Summary
MikroTik offers multiple services for your RouterBOARD devices that are connected to the Internet. These services are meant to ease the inconveniences when configuring, setting up, controlling, maintaining, or monitoring your device. A more detailed list of available services that IP/Cloud can provide can be found below.
Services
Be aware that if the router has multiple public IP addresses and/or multiple internet gateways, the exact IP used for communicating with MikroTik's Cloud server may not be as expected!
IP/Cloud requires a paid perpetual license for Cloud Hosted Router (CHR).
DDNS
DDNS or Dynamic DNS is a service that updates the IPv4 address for A records and the IPv6 address for AAAA records periodically. Such a service is very useful when your ISP has provided a dynamic IP address that changes periodically, but you always need an address that you can use to connect to your device remotely. Below you can find operation details that are relevant to the IP/Cloud's DDNS service:
- Checks for outgoing IP address change: every 60 seconds
- Waits for the MikroTik's Cloud server's response: 15 seconds
- DDNS record TTL: 60 seconds
- Sends encrypted packets to cloud2.mikrotik.com using UDP/15252 port
Since RouterOS v6.43 if your device is able to reach cloud2.mikrotik.com using IPv6, then a DNS AAAA record is going to be created for your public IPv6 address. If your device is only able to reach cloud2.mikrotik.com using IPv4, then only a DNS A record is going to be created for your public IPv4 address. cloud.mikrotik.com is used for older RouterOS versions prior 6.44
To enable the DDNS service:
[admin@MikroTik] /ip cloud set ddns-enabled=yes
[admin@MikroTik] /ip cloud print
ddns-enabled: yes
ddns-update-interval: none
update-time: yes
public-address: 159.148.147.196
public-address-ipv6: 2a02:610:7501:1000::2
dns-name: 529c0491d41c.sn.mynetname.net
status: updated
When the service is enabled, a DNS name will be stored on MikroTik's Cloud server permanently and this DNS name will resolve to the last IP that your RouterOS instance has sent to MikroTik's Cloud server.
To disable the DDNS service:
/ip cloud set ddns-enabled=auto
Before 7.17, the default value for ddns-enabled was "no". In versions after 7.17 and including, if you want to disable DDNS, make sure to disable the Back To Home feature first, if it was enabled, then set "ddns-enabled=auto"
As soon as you disable the service, your device sends a command to MikroTik's Cloud server to remove the stored DNS name.
To manually trigger a DNS update:
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip cloud force-update
To actually connect to the device using the DNS name provided by the cloud server, a user must configure the router's firewall to permit such access from the WAN port. (Default MikroTik configuration does not permit access to services such as WebFig, WinBox, etc. from the WAN port).
Update time
Correct time on a device is important, it causes issues with the system's logs, breaks HTTPS connectivity to the device, tunnel connectivity, and other issues. To have your system's clock updated, you can use NTP or SNTP, though it requires you to specify an IP address for the NTP Server. In most cases, NTP/SNTP is not required in order to simply have a correct time set on the device, for simplicity you can use the IP Cloud's update time service. Below you can find operation details that are relevant to the IP/Cloud's update time service:
- Approximate time (accuracy of several seconds, depends on UDP packet latency)
- Updates time after a reboot and during every DDNS update (when router's WAN IP address changes or after the force-update command is used)
- Sends encrypted packets to cloud2.mikrotik.com using UDP/15252 port
- Detects time-zone depending on the router's public IP address and our commercial database
To enable the time update service:
[admin@MikroTik] > /ip cloud set update-time=yes
To enable automatic time zone detection:
[admin@MikroTik] > /system clock set time-zone-autodetect=yes
Backup
It is possible to store your device's backup on MikroTik's Cloud server. The backup service allows you to upload an encrypted backup file, download it and apply the backup file to your device as long as your device is able to reach MikroTik's Cloud server. Below you can find operation details that are relevant to the IP/Cloud's backup service:
- 1 free backup slot for each device
- Allowed backup size: 15MB
- Sends encrypted packets to cloud2.mikrotik.com using UDP/15252 and TCP/15252 port
To create a new backup and upload it the MikroTik's Cloud server:
[admin@MikroTik] > /system backup cloud upload-file action=create-and-upload password=test123!!! [admin@MikroTik] > /system backup cloud print 0 name="cloud-20180921-162649" size=13.2KiB ros-version="6.44beta9" date=sep/21/2018 16:26:49 status="ok" secret-download-key="AbCdEfGhIjKlM1234567890"
The create-and-upload action command will create a new system's backup file, encrypt the backup file with AES using the provided password and upload it. For upload action command the password property has no effect since the upload action command uploads only already created system's backup files.
To download the uploaded backup file and save it to the device's memory:
[admin@MikroTik] > /system backup cloud download-file action=download number=0 ### OR [admin@MikroTik] > /system backup cloud download-file action=download secret-download-key=AbCdEfGhIjKlM1234567890
Warning: The secret-download-key is a unique identifier that can be used to download your encrypted backup to your other devices. Since you can download your encrypted backup from any location and any device by using the secret-download-key, then you should try to keep this identifier a secret. The downloaded backup is still encrypted using AES, nevertheless, make sure you are using a strong password!
To remove the uploaded backup:
/system backup cloud remove-file number=0
To replace an existing file with a new backup file, use the following command:
/system/backup/cloud/upload-file action=create-and-upload replace=_your_previously_created_backup_file_ password=test123!!!
To upload an existing backup file (created previously):
[admin@MikroTik] > /system backup save encryption=aes-sha256 name=old_backup password=test123!!! [admin@MikroTik] > /system backup cloud upload-file action=upload src-file=old_backup.backup [admin@MikroTik] > /system backup cloud print 0 name="cloud-20180921-164044" size=13.2KiB ros-version="6.44beta9" date=sep/21/2018 16:40:44 status="ok" secret-download-key="AbCdEfGhIjKlM1234567890"
Make sure that the backup was encrypted using AES, otherwise, the IP/Cloud will reject the backup upload. Since there is only 1 free backup slot per device, then you need to remove the existing backup before uploading a new one.
Warning: When importing a backup all MAC addresses are set to the MAC addresses that the device was using. This is useful when you are replacing a device that has failed, but this might not be desired when applying the same backup on multiple devices since it will set the same MAC addresses on multiple devices, which can cause connectivity issues. You can always use the reset-mac-address command on each interface to set the original MAC address back.
Properties
Sub-menu: /ip cloud
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| ddns-enabled (yes | auto; Default: auto) | If set to If set to auto, ddns will only be enabled if Back To Home is enabled. prior to the 7.17 versions, the default value was "no". |
| ddns-update-interval (time, minimum 60 seconds; Default: none) | If set DDNS will attempt to connect IP Cloud servers at the set interval. If set to none it will continue to internally check IP address update and connect to IP Cloud servers as needed. Useful if the IP address used is not on the router itself and thus, cannot be checked as a value internal to the router. |
| update-time (yes | no; Default: yes) | If set to yes then router clock will be set to time, provided by the cloud server IF there is no NTP or SNTP client enabled. If set to no, then IP/Cloud service will never update the device's clock. If update-time is set to yes, Clock will be updated even when ddns-enabled is set to no. |
| public-address (read-only: address) | Shows the device's IPv4 address that was sent to the cloud server. This field is visible only after at least one IP Cloud request was successfully completed. |
| public-address-ivp6 (read-only: address) | Shows the device's IPv6 address that was sent to the cloud server. This field is visible only after at least one IP Cloud request was successfully completed. |
| warning (read-only: string) | Shows a warning message if the IP address sent by the device differs from the IP address in the UDP packet header as visible by MikroTik's Cloud server. Typically this happens if the device is behind NAT. Example: "DDNS server received a request from IP 123.123.123.123 but your local IP was 192.168.88.23; DDNS service might not work" |
| dns-name (read-only: name) | Shows the DNS name assigned to the device. Name consists of 12 characters serial number appended by .sn.mynetname.net. This field is visible only after at least one ddns-request is successfully completed. |
| status (read-only: string) | Contains text string that describes the current dns-service state. The messages are self explanatory
|
Advanced
Sub-menu: /ip cloud advanced
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| use-local-address (yes | no; Default: no) | By default, the DNS name will be assigned to the detected public address (from the UDP packet header). If you wish to send your "local" or "internal" IP address, then set this to yes |
Cloud backup
Sub-menu: /system backup cloud
Below you can find commands and properties that are relevant to the specific command, other properties will not have any effect.
- download-file
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| action (download) | Downloads an uploaded backup file from MikroTik's Cloud server. |
| number (integer) | Specifies the backup slot on MikroTik's Cloud server, the free backup slot is always going to be in the 0th slot. |
| secret-download-key (string) | Unique identifier that can be used to download your uploaded backup file. When downloading the uploaded backup file you do not have to be using the same device, from which the backup was uploaded from. Useful when deploying a backup on a new device. |
- remove-file
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| number (integer) | Deletes the backup file in the specified backup slot, the free backup slot is always going to be in the 0th slot. |
- upload-file
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| action (create-and-upload) | Uploads a backup file to MikroTik's Cloud server.
|
| name (string) | Specifies the backup's name that will show up in the uploaded backups list. This is NOT the source backup's name, this name is only used for visual representation. |
| src-file (file) | Backup's file name to upload that was created using /system backup. This property only has an effect when the action is set to upload. |
| password (string) | Create, encrypt and upload a backup file with the specified password. This property only has an effect when the action is set to create-and-upload. |