Kali ini saya akan menulis tentang bagaimana install mikrotik di USB flasdisk. Biasanya flashdisk dipakai untuk instal ulang komputer dll. Mungkin mikrotik iri kali ya sehingga mereka membuat program supaya mikrotik bisa di install di USB flashdisk. Kita tahu bahwa biasanya Mikrotik itu diinstall di PC menggunakan media CD/DVD atau DOM installer. Namun seperti yang saya katakan tadi. Bahwa ternyata bisa juga install mikrotik di USB flashdisk.

Most of them have either a USB or MicroSD slot, so you can add enough space to store network boot images right on the router. I got most of the tips needed from these two articles, and combined them into this step by step guide: PXE boot to Fedora Linux using a Mikrotik firewall; Configure a PXE server to load Windows PE; Prerequisites. A Mikrotik device running RouterOS, login info, and SSH client.

Saya akan berikan tutorial ini untuk anda. Saya juga dapat tutorial ini dari kang mikrotik indo blogcepot. Semoga blognya rame terus dan bermanfaat. Tutorial Cara Install Mikrotik di USB FlashDisk ini benar-benar membahas tentang cara instalasi Mikrotik RouterOS ke dalam USB FlashDisk.

Bagaimana cara Install Mikrotik di USB Flashdisk ?

Apakah hanya USB flashdisk saja yang diperlukan untuk instalasinya ?? Tidak kang mas, butuh bantuan software lain untuk instalasinya. Yang harus kita butuhkan adalah NetInstall. Download dulu software tersebut. Jadi diharapkan, file instalasi yang ditanam pada USB FlashDisk ini dapat dijakankan di PC/Laptop yang support booting via USB Drive. Bentuknya jadi semacam Live CD Mikrotik yang bisa dipakai tanpa perlu di install berkali-kali, cukup sekali instalasi.

Sudah dikumpulkan semua perangkatnya ?? kalau sudah tinggal kita eksekusi. Oke kita langsung saja mulai!

MikroTik RouterOS is based on Linux. Following that fact and knowing that Linux has the live USB versions, I decided to try to install RouterOS on a USB flash drive. The purpose of such installation could be testing, the live demo system or to use this flash drive instead of hard disk in ye olde computer.

Here is the story how I made it. Let’s begin!

In this recipe I used:

• The MikroTik RouterOS x86 6.44.5 LTS ISO image
• One 4GB USB 2.0 flash drive
• One VirtualBox VM

I tried to use the Netinstalltool, but it failed to format this USB.

The RouterOS specifications are a low demanding. You need as less as 32MB RAM and 32MB disk. You can boot virtually any PC using RouterOS.

In the real world, there could be incompatibilities between RouterOS and your hardware. The main limitation is a WiFi support. RouterOS can support mostly Atheros chips. Many other chips are not supported and you can’t add drivers for them.

Unfortunately, the Wiki page for the supported hardware is not maintained anymore and you need to try this by your own.

The ISO file

I downloaded the ISO file from the MikroTik site. You can choose between LTS, latest stable and latest beta versions.

If you don’t need any special feature from the newer version, you can use the LTS version. That version is always the most stable.

As I mentioned, I used the x86 (PC) 6.44.5 LTS version, but you can use any other. As we will use this USB on any PC, you just need to use the x86 version.

This ISO file is bootable, but this is not a live disk. You can’t boot the system with this disk and got working environment. This is the installation only CD.

Use a VM to install RouterOS

I created one VM with one vCPU and 32MB RAM. It doesn’t need any hard disk, only the CD drive on the IDE controller.

I chose the RouterOS ISO image file and added it to this virtual CD drive.

I also attached my USB flash drive (formatted as FAT32) to my PC and later redirected it into this VM.

You need to enable the USB controller for VM. Moreover, the controller options must correspond with your USB drive. You can’t redirect a USB 3.0 drive to the USB 2.0 emulated controller.

When everything was ready, I started my VM. It booted from the ISO image and recognised my USB stick as the C: drive.

I chose almost all packages and started the installation process. My goal was to build the universal demo system and I may need different packages. It’s easier to have them all already installed. I omitted only the calea and gps packages.

This process will last for about minute. Just be patient.

When the process is finished, the installer would prompt you to press the [ ENTER ] key to restart.

I just turned my VM off. The keyboard shortcut is [ Host ] + [ Q ]. The Host key is usually the right Ctrl key.

Photo mechanic download. When I turned my VM off, Windows took back the control over my USB. As this USB is now formatted in Linux EXT file system, Windows could not recognise it.

Just click on [ Cancel ] and eject your USB disk from your PC.

Testing this installation

I had a few laptops here to tested this USB drive.

The first was Dell Inspiron with the AMD processor. RouterOS booted fine and, as expected, didn’t identified the built-in WiFi NIC. All other functions worked fine.

The second laptop was HP ProBook 4540s. Unfortunately, this laptop didn’t boot at all. It started and just lost USB boot device. I tried a few BIOS tweaks, like Legacy boot, but without success.

The third test was on Toshiba Satellite U500. The results were the same as with Dell Inspiron. RouterOS booted successfully and everything was OK, but WiFi. Again, the WiFi NIC wasn’t recognised.

Keep in mind that every computer has the different NIC or at least the NIC with different MAC. Therefore, every time you run RouterOS on the new machine, it will recognise your NIC under a new name (in my case, it was ether1 on Dell and ether2 on Toshiba). In case that you plan to use the DHCP client for this RouterOS, you will need to update its settings after boot for any new machine.

Later I found also a few desktop machine. If their BIOS is in UEFI mode, this stick will not boot.

The next step

As this installation works fine, you can use it in the different ways. I decided to use it for the tests on real hardware. Therefore, I left it with the license level 0 – 24 hours of the unrestricted work.

You can use it with the license level 1 – the demo mode (the restricted mode without the WiFi support and limited support for any advanced service).

Even better, you can use it instead of the hard disk for your old PC. Of course, any USB stick is faster than any mechanical hard disk but still slower than SSD. In addition, it’s not recommended to perform the heavy writing operations on such disk or it can fail.

If you plan to use it as the disk for the real router, you need to license it using any paid license level 4-6. After that, you can build the powerful router with many different interfaces or devices (like a GPS receiver or an ISDN BRI interface board). The possibilities are endless.

Stay tuned.