Manual

A provider without a preset

The provider list is a shortcut, not a requirement. How to fill in an unknown provider yourself.

The provider list holds six: KPN, Ziggo, Odido, Telekom, Swisscom and Free. There are thousands more. If yours is not there, nothing about the tool changes: the list only fills in a few fields for you, and you can fill in those fields yourself.

Leave the choice on Own settings. Nothing then happens automatically and you fill the uplink in by hand. Do not take the preset of a provider that looks similar: a wrong VLAN number is invisible from the outside and costs you an evening.

Four things you need to know

  1. DHCP or PPPoE? With DHCP the router simply gets an address; with PPPoE it logs in with a username and password. The occasional business line has a fixed address, in which case the type is Static IP address.
  2. Is there a VLAN number on the WAN port? If so, which one. Empty means no VLAN.
  3. For PPPoE: username and password, and sometimes a service name.
  4. Which IPv6 do you get? Usually a prefix by prefix delegation, at a length such as /48 or /56.

If you take TV or telephony, ask how those are delivered at the same time. That is the part that most often breaks when a provider router is replaced.

Where those details live

  • The installation guide or the welcome mail for your line. It is in there more often than people expect.
  • Your provider's customer portal, with the details of your connection.
  • The router that is there now. Provider routers usually show the VLAN with the WAN or internet settings, and with PPPoE the username is visible. The password is usually shown as asterisks, so you will still have to ask for that.
  • Support. Ask it concretely: "Is it PPPoE or DHCP, and is there a VLAN id on the WAN port?" That is a question an engineer understands immediately.

A forum post from someone with the same provider may well be right, but verify it: providers change this, and old posts stay up.

What to try first

If you cannot find out, this is the order with the best odds:

  1. DHCP without a VLAN. The ordinary case on cable and behind a bridged modem. If you get an address, you are done.
  2. DHCP with the VLAN number from the documentation or from the old router.
  3. PPPoE with your credentials, and with the same VLAN number if there is one.

Do not try VLAN numbers at random. It costs hours and at best gives you a lucky hit you cannot trust tomorrow.

What else you fill in

The uplink is one field or two; the rest of the configuration is as usual. Watch these:

  • The WAN port. By default your model's WAN port, usually ether1. Pick a different one and the configurator keeps it out of the bridge.
  • Leave MTU empty and leave clamp TCP MSS on. With PPPoE, RouterOS handles the 1492 itself; without MSS clamping some sites stall. See MTU.
  • Clone MAC address on DHCP or a static address, if your provider ties the line to the previous hardware.
  • IPv6 goes in the IPv6 section: the method, the requested prefix length, and the WAN interface it should happen on. With a VLAN on the WAN port that is the VLAN interface; with PPPoE it is the PPPoE interface.
  • IPTV only when your provider delivers TV over multicast. Turn on IGMP snooping on the bridge as well; see Recipe: IPTV.

Checking that it works

  1. For DHCP: /ip dhcp-client print should read bound, on the right interface. With a VLAN that is the VLAN interface, not the bare port.
  2. For PPPoE: /interface pppoe-client print should say running: yes.
  3. /ip address print and /ip route print: do you have an address and a default route.
  4. If it stays silent, look at /log print. A wrong VLAN and a wrong password look identical from the outside; the log tells them apart.
  5. If the address is a private one, your provider's device is still routing: double NAT. See Moving off a provider router.

Ask for a preset

If it works for you, help the next person. Send us, through the feedback form:

  • the provider's name and the country;
  • DHCP, PPPoE or static address;
  • the VLAN id on the WAN port, or "none";
  • for PPPoE: whether the credentials are fixed or differ per customer;
  • the IPv6 prefix length you are given;
  • whether TV and telephony have VLANs of their own, and which;
  • whether a modem has to go into bridge mode, and how that is done.

We turn that into a preset, with a note about what it does not cover. What is already planned is on the roadmap.

Read on: Provider presets, WAN and internet and Troubleshooting.

Want to try it right away? Open the configurator