Hi,

I had configured my RB3011 Router before Release 6.40 using Master Port and VLAN configuration in Switch Menu. I upgraded to 6.40 without reading documentation or changing anything and everything keeps on working - fine! Now I want to change some VLAN and subnetting and have a big learning curve to understand the new hardware offload feature. Before I start, I have a question related to the "old" switch based vlan configuration: Is this configuration oboslete and a bridge with hardware offload enabled will manage these settings for me under the hood? Can I use VLAN configuration of the bridge and if routeros detects switch chip can be used everything will be configured for me? Or do I need to configure both, bridge VLAN and switch VLAN.

Two things happened between ROS 6.40 and current:

1. shift from "master port" to "all ports". While traditionally switch ports were "enslaved" to one port and RB only dealt with master port, in "all ports" all of them are visible to ROS (but you better don't configure things directly on ports that are members of bridge).
   Move from one paradigm to another one was the hard way, there is no choice (other than ROS version).
   At this step VLAN config was done strictly on hardware (/interface ethernet switch ...) while bridge can be considered a "dummy" switch.
2. vlan-filtering on bridge which makes bridge a "smart", VLAN-aware switch.
   At this stage admin can choose which way she wants to configure VLANs, the old way or the new way. Each way has good and bad sides and those depend also on underlying hardware. Mostly enabling vlan-filtering (a.k.a the new way) means loosing HW offload and older devices (with slower CPUs and decent switch chips) suffer drop in performance. For newer devices (with powerful CPU and shitty switch chip) the new way might be better as it might allow certain functionality which is not available in hardware (such as proper hybrid ports with both tagged and untagged VLANs).

In short: you can continue to deal with VLANs the old way without using vlan-filtering on bridge ... you only have to configure vlan interfaces in case ROS needs to interact with particular VLAN.

From my thread here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=138232
I was trying to understand new way to do bridging.
If I do understand it correctly the new Bridge with VLAN filtering do handles Spanning tree (STP and RSTP), the old did not.
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Bridge

It would be nice if MT post a list that shows what is the best way to do VLAN. Birdge with VLAN filtering and hardware support, or use the Switch chip.

Hi,

@mkx
thank you very much for your detailed answer, this clarifies the topic!

@jotne
I think you are right, the products of mikrotik are very complex but for the price extremly flexible.
What is missing are much more "Best Practise" examples and perhaps an configuration interface
on top of routeros with less detail level and more "out of the box" configuration building blocks.