MikroTik

Hi.

I have a new client with an RB951G-2HnD. It has firmware 6.5 loaded, and this firmware is dated 2013.

I see on the website that the current release firmware is only 6.32.

How can a 2 year old router have a newer firmware version than the cerrent release? Has the numbering system changed or something like that? I am new to Mikrotik and don't know what may have happened years ago.

Finally, how can we upgrade this device to the latest firmware? Is it a straight upgrade? will anything likely break? I would like to avoid the need to re-configure from scratch as the setup is complex and I don't understand everything yet. I do want to do a firmware upgrade however as the device frequently locks up, and so we want to try a firmware to see if this resolves that problem.

Hi,

why do you thing 5 is greater than 32 ?

6.32 is newer than 6.5. The first firmware is 6.0, five version after that is 6.5, five version later it's 6.10. Then 6.11, and so on to 6.19, 6.20 .... 6.29, 6.30, 6.31 and so on.

6.32 is number 32 in the v6 series, while 6.5 is number 5.

I have never had any problems with upgrading firmware. I always take a backup first, and transfer the backup out of the Mikrotik. If anything goes wrong, you could restore that backup.

Hi,

why do you thing 5 is greater than 32 ?

Normally, convention says that 6.5 is two minor versions newer than 6.3. - because 5 is larger than 3. I see now that MikroTik choose a simple linear numbering system -- this was not clear to me previously. Thank you.

My second question still remains. is jumping from 6.5 to 6.32 likely to cause any issues? That's a pretty big leap in a single firmware, and I might expect a lot to have changed, hence some things might not work???

Also, can I easily roll back to 6.5 if things go wrong?

5 is bigger than 3. 32 is bigger than 5. Natural numbers... I don't expect that the update will cause any problems and you can always install whatever version you have already tried, but don't update productive device until you make your own tests and only in case you have real positive reason to do it.

in pure numerical sequence, .5 (or .50) is more/higher/newer than .32. however, in this firmware version numbering sequence, it really should be read as 6.05, which would clearly indicate that it is a lower (older) firmware than 6.32.

i don't know why MikroTik doesn't adopt this numbering to avoid any possibility of confusion.

Hi,

why do you thing 5 is greater than 32 ?

Normally, convention says that 6.5 is two minor versions newer than 6.3. - because 5 is larger than 3. I see now that MikroTik choose a simple linear numbering system -- this was not clear to me previously. Thank you.

My second question still remains. is jumping from 6.5 to 6.32 likely to cause any issues? That's a pretty big leap in a single firmware, and I might expect a lot to have changed, hence some things might not work???

Also, can I easily roll back to 6.5 if things go wrong?

Yes I agree at first glance it may appear 6.5 is a higher version until you look at the decimal places 6.32.2
I would always test any newer version before using live,and do a backup also you can downgrade should issues arise after upgrading, simply transfer 6.5 to router and from terminal

I would not recommend running 6.32.2, but rather 6.30.4 which is the bug fix version if you are in production. I find it to be very stable while I have had some issues with versions both above it and below it in my testing.

I would say the same but actually I don't have any reason to not recommend the 6.32.2. I just suspect that the snmp walking provides less oids than in older versions but I didn't have time to prepare a proof of it.

Not at all. Just open your mind and it will come.