to do it:

• on Android devices (for instance phones, tv boxes, media players) or other devices which ignore the hostname for DHCP I'll be happy to apply your solution.
• on devices we are not managing

Even on a small scale where I can manage the hostname by myself I'm facing issues: the hostname is set on most of the devices at home, what I see in DHCP leases is what the device producer wants me to see, not what I need... For instance, to only name a few:

• All Huawei phones have an "active hostname" such as: HUAWEI_<model>-<uid>
• TVBox: android-<uid>
• Media player: android-<uid>
• TP-Link AP: <manually_set_hostname>-<MAC address>

And there is no way to change this...
So "no", "setting the hostname" doesn't always work.
That's why other tools allow to add a system-wide friendly name (for instance Omada SDN Controller).

Would it be intersting to be able to have system-wide device identifiers (for instance friendly names for MAC address) ? definitively yes.
Would it be intersting to be able to use them everywhere (including logs) ? definitively yes.
Would it help with readability and analysis ? definitively yes.
Would it help with productivity ? definitively yes
Could it be replaced with a "notepad approach" ? to some extent yes
Would itbe as efficient ? definitively not...

RouterOS does not allow to do it for some reason I am not aware of.
My feeling is that it is due to the fact that RouterOS is built on top of a patchwork of tools/libs and that Mikrotik can't add such a feature easily. (for instance iptables for the firewall, how can they modify logs without modifying iptables' source code ?)

Well if you can tell me how to do it:

• on Android devices (for instance phones, tv boxes, media players) or other devices which ignore the hostname for DHCP I'll be happy to apply your solution.

On many Android devices you cannot set it, but on phones of the past ~7 years you can actually set the device name in the settings menu.
E.g. on Samsung phones the device type is in that field (like "Galaxy A41") but you can edit it, and it will be used as the DHCP hostname (with spaces substituted by dashes).

But indeed, it is often not possible.
Actually, when you have a static DHCP entry and set the hostname in there, the device would normally copy that into its hostname.
But that is not so useful when you do not have the information to begin with.

But it isn't what the question initially was about anyway. What RouterOS lacks is a convenient mechanism to keep track of MAC addresses (and IP addresses) throughout the router configuration. That could be placed on the feature request list, at some appropriate priority.

But it isn't what the question initially was about anyway. What RouterOS lacks is a convenient mechanism to keep track of MAC addresses (and IP addresses) throughout the router configuration. That could be placed on the feature request list, at some appropriate priority.

Totally agree. The OP wasn't wrong. A "client" manifest itself in a lot of places: Wi-Fi registration, DHCP lease, ARP cache, L2 firewall, VPN interfaces, etc., etc. But there isn't a good view "all connect devices" & certainly no way to "name" them. While creating static DHCP reservations can help with a device name, problem that device name doesn't appear elsewhere. And, yeah a lot of ISP routers have a "device list" with a edit button for a name, so OP's request isn't crazy.

Even some "tooltips" in Winbox that "resolved" a MAC address to the DHCP name be useful, similar to how hostname sometimes shows up as yellow box when hovering on IP address.

In RouterOS it seems that if a DHCP client supplies a hostname ('RFC 2131 "sname" (Server host name)), then 'Active Host Name' = sname, but if the client does not supply sname, then Active Host Name' = NULL. All we need is to treat 'Active Host Name' as a User editable field, and additionally treat it's display contents with a ranking (so it is never null), like:

1. If Active Hostname not set manually and sname = NULL then Active Host Name = MAC Address
2. If Active Hostname not set manually and sname NOT NULL then Active Host Name = sname
3. If Active Hostname set manually then Active Host Name = user defined hostname.

...then use this Active Host Name consistently anywhere a client MAC Address can be seen...

Yes, that would be part of the solution. Additionally, something must be done to make that selected hostname always unique (so when more than one host on the network has the same name, something unique is appended to it).
Also in routers that do this it is customary to put these hostnames in DNS under some .local zone, and to do that the hostname sometimes has to be edited (e.g. because it contains spaces).
When this is done for DNS, it is better when that same edited hostname appears everywhere.
All in all, it is not a trivial operation. But it can be done.

In some other home routers, the unique identifier of a host is the MAC address, and this can then also be used in firewall rules. So when you want to allow some traffic to/from a particular host, or to "forward a port" to some host, you can reference that host by its MAC address (which is what you effectively do when you select it from the list of locally known hosts), and the proper firewall rule is made with the actual IP address of that host.
In RouterOS you need to make the DHCP entry fixed and then you can either use that fixed address or link it to an address list, but it is a more involved operation.

Fully agree with the OPs sentiment.

I need a sensible way to label, tag, track and manage the clients of my network.

It's just too laborious to have to work through and hack it with the means available by Mikrotik OS.

This feature is badly needed, will immensely improve QoL, security and UX.

I found this thread looking for a fix... I am also surprised there is not one. The "Active Host Name" should either:

Be editable

Or

Provide a column the user can edit themselves

I'm a home gamer new to this, but there surely is a way around this isn't there? The suggestions so far are not so appealing.

I need a simple way to LABEL everything on my network. Asking this to be a client job is impossible. You can't expect the client to provide this every time, so intervention is necessary.

I am also in a fix due to in-editable host names. Its a disaster referring to the list everytime you have to find a particular client.
ROS must include in future updates as an option if a lazy person like me wants to use it.

+1 for a friendly name that can be used across Router OS.

Well it seems that work is progressing a little on this. E.g. now you can see the hostname and connection port in the ARP table (and DHCP leases).

It is also possible to assign an address list to a static DHCP entry and it will put the assigned address in the address list, e.g. for use in the firewall.
But there is still a lot that could be improved.

+1 for a friendly name that can be used across Router OS

+1 for custom DHCP host names.

+1 makes life easier + other vendors have it already

Well it seems that work is progressing a little on this. E.g. now you can see the hostname and connection port in the ARP table (and DHCP leases).

It is also possible to assign an address list to a static DHCP entry and it will put the assigned address in the address list, e.g. for use in the firewall.
But there is still a lot that could be improved.

Any news on the topic? Does the aforementioned message make it clear that a non-expert user like me could finally name the various connected clients?
If so, what is the procedure in detail?

Thanks in advance

I don't think there is further progress than what is written above...

SunOS and Solaris used to have the file /etc/ethers which was a list of MAC-name pairs. It's not difficult.

+1 I was just about to request this feature and found this thread. I'm a little surprised this functionality is not available.

+1 - my PS5 provide no name and it is VERY annoying. NOT FIXED IN ROS 7!!!!

You don't know it's a PS5 ?

+1 - my PS5 provide no name and it is VERY annoying. NOT FIXED IN ROS 7!!!!

Did you ask Sony?

What are you writing? If there is no name it depends on the PS5, not RouterOS (and not from any other system either).
Learn how things work before writing this bu!!sh*t.

As for having a list of known MACs, with a description to match it is another thing, especially with the other bu!!sh*t of random MACs...

Not all devices have random MACs though. In my home network all known devices either by default have a fixed MAC ID or have been configured to use one. Mobile devices (phones, tablets) revert to a random MAC ID only if I rename my SSIDs, but once properly configured they stay put. Any unknown/guest devices are assigned IP addresses from a specific IP range. I value the ability to set up human-friendly names that adhere to a certain consistent format across the board. Some devices don't even let you edit the device name and just use the one given by the manufacturer, often not a very pretty-looking one.

But that isn't MikroTik's fault. You should contact the support for that device to have it fixed.

+1

also can we have a way for DHCP server to put devices in a IP pool based on their name using regexp ?
I have a lot of IOT esp devices and would like to keep them in their own little pools based on the client name , ie) temperature probes in 10.0.100.* and pressure sensors in 10.0.200.* MPPT solar chargers (mpptcharger1~200) in 10.0.50.* ect

without having to manually add them all in
it is hard enough digging through mac adress numbers to see what device is what
and then some just change mac adresses when ever they get a software update

maybe the arp list might be of help
if you set a comment to a dhcp-server lease it shows up here in "host name"

+1

also can we have a way for DHCP server to put devices in a IP pool based on their name using regexp ?

You may be able to do what you want using the vendor class.

Yes. Vendor class has nothing to do with MAC.

Yes. Vendor class has nothing to do with MAC.

Sure, I didn't understand, what an idiot...

You can use the DHCP option matcher and match option code 60.
But not all devices set this option. It depends on how well they are designed.
You need to use "logging dhcp packet" to see what options the client sends and if there is a vendor calls.
Of course it is all not very convenient, but at least it is possible.

Yes, I know (if the message is for me)
I misunderstand with finding the producer on the MAC address start...