MikroTik

Just looking for feedback here... I can see how checking the status or historical logs of individual devices or network segments could be helpful for troubleshooting... Can anyone give me more examples how they use the Dude? I'd be grateful to hear more,
thanks!

Setup your network as connected in layer1/2 and you have a full map of all devices. The Duse is really powerful. and you can use it to a lot of managment, overwiew and other tasks. You can make scripts, send alerts like email - or with a small script - sms, and have sound alarm if something goes down. Its really powerfull tool.

If you have 2 mikrotik routers, its no problem remember all ip's, password eg - but if you have 500 - its not possible. you need some kind of map. The dude does this job perfectly - to a point where its too week. If you try to implement 10.000 devices, all 100% SNMP and Routeros polled - it will max out (like all other systems)

Thanks samsung172, OK, yes, I can see it helping quite a bit in those situations.

Any other usage scenarios come to mind... eg. would it help troubleshooting devices that have trouble connecting?

You can see link modulations or plot ccq graphs, for example. Also voltage and temperature graphs together with cpu and memory utilisation graphs might help a lot.

Firmware repository on the (remote) location for quick updates via one mouse click in thedude

And the spectral scan is more powerful in thedude than in the CLI

Firmware repository on the (remote) location for quick updates via one mouse click in thedude

And the spectral scan is more powerful in thedude than in the CLI

it's worth clarifying that spectral scan does not works on 5ghz AC radios

You can see link modulations or plot ccq graphs, for example. Also voltage and temperature graphs together with cpu and memory utilisation graphs might help a lot.

Very interesting indeed... OK, voltage/temp/cpu/memory, is that drawn from other Mikrotik devices (besides the one on which the Dude is operating) eg. switches...?

Very interesting indeed... OK, voltage/temp/cpu/memory, is that drawn from other Mikrotik devices (besides the one on which the Dude is operating) eg. switches...?

Also from other mikrotik devices - see sample attached

Have not made the leap to DUDE, maybe when it has a more inclusive name: PAT for example.
In any case, for a homeowner, is there a convincing argument to take the time and effort to include this functionality??

I have TheDude on CHR to monitor all devices in company network - we are not an WISP, not even IT company. Just ordinary business with approximately 150 devices (computers, printers, servers, networking equipment...) across several sites.
Often it happens that some device get stuck or does not behave correctly. With TheDude, I have notifications telling me in instant that for example printer in main hallway stopped responding on pings and I can deal with it straightaway. Coworkers would eventually come to me asking for help with "I cant print, for half an hour, what to do?" but thats a bit late.
Same goes to UPS (I had to create own functions and probes to handle things like Remaining Capacity, Input Voltage or Output Load) and other critical devices.
For this, I had to configure SNMP on each device. On windows computers pretty easy using domain policies. Many other devices support this as well but has to be configured manually.

I also use it for "tools" - for example RDP connections to windows machines are much easier when I can simply click on map, instead of trying to remember and write hostname/ip into RDP client.

In overall, TheDude actually allows me to handle issues before other people even notice.

Very interesting indeed... OK, voltage/temp/cpu/memory, is that drawn from other Mikrotik devices (besides the one on which the Dude is operating) eg. switches...?

Dude can directly connect to any RouterOS device as long as you provide login details. It can also connect to any SNMP enabled device. For example here: As you can see, you can monitor not just responses (service up/down) but also value of almost any available parameter. Some probes are predefined but you can easily create your own with a bit of scripting.
On next image you can actually see how is computer being used - when employee turn it on/off, how much cpu/memory is being utilized. On map, you can also see summary of current values (you can actually design these labels by yourself so it can show any textual info). It is really easy to pick up if any computer is running out of memory/storage and each link can show its utilization based on its current speed and capacity.

@vecernik87
Thanks so very much for that--it gives quite a bit more info and nicely shows some very useful usage scenarios.

It is really easy to pick up if any computer is running out of memory/storage and each link can show its utilization based on its current speed and capacity.

this might sound really ignorant, so apologies in advance... but am I silly for feeling queasy about trusting login credentials of network machines to a router...

If you get the info using snmp, you don't give anything too sensitive to Dude/router. And while available info may not be easily configurable on all devices, at least making it just read-only should be possible everywhere.

this might sound really ignorant, so apologies in advance... but am I silly for feeling queasy about trusting login credentials of network machines to a router...

No apologies needed Security is important.

Actually, you dont have to provide any credentials. You can simply enable SNMP on RouterOS devices as well and use SNMP source instead of RouterOS sources.
SNMP (v1 and v2) needs only a "community" string and provides read-only access to some information. So no login credentials are required - perfectly safe.
SNMP v3 uses its own separate credentials (so not your system/domain credentials) and can be configured to read-only or read-write. It also supports encryption, but not every device supports this. (for example Windows OS don't)

To avoid any issues, I would not recommend to run TheDude on your main router/gateway. I find it safer to dedicate some virtual machine within network for this task. If anyone can hack into the network, TheDude server is last thing you should worry about

Personally I don't feel any issues with providing passwords to my TheDude server. If someone can hack into our network and hack into TheDude server, then he can hack same way to all our other RouterOS based devices.

@vecernik87

Awesome info again & thanks so much for the explanation of SNMP read-only, as well as the suggestion to keep the Dude off the main router/gateway...