Hi Team,

I've been a big fan of the Dude since I started using Mikrotik in 2006 ( or 4, I can't recall!). Anyways, It's a great package and does wonderful things and I still think there isn't much out there that compares for simplicity when managing basic network documentation and information. When it was announced for Dude that the reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated, I was 1 day away from packing up my 5000 devices and moving them to NetXMS

I was excited. About bloody time. Woo Hoo. Lets go Dudes!

Now.. 3 Years later, trawling through the release notes I see no major headway on anything Dude related within the Change logs. I see no implementation of new features or enhancements and little to give comfort that any real development is happening behind closed doors. There are so many fantastic things the Dude can do, could do and would do with the right love.

Please, someone, where is the Dude?
Where are his friends?
Are you leaving the Dude behind? No Dude should be left behind.

As I do every 3 years or so it seems, I'm loosing hope. I'm going to have to bring those not too old demos of NetXMS and Nagios XI back to life, upgrade them and look at moving away. For 12 Years I've loved your Dude. I've loved him so much and now my heart is broken because the Dude is stale and abandoned. The Dude could be one of the biggest draw cards to Mikrotik and only needs a minor enhancement or feature every release or so to give us confidence.

Make the Maps Stable and stop disappearing.
Integrate Google Maps or Open Street Maps and Lat / Long to devices
Make graphs reliable
Build some auto device backup scripts
Build in an auto backup feature for the dude itself
Add a scheduler
Create some user permissions and per map / device type permissions
Integrate API 3 and bulk updates / scripting
Create an asset register and enhance the database
Hell, throw in some ACS

Steal the thunder from Ubiquiti and UNMS and other tools which are actively developed but still lack the simple wonderlust that your dude creates amongst it's users.
Just a few tweaks here and there every release and you'll keep the hordes of Dudes (and ladies) who love your Dude happy. And who knows what a million happy Dudes could do for you?

How about a little confidence boost that there is active development?

Otherwise, this dude is going to abandon the dude too.

(And that sound so narcissistic, but it's not, it's just reality. I've told you before and I'll tell you again, you've got a great Dude, but he's loosing his sex appeal and developing a middle age spread that you won't be able to escape unless you love him.)

Biggest problem I had with the Dude is that I'd upgrade a router and it'd stop working. If my router doesn't survive an upgrade, I can fix it straight away. If my client's router doesn't survive an upgrade, I have to go and see them and they're not going to be happy. If I upgrade them all at the same time, I risk having a very bad day. Why can't a dude agent continue to monitor a router of an earlier software version?

Dude broke the network and had to stop using it. It was causing an interrupt about every 2 minutes which brought 80 users to their knees and not a religious experience I'd like to repeat! Am phasing out all Mikrotik devices from the networks as they don't seem interested in maintaining their firmware in addressing ancient issues.

Too bad to read only negative experiances here.

I run dude 6.43.8 on CHR in VM .
It does what it has to do, runs for a couple of years now, updated with every release.
Sometimes a manual vacuumdb is neccesary to get snmp counters running after an update.
No further problems seen here,
great functionality for great money (read=free)

Child's project made by child's company.

Please, someone, where is the Dude?

Amen; let 2019 be the year of our Dude..

Yeah... i suffer from the same problem. I also made the last petition to bring it´s development back, i don´t know if it motivates the version 6.0..... but i´m loosing hope again. Dude is really an awesome piece of software that is starting to show it´s age. It would be nice if it could have an modern HTML5 interface and better backp features. Really hope that mikrotik answer this post, but i dont think it will.

Sadly. No reply from Mikrotik. Hello Mikrotik. Give me confidence in the Dude! please!

It could be so much! We've started developing our own reporting via the API, API integration would be fantastic.. At the very least, share your plans with us... we're starting to drop off

yeah, it would be nice if we could create a new project inspired by dude as an opensource. This way we wouldn't be dependent of mikrotik will to develop the software. Maybe a kickstarter projetct to fund it.

I wish someone would build a decent cheap program that works with all kinds of hardware. Right now I've got Dude for infrastructure, Zabbix for Access Points and Customer SM's, and a whole host of various methods to update software on all this stuff.

I can't be the only one with lots of competing gear a cheap boss that won't spend money on a nice system for us to monitor with.

We've started our own application using the APIv3 to do a run of queries and expected responses and reports from our devices Proactive monitoring and reporting with Threat detection (checking for changes in file system or scheduling / ports / services) as a result of being changed by third parties... Once we get a decent base that ticks a bunch of our boxes we may consider opening this up for further development if there is enough interest.

We currently run...

Unifi
Unms
Dude
Netflow
cnMaestro
Smokeping
and a couple of other little scripts.

It's becoming a management nightmare. The fast pace of UNMS development from Ubiquiti is pushing us towards their AP's, if they integrate Unifi and UNMS we'll be even closer to dropping dude and Mikrotik beyond the border. UNMS has been bringing in external device monitoring via SNMP. Whilst still only beta we're seeing a release every month or two with Major enhancements.

I think Mikrotik should be getting development cranking in Dude. integrate API, cAPsMAN and so forth.. I've got 560 Pico Stations to replace this year. I'm probably going to use Ubiquiti, but we've been experimenting with the mANTbox which we like for our requirements. But centralised management is leaning towards UNMS just based on the updates and active production even though we struggle with their Antenna selection.

We'll keep using Mikrotik at the border, but we've got 5000 AP's. 560 need to be replaced this year to get upgraded (excluding any new builds) and the active development of a Mikrotik competitor is pulling us in...

Have attached the same site in UNMS vs Dude. Trimmed some important details out but you'll get the gist. So do we pull all the Ubiquiti out and struggle with managing it in the dude or do we keep it all Ubiquiti and only have one Mikrotik at the Perimeter using SNMP for monitoring in conjunction with our own API scripts.

And I think... That is where Mikrotik are missing the point. If you have a good solid management tool that supports your products, is actively developed and is making your clients lives easier.. Then you're locking your clients into your hardware and software. If you leave it and ignore it, then we all start to consider other options that make our lives easier and happier because really, if you're not doing that, then ... what's the point?

yeah, it would be nice if we could create a new project inspired by dude as an opensource. This way we wouldn't be dependent of mikrotik will to develop the software. Maybe a kickstarter projetct to fund it.

Something that big as open source? Yeah, not going to happen. The industry is flooded with not so free monitoring solutions, expecting their capabilities and more in an open source project will never work.

Something that big as open source? ...

"that big" ?? Cmon, it is NOT that big. Server does not do anything else than scheduling and sending packets based on DB entries. Client does not do anything else than visualizing the DB.
What I admire is the simple and configurable approach, which is missed by most of other tools. What seems to be big thing is just nice lightweight data-driven app.

.. The industry is flooded with not so free monitoring solutions, expecting their capabilities and more in an open source project will never work. ...

And we won't need more than 640kB or memory...
If you said 30 years ago, that there will be open source operating system used on majority of devices on earth, people would laugh at you. Today, Linux is everywhere...

yeah, it would be nice if we could create a new project inspired by dude as an opensource. This way we wouldn't be dependent of mikrotik will to develop the software. Maybe a kickstarter projetct to fund it.

Something that big as open source? Yeah, not going to happen. The industry is flooded with not so free monitoring solutions, expecting their capabilities and more in an open source project will never work.

I disagree, there´s a lot more complex opensource software out there. Even monitoring tools like Zabbix and cacti aren´t that different in terms of complexity.

An update for anyone interested.

I've just spent the last few weeks testing several different NMS packages. From licensed to free.

Zabbix was a close contender, Solarwinds was simply outside of our price range. We've decided on NetXMS.

NetXMS has ticked serveral major boxes for us. It may of easily been Zabbix if it had Geomapping, but now that i'm digging ever deeper into the NetXMS hole I'm seeing so much more information and organisation (something we've missed for a long time) compared to the Dude. The Dude could do a lot of these tasks, but just wasn't as functional and reliable (holding onto Data, Charges, MAPS etc..) as what we're seeing from Zabbix.

Happy to share my experience if you message me.

What I admire is the simple and configurable approach, which is missed by most of other tools.

Every now and then, once or twice a year, I try to find some replacement for Dude, because as much as I like it, it really is kind of dead (ok, zombie, it still moves, but doesn't improve). And every single time, the conclusion is, "well, maybe next time".

It may be just me, but Dude's approach is so beautifully simple and intuitive that nothing else comes close. It of course depends on what exactly you need it for, in my case it's smallish local networks, with some servers, few routers, some 50-100 devices at most. Dude's map as center point is just perfect for that. Visualization in other products always feels like an afterthought, just a bonus, something not really important. And everything is always so convoluted. I feel really stupid, but it's not uncommon to install something to test and find myself an hour later struggling to add even a simplest probe. It's usually those products where in screenhots section they proudly show how they can monitor London, Paris and New York at the same time. Sometimes I'm so desperate that I even try to read a manual, which is something I otherwise almost never do, because I just naturally get most of computer stuff. And often even that doesn't help. I must be specifically impaired when it comes to monitoring software, I don't have any better explanation.

In short, it's really sad that Dude doesn't move forward. It doesn't need much. IPv6 support should be basic feature in 2019, management of notifications could be more user friendly, supported way how to export maps as images would be nice, option to automatically un-ack devices would help too, ... and that's almost it for me. Oh and functions editor that doesn't check syntax, that's also not great.

For bonus points (I understand that this could be a lot of work, but anyway), if there was a way how to include ready to use probes for as much standard services as possible (you know, I can't be the only person who'd like to monitor e.g. sql server a little more than just by checking for open port), I'd probably die from joy. Or some tools to help with creating specific probes, because again, if I want to monitor e.g. free space on disk D: in Windows server, I can't be the only one who had this idea. Current Dude can do it, but something a little more straightforward than manually digging through snmp oids would make life much more easier.

That's been my issue too. The simplicity and visual appearance of the Dude has always been a strong draw card. The ability to pick it up and do the basics immediately is great and really, with a little more time, custom probes and graphs aren't too far away.

With our dude we've been plagued with dropping graphs, so we no longer graph
Dropping Background images, so we have stopped updating them
We haven't had a database crash yet, but I had issues migrating the Database to a more powerful server and ended up giving up.

Not to mention lacking ANY development and some important features like per user permissions, geo mapping, multiple interface links (link display tidied up). No templating (yes, can do by device type but difficult with multiple devices doing the same thing and wanting to monitor the same way)..

After about 20 hours of NetXMS on a couple of test sites, we're starting to dig into alerting and templated dashboards as well as build on the image and rack mapping.

I still "prefer" the dude, but It's not healthy for us to continue our relationship.

NetXMS is really starting to tick some boxes for us and the Dashboards are very very useful.

Why nobody from Mikrotik team answers here? It is a kind of disgrace...

Why nobody from Mikrotik team answers here? It is a kind of disgrace...

I think they have nothing to say about it... I make the last petition 3 years ago to bring the dude back to life or release it´s source code.

https://www.change.org/p/mikrotik-relea ... ource-code

Maybe we could do it again.

You mean repeat the previous victory? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

IMHO any petition like this is pointless. If you'd told people to name some opensource-friendly companies, I don't think MikroTik would be among them. And in case it's exclusively their code, which Dude probably is, there's nothing wrong with keeping it to themselves.

Second reason, unless you're prepared to lead the open source community yourself and invest significant time and resources into it, it's a bit naive to expect that MikroTik opens the source and something happens. Call me pessimist, but I'd expect few short-lived forks and that would be it. I really like Dude's approach, I think it's in some sense unique, but it's no rocket science. If there would be enough people interested in doing this, they could relatively easily make that from scratch. Or at least partially, e.g. build Dude-like interface over Nagios or something.

Last, and it's hard to say without sounding like I'm insinuating something bad, who knows how the code looks like, i.e. if someone else would be able to do anything useful with it. It doesn't have to be bad, even some unique style can be a problem.

I think we can only hope that one day MikroTik realizes how great idea Dude was and make it even better.

Last, and it's hard to say without sounding like I'm insinuating something bad, who knows how the code looks like, i.e. if someone else would be able to do anything useful with it. It doesn't have to be bad, even some unique style can be a problem.

`
I think the biggest roadblock to making Dude open-source is that as it stands, it has a high degree of dependency on many other libraries and chunks of code that a lot of MikroTik software holds in common; for example, their homegrown Windows GUI toolkit, the Winbox protocol, and their proprietary file data formats (which are tied to/related to the Winbox protocol). Even if they lost interest in The Dude and were willing to entertain the idea of open-sourcing it, MikroTik isn't going to open-source all of those other pieces just for the sake of releasing The Dude's source, so large chunks of things would have to be re-engineered and re-written (especially new network protocols and file formats, which would also necessitate some sort of migration/conversion strategy for people with current Dude databases), which would not be cheap / cost many man-hours. And what would MT get out of it?

-- Nathan

chimaster, can netxms push out scripts to the microtiks?

I am in the same situation as @ChiMaster. My organisation is aware that The Dude is a critical tool for us and it is no longer being supported. We "may" have a project next year to move to an alternative and the first stage will be to investigate possible alternatives. If/When the time comes, I'll be looking for firsthand experience of alternatives such as NetXMS. Hopefully I'll remember to come back here and try to contact you. BTW Queenstown - NZ or TAS (or some other Queenstown???)

An update for anyone interested.

I've just spent the last few weeks testing several different NMS packages. From licensed to free.

Zabbix was a close contender, Solarwinds was simply outside of our price range. We've decided on NetXMS.

NetXMS has ticked serveral major boxes for us. It may of easily been Zabbix if it had Geomapping, but now that i'm digging ever deeper into the NetXMS hole I'm seeing so much more information and organisation (something we've missed for a long time) compared to the Dude. The Dude could do a lot of these tasks, but just wasn't as functional and reliable (holding onto Data, Charges, MAPS etc..) as what we're seeing from Zabbix.

Happy to share my experience if you message me.

Hi, I am in the same position as you and making a move soon. I was wondering how you are getting along with NetXMS? Have you changed your mind since making the move? I am not sure how to message you directly to get more info.

I sent a ticket to Mtik support about some issues I had with Dude client. Here is the most important section in their reply.

We will check what we can do about it when we will get back to active Dude development, currently, it's delayed because of other priorities.

Sounds like more effort goes into ROS V7 for the moment

I sent a ticket to Mtik support about some issues I had with Dude client. Here is the most important section in their reply.

We will check what we can do about it when we will get back to active Dude development, currently, it's delayed because of other priorities.

nedi

Hi, I am in the same position as you and making a move soon. I was wondering how you are getting along with NetXMS? Have you changed your mind since making the move? I am not sure how to message you directly to get more info.
[/quote]

NetXMS, we've got 4 test sites loaded, we've booked some one on one time with their team to get through some usage issues (mostly us I'd say at this point).

I'm still Dude locked for the moment. It will be a hard transition, i'm hoping with a bit of one on one time we'll get pointed in the right direction. Currently templating and importing all Mikrotik / Ubiquiti Devices and assigning the correct monitoring templates. Quite nice, collecting a heck of data and working out the best way to use it.

NetXMS is IMO the very best 'free' platform out there, by quite a long margin.
But its the best 'theoretically'
That's the problem with it. It's not the best out of the box, it actually is really difficult to get it to do some pretty basic things like 'just start monitoring bandwidth on all interfaces in my network'. This should be simple. And honestly, it is fairly simple if you do it manually. But then trying to do anything more complicated like automatically adding nodes and monitoring all their interfaces, then get notification warnings about things, monitor temperatures/cpu/ram etc is way more complicated than it should be without much documentation to help you get there. There is documentation on each feature, but not how to just get it all to work and to make your life easy. Instead your life becomes really hard trying to figure it all out

It's a bit of a shame because there is a huge amount of power in NetXMS. For instance once it is setup you can very easily (only easy if you know, very very hard if you don't) write some compliance templates and check your entire network instantly for any devices which don't meet that compliance. I.e.
- Show all firmware versions of all devices / all mikrotik / all radio's / all switches etc
- Find all interfaces in the entire network that are reporting as half-duplex
- Find all interfaces that have changed from gigabit to 100mbit
- Show in 1 screen the CPU usage, RAM usage, Temperature of every device in my network
- Find every PTP wireless link that has degraded by 5db or more from baseline RSSI
etc etc
But it all requires scripting and a lot of knowledge of the product to get it to work. What they really need are a few wiki pages or guides that show you "here's a bunch of useful practical things you can do with NetXMS, we'll show you how to set it up". Not just "here's what this command does"

I'm not an expert with it but I have persisted with NetXMS for a while and have learned how to do a lot of things. I am thinking of making a video series going through how to set some of these things up from scratch and help you turn it into an extremely useful tool instead of just a potentially useful tool

Have you looked at Check_MK (https://checkmk.com) ?

Using dude for 10 years... about 950 devices in 20 maps... now running on MT Dude edition (m.2 ssd)
Vaacumdb and regular outage cleaning do the job... but, it is still feature outdated...
using Ubiquiti and Mikrotik hardware...
Mikrotik really sucks on switch and most of wireless, still being best (in price class) in routers
Ubiquity are best (in price range) on switches and most wireless, still sucking on routers and software...
Unms are ok if having 200-500 devices... after reaching near 1000 it starting to suck more on each device (hosted on vm with 200+ cores and 1tb+ ram, mvme hdd’s
Those 2 companies both have problems...
Mikrotik now working on 5g and no projects for isps...
Ubiquiti has started a hell lot of good projects, but 1/2 of them are dead 4 now...

May be have to switch to motorolla?!

We made client billing solution 4 existing book keeping software (self servicing) may be we can collaborate, to make this world a better place?

I hope Mikrotik keeps the dude alive. It would be nice if they could let us know what is causing the in-stability. It's been great for me - up until I expanded my map - added sub-maps. Now it barely runs with 200 devices. It freezes up on the client side frequently. Our DB is over 2 gb on 60GB External SSD on RB1100AH. I've cleaned DB, backked up- and I'm on 6.46.4. I've now set the data collection periods down lower to save less historic data in the hopes this will clean up the difficulties with doing lookups.

Wishing - Hoping that MTIK will improve the dude for those of us who rely on in for monitoring. How much do we have to pay to get Mikrotik to make improvements to the Dude we rely on for network management. Let us know the constraints for best practice at least.

It's been great for me - up until I expanded my map - added sub-maps. Now it barely runs with 200 devices. It freezes up on the client side frequently.

The number 200 grabbed my attention. My own Dude layout began dropping stuff on the floor at this level. I discovered the host router (hEX) was spending all its CPU on an encryption process. I solved it by unchecking "secure mode" (which is the default but probably shouldn't be) on every device in the layout (a manual process, but well worth the effort).

You may be on to something there. Here are some variables in our dude environment.

RB1100 AH Dude edition. Sits on Core network with stable connection to all devices.

Version 6.46.4

Have 178 or so Devices on Main Map Layout
Have 18 Sub maps

HAve now noticed more - in-accurate chart collection values. (1 g inteface showing 2 g spikes without a gap showing loss of connection.)

Often The dude hangs when I'm in a small map and hover over the main map, where it is determined to show the title of every node in that map and a small map preview. (this I think takes too much resource to function in a timely manner given the number of Nodes on Backbone Map. Currently we have one main map, with all core devices, then sub maps on each AP. Now going to make one Sub map for each Site, and then a Sub Map for each AP at that site. (maybe this will help?)

Like you - We also have been monitoring devices, mostly with Routeros Secure mode. (also SNMP which I think is lower overhead) Maybe some of the new security mechanisms are to blame for more handshake bloat and overall Funkiness.

I am looking at certain devices that seem like they have lost their connection to monitor router os at times, thus resulting in Gaps in the chart. Even the dude lost a connection to itself - so I hesitate to think there is any loss or issue over my licensed microwave links.

After changing some of the polling parameters, and saving historical data at less detail, it is still struggling, and often will lock up, forcing me to re-open the client.

I am now under the impression that I must either downgrade the Dude, or offload polling to agents, in combination with adding several sub maps to the main map such that no map has more than 40 nodes.

To do this it would be really nice to be able to simply move nodes from Map To Map, saving all historical data, with Drag and drop or some other method to Re-organize - Which isn't available (currently - Hint hint, nod nod, wink wink). !!Please add this function to the Dude Server so we can better organize and re-structure maps, nodes, and sub- nodes. !! Please?

Can we add a hierarchy of Maps, with Tree bar View and specify parent/child maps that are displayed as such? Thanks in advance Mikrotik - your struggles are appreciated!

We tried Dude for a while but realized it was a dead end. I think it should be wise just to end it. Who runs their NMS on an network device anyway.

We use NetXMS, ssh-keys and Ansible for management. The "object tool" and event actions is just killer features. It's so far superior. Maybe Mikrotik instead should work to implement some specific features in a module there instead of rolling their own NMS.

After changing some of the polling parameters, and saving historical data at less detail, it is still struggling, and often will lock up, forcing me to re-open the client.

I am now under the impression that I must either downgrade the Dude, or offload polling to agents

Yeah, I did the polling time dance as my first response, and got nowhere.

Seriously, just open up the client, click on maybe 25 devices, one at a time, and click secure mode off... and see if your problem doesn't immediately improve. You don't even have to change anything in the remote devices.

Ok - I'll try to uncheck Secure mode. I see in the notes where mikrotik has indicated an upgrade to 6.46.4 will create complications with routerOS previous versions.

I've got so much time invested in the Dude and mapping and historical data. Sure, I should probably upgrade to something like Solarwinds, which is what was used at the ISP I worked for early 2000's. Or MRTG.

Maybe mikrotik can open the dude up for development by others with time.

For now... I'm slowly adjusting each node to use SNMP and not routeros for monitoring as clearly the dude suffers.

It would be nice if we could turn on and off certain features to lower overhead. Like where I hover over a sub map and there is a small image of the map - this is not necessary overhead.

I really wish they would make it so I can re-organize nodes ( drag and drop ) from one Map to Another. - Or simply a field to select which map a node resides. THis would make grouping the nodes on Sub maps easier and solve my issues without completely re-creating new nodes in the sub map.

Thank you for suggesting other options. I hope Mikrotik can make some suggestions as to what I can do to remedy this issue.

In trying to remove secure from 25 devices... IT's Painful. Each device I click on to bring up the properties takes longer and longer up til about 30 seconds before the properties sheet comes up. So after about 7, then I close the client and re-open. I've seen issues where the Dude has difficulties collecting information from devices connected directly to it, and itself, as the dude itself has a place on the map and one rack server connected (our client billing portal)

Honestly, running on underpowered network gear, something that is async; database driven; and really needs high IO durability and long life write lifetimes for logs, charts, and graphs; needs to be on an appliance that has at least a high durability SSD, NVME, etc... Reality? The Dude really needs to be a dedicated controller appliance or VM on x86/arm64 only with SDN capabilities.

Running on anything other than eMMC or better is a method in madness, and is going to eventually start flaking out hard on embedded storage network devices anyways (which people run into, not realizing until its too late...).

If Mikrotik really wants to play in this space long term, it should build a dedicated 'network controller' with some SDN methodologies baked in. I think the honest reality is that Dude is really late 1990's early 2000's era tooling; and the 2020's call for something radically better. Everyone is going to 'easy single pane of glass' SDN; and although I don't fully agree with the path and direction most SMB vendors are taking in this area, it's selling, and it's effective. I'd call out Ubiquity here for losing their way and ruining their routers by eliminating CLI configuration (so don't ever get rid of the CLI!!!!); but really, where they are winning is in non-hardcore non-technical adoptions. Nearly every startup I've seen in the last 3-4 years is running some form of Unifi WAP/Router. The ones that aren't are on hardcore Cisco/Meraki/Aruba gear because a network consultant designed and built it for them.

A controller appliance is what's really necessary to make something 'like Dude' a reality that's reliable, supportable and long term maintainable. Build a controller appliance with high durability write, and ultimate reliability / stability; and it will sell. Probably need a low end and high end; and leave the rest to VM / cloud folks who want to deploy to their own cloud / DC / VM.

This would simplify things dramatically, and restrict development to x86/arm64 (the future is arm64 already anyways, mips is dead). No more testing on a million billion hardware platforms; and no more dealing with perceived unreliability running on underpowered and overloaded gear. One could also limit the hardware managed count on appliance to ensure people don't try and load up 5k devices on your low end appliance and cry.

If you look at the higher-end home space; service platforms like Plume's OpenSync project are taking over ISP's and making in roads to SDN managed home networks at the ISP level.

I have no doubt that Mikrotik could build something radically different that attacks this space, but it's going to take a ton of R&D software cycles and a likely dedicated team to pull it off.

But minimally viable to keep it alive? Stop trying to make Dude run on every single piece of hardware, and focus on what matters, x86/arm64/VM/Cloud.

All monitoring products like zabbix and PRTG are poorly made and garbage interfaces. Space is ripe for something not crappy

All monitoring products like zabbix and PRTG are poorly made and garbage interfaces. Space is ripe for something not crappy

They may be great but using a webinterface instead of a program/app as frontend is a modern but bad idea. Webdevelopers do strange things trying to emulate a real application.

Zabbix/PRTG seem to be the best alternatives (without a vendor login) at the moment.

I actually killed all my other monitoring software a year ago and went back using the Dude. 6.49.7 in my case. Because I have a backup box running a mirror of the same dude database, it is pretty flawless for my network monitoring demands.
Even if it is dead, I see no missing features the way it is in use for us here, in fact, the two boxes running its server redundantly can't upgrade to RouterOS 7.* since that makes them unstable (I've tried many a time). I can have this dude config running for years and don't miss a thing!
No idea what you're all complaining about. It's pretty much perfect for our usage. Even notification is flawless. We have it detect new/unknown devices on the network and send us warnings about it immediately with probe info included, this has been a blessing compared to many other expensive and horribly complex monitoring packages with requirements for database servers, webservers and extra hardware and what have you. The Dude is a breath of fresh air as far as I'm concerned! As far away from DEAD as it can be.

That's been my issue too. The simplicity and visual appearance of the Dude has always been a strong draw card. The ability to pick it up and do the basics immediately is great and really, with a little more time, custom probes and graphs aren't too far away.

With our dude we've been plagued with dropping graphs, so we no longer graph
Dropping Background images, so we have stopped updating them
We haven't had a database crash yet, but I had issues migrating the Database to a more powerful server and ended up giving up.

Not to mention lacking ANY development and some important features like per user permissions, geo mapping, multiple interface links (link display tidied up). No templating (yes, can do by device type but difficult with multiple devices doing the same thing and wanting to monitor the same way)..

After about 20 hours of NetXMS on a couple of test sites, we're starting to dig into alerting and templated dashboards as well as build on the image and rack mapping.

I still "prefer" the dude, but It's not healthy for us to continue our relationship.

NetXMS is really starting to tick some boxes for us and the Dashboards are very very useful.

Hi @chimaster, are you still using it?

I'd be satisfied if somebody would just give it a 64-bit recompile so I could continue to use it with Wine on a modern Mac.

I'd be satisfied if somebody would just give it a 64-bit recompile so I could continue to use it with Wine on a modern Mac.

What is the issue on modern mac?

Dude Client 64 bits

I'd be satisfied if somebody would just give it a 64-bit recompile so I could continue to use it with Wine on a modern Mac.

What is the issue on modern mac?

Dude Client 64 bits

Yeah, I realize that by installing YET ANOTHER emulator substitute on my Mac, I could run the Dude as well as Winbox. But I'm unenthusiastic about the continual chase.

Yeah, I realize that by installing YET ANOTHER emulator substitute on my Mac, I could run the Dude as well as Winbox. But I'm unenthusiastic about the continual chase.

Probably I missed some context. You wrote that you already use Wine and satisfied with that approach.
And I just added a point that this work as usual, probably - not sure if there is a big difference between CrossOver and Wine, but using the first one it for sure works.

Maybe you are speaking about Dude v3/4 - I did test just v6/7?

The old Wine is 32 bit and no longer works on 64-bit Macs. The new Wine64 works on 64-bit Macs, and works fine with Winbox because Winbox is now 64-bit package. But there is no 64-bit version of Dude and Wine64 refuses to run the 32-bit version.

Run minimal Windows 7 inside a VM...

To run Windows 7 on Mac ARM we should consider
1. Parallel Desktop License
2. Windows 7 (10/11) License

From this point CrossOver Mac looks simpler from costs and resources usage and we also support Wine development.

I ran The Dude in Codeweavers on my Mac Pro 5,1 for a while. It was "mostly" stable, but occasionally the GUI locked up or the app crashed. If I were to turn it back up again, I'd probably do it in a Windows VM.

I'm a long-time VMware Fusion user. When I got an M1 desktop, Fusion wasn't ready yet, so I decided to try Parallels. I've been very pleased with Win 11 on Parallels, especially since I can turn on/off the various USB and Ethernet adapters on my machine to get Winbox and Netinstall to see the right device(s) in the lab or on the network. Trying to use Winbox-Mac (Wine) and CodeWeavers was flaky and troublesome, especially since this machine has multiple network ports.

On my laptop, which is usually only plugged into one thing, Winbox-Mac (and probably Codeweavers) work fine.