Here's the situation. i was able to create an qemu image of RouterOS and I successfully started it in GNS3. Connecting it to other routers works, and it's amazing that I can simulate different vendors on one common platform where I can interconnect the way I like.

My question is more or less about... licencing.
As you all know, there are licences. I've never used them, because the MikroTik router's I've used - they come with a preinstalled licenses.
And because the demo license is for 24 hours and I'll need a lot of simulation hours, I think it would be more practical to install a licence on my quemu image.
I realized though that I have a L4 license that I earned with my MTCNA, and I can use it. As I'm not quite experienced with quemu in GNS3 I was wondering - do I have to configure different licences on every device I use in my topology? My understanding is that I don't have to, as all of the virtual RouterOS devices in my GNS3 topology will use the same quemu image. Is that correct?

I just wanted to post what was my experience so far.
1. Creating a QEMU image of RouterOS turned out to be quite an easy task. I followed the description in mum.mikrotik.com/presentations/ID13/rofiq.pdf
2. Putting the RouterOS image in GNS3 is also a matter of setting a path to the QEMU image and setting some parameters. it's great that I could put as many interfaces I need.
3. Licensing of the image also works. I just tested it.

What I still haven't figured out yet is how to keep the license. Every time I create a new topology I have to enter the license...

Other than that - it all works great

Hello!

I'm planning on using GNS3 too but I'm not sure if I understood this statement:

Every time I create a new topology I have to enter the license...

Does that means that every time you power up a qemu VM you have to put the license?
Or every time you add a qemu VM to a proyect and start it for the first time you have to put the license?

Thanks!

The license is attached to the HDD, so every time you create a new HDD (Qemu or not...), you'd need a different license.

AFAIK, you could copy the Qemu HDD, and thus run several routers using a single license. I haven't actually tried doing that though (as I don't have a spare license to potentially sacrifice).

I already knew that HD/lincense relation, but thanks for the clarification regarding QEMU.
Thats why it would be very nice if OP could update us with his experience The problem is that I need to test different squemes with lot's of devices and it becomes impractical to use routerboars, connect them, etc.

Thanks!

bunch of cheap L2/L3 lincenses, bough "with discount" ? as solution.
QEMU was cool. just lack of management tools, imo.
hardly can say same about majority of his TiVo-ized forks, sadly.

Sorry guys, I've just seen that you've replied... several months later
Well, I'm using a single license. It's exactly like this, I have created one QUEMU HDD and I've generated a license for it. The first time I've even put the wrong system ID, so I had to generate the license once again.
Anyway - this does work, you only need one license.

Hello!

Yes, I can use only one license too... I should have updated this thread before!

Thank you!

I haven't mentioned one thing though... I still haven't found a way to overcome it. Each time I start the topology - I have to manually enter the configuration, it's not saved in GNS3.

Have you tried gracefully shutting down the router by issuing "/system shutdown" from it, and then do "Stop" only after the shutdown has already happened?

I did. But I think there's probably something not entirely correct with the way I build the topology in GNS3.
I read somewhere that there's an additional option ot set, in order to have the configuration saved for the QUEMU hosts. Hopefully I'll find the time these days to play around with it. It's a big advantage to have a kind of a "test lab" where one can test some nasty configs, before executing them in a production network

The only remaining problem I can think of is if the HDD file is not writable... I've never even heard of this before (and I use VirtualBox, so I haven't experienced it either...).

What do you mean by "not writeable"?