Summary

Winbox WinBox is a small utility that allows the administration of MikroTik RouterOS using a fast and simple GUI. It is a native Win32/Win64 binary but can be run on Linux and macOS (OSX) using Wine. All Winbox WinBox interface functions are as close as possible mirroring the console functions, that is why there are no Winbox WinBox sections in the manual. Some advanced and system critical configurations are not possible from the WinboxWinBox, like MAC address change on an interface Winbox changelog.

From Winbox WinBox v3.14, the following security features are used:

• WinboxWinBox.exe is signed with an Extended Validation certificate, issued by SIA Mikrotīkls (MikroTik).
• WinBox uses ECSRP for key exchange and authentication (requires a new Winbox WinBox version).
• Both sides verify that the other side knows the password (no man in the middle attack is possible).
• Winbox WinBox in RoMON mode requires that the agent is the latest version to be able to connect to the latest version routers.
• Winbox WinBox uses AES128-CBC-SHA as an encryption algorithm (requires Winbox WinBox version 3.14 or above).

Starting

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WinBox

Winbox WinBox loader can be downloaded from the MikroTik download page. When winboxWinBox.exe is downloaded, double click on it, and the Winbox WinBox loader window will pop up. There are two Winbox WinBox loader modes: simple which is enabled by default and advanced.

Simple mode

When you open Winbox WinBox loader for the first time simple mode layout will be used:

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Buttons/check-boxes and Other Fields

• Connect - Connect to the router
• Connect To RoMON - Connect to RoMON Agent
• Add/set - Save/Edit any of the saved router entries in the Managed tab.
• Open In New Window - Leaves loader open in the background and opens new windows for each device to which connection is made.
• Connect To: - destination IP or MAC address of the router
• Login - username used for authentication
• Password - password used for authentication
• Keep Password - if unchecked, the password is not saved to the list

Menu Items

• File
  • New - Create a new managed router list in a specified location
  • Open - Open managed router list file
  • Save As - Save current managed router list to file
  • Exit - Exit Winbox WinBox loader

• Tools
  • Advanced Mode - Enables/Disables advanced mode view
  • Import - Imports saved session file
  • Export - Exports saved session file
  • Move Session Folder - Change path where session files are stored
  • Clear cache - Clear Winbox WinBox cache
  • Check For Updates - Check for updates for Winbox WinBox loader

Advanced mode

Additional Winbox WinBox loader parameters are revealed when an advanced mode is enabled with Tools → Advanced Mode:

Buttons/check-boxes and Other Fields

Buttons/check-boxes

• Browse - Browse file directory for some specific session
• Keep Password - if unchecked, the password is not saved to the list
• Secure mode - if checked, Winbox WinBox will use DH-1984 for key exchange and modified and hardened RC4-drop3072 encryption to secure the session.
• Autosave session - Saves sessions automatically for devices to which connections are made.

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Command Line

It is possible to use the command line to pass connect to, user and password parameters automatically:

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It is possible to use the command line to pass connect to, user, and password parameters automatically to connect to the router through RoMON. In this case, RoMON Agent must be saved on the Managed routers list so Winbox WinBox would know the user and password for this device:

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Will connect to router D4:CA:6D:E1:B5:7D, through 10.5.101.1 via RoMON Agent with user "admin" without a password.

IPv6 connectivity

Winbox WinBox supports IPv6 connectivity. To connect to the router's IPv6 address, it must be placed in square braces the same as in web browsers when connecting to the IPv6 server. Example: 

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Port number is set after the square brace when it is necessary to connect Winbox WinBox to other port than the default:

:a00:27ff:fe70:e88c%2:8299

Winbox WinBox neighbor discovery is capable of discovering IPv6 enabled routers. There are two entries for each IPv6 enabled router, one entry is with IPv4 address and another one with IPv6 link-local address. You can easily choose which one you want to connect to.

Run

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WinBox on macOS

Starting with macOS 10.15 Catalina, Apple has removed support for 32bit applications, meaning it is no longer possible to use regular Wine and regular Winbox WinBox in this OS. Wine has made available a 64bit version for macOS, and MikroTik has released a special Winbox64WinBox64.exe version as well.

If you have used Wine previously, we recommend you first delete the previous Wine application and the Wine settings directory in your home folder:

rm -rf /Applications/Wine*
rm -rf ~/.wine/

To run Winbox64 the following steps are required.

To run WinBox64 the following steps are required.

1. Install latest Wine from the Wine macOS builds page ( wine-devel-7.X-osx64.tar.xz) Install Wine Staging from WineHQ's official download page and make sure you have downloaded the winbox64 WinBox64.exe executable from the MikroTik download page.
2. During installation, you must mark "64-bit support" (by default it is not checked).
3. In macOS terminal, make sure your set to use ZSH as the new shell, like this (and restart Terminal after this command):
   

   chsh -s /bin/zsh

Edit your zprofile file to add environment variables, pointing the wine64 command to the correct installation path of Wine Staging:


nano ~/.zprofile

The file should look like this (make sure your paths are correct here):


export PATH="/Applications/Wine Staging.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin:$PATH"
export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35"
export DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/lib:/opt/X11/lib:$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH"

Info
If you are running macOS Big Sur, instead of "nano ~/.zprofile", you have to edit "nano ~. / zshrc"

4. Restart (quit and reopen) your macOS terminal
5. Launch Winbox64 with wine64 like this: 
   ~ % wine64 "/Applications/winbox64.exe"

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1. the MikroTik download page.
2. Launch WinBox64.exe with "open file with" > Wine64.app

Run WinBox on Linux

It is possible to run Winbox WinBox on Linux by using Wine emulation software. Make sure that the Microsoft font pack is installed, otherwise, you may see distortions.

Interface Overview

Winbox WinBox interface has been designed to be intuitive for most of the users. The interface consists of:

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The title bar shows information to identify with which router Winbox WinBox session is opened. Information is displayed in the following format:

[username]@[Router's IP or MAC] ( [RouterID] ) - WinboxWinBox [ROS version] on [RB model] ([platform])

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• an indicator that shows whether the Winbox WinBox session uses encryption
• Winbox WinBox traffic indicator displayed as a green bar,
• Custom info fields that can be added by the user by right-clicking on the toolbar and picking available info fields from the list

Work Area and Child Windows

Winbox WinBox has an MDI interface meaning that all menu configuration (child) widows are attached to the main (parent) Winbox WinBox window and is showed in the work area.

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Child windows can not be dragged out of the working area. Notice in the screenshot above that the Interface window is dragged out of the visible working area and a horizontal scroll bar appeared at the bottom. If any window is outside visible work area boundaries the vertical or/and horizontal scrollbars will appear.

Child window menu bar

Each child window has its own toolbar. Most of the windows have the same set of toolbar buttons:

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Notice that on the right side next to the quick find input filed there is a drop-down box. For the currently opened (IP Route) window, this drop-down box allows to quickly sort out items by routing tables. For example, if the main is selected, then only routes from the main routing table will be listed.
A similar drop-down box is also in all firewall windows to quickly sort out rules by chains.

Sorting out displayed items

Almost every window has a Sort button. When clicking on this button several options appear as illustrated in the screenshot below

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The example shows how to quickly filter out routes that are in the 10.0.0.0/8 range

1. Press Sort button
2. Chose Choose Dst.Address from the first drop-down box.
3. Chose Choose in form the second drop-down box. "in" means that filter will check if DST address value is in range of the specified network.
4. Enter the network against which values will be compared (in our example enter "10.0.0.0/8")
5. These buttons are to add or remove another filter to the stack.
6. Press the Filter button to apply our filter.

As you can see from the screenshot Winbox WinBox sorted out only routes that are within the 10.0.0.0/8 range.

Comparison operators (Number 3 in the screenshot) may be different for each window. For example "Ip IP Route" window has only two is and in. Other windows may have operators such as "is not", "contains", "contains not".

Winbox WinBox allows building a stack of filters. For example, if there is a need to filter by destination address and gateway, then

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You can also remove unnecessary filters from the stack by pressing the [-] button.

Customizing list of displayed columns

By default, Winbox WinBox shows the most commonly used parameters. However sometimes it is needed to see other parameters, for example, "BGP AS Path" or other BGP attributes to monitor if routes are selected properly.

Winbox WinBox allows to customize displayed columns for each individual window. For example to add BGP AS path column:

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Changes made to window layout are saved and next time when Winbox WinBox is opened the same column order and size are applied.

Detail mode

It is also possible to enable Detail mode. In this mode all parameters are displayed in columns, the first column is the parameter name, the second column is the parameter's value.

To enable detail mode right mouse click on the item list and from the popup menu pick Detail mode

Category view

It is possible to list items by categories. In this mode, all items will be grouped alphabetically or by another category. For example, items may be categorized alphabetically if sorted by name, items can also be categorized by type like in the screenshot below.

To enable Category view, right mouse click on the item list and from the popup menu pick Show Categories

Drag & Drop

It is possible to upload and download files to/from the router using Winbox WinBox drag & drop functionality. You can also download the file by pressing the right mouse button on it and selecting "Download".

Traffic monitoring

Winbox WinBox can be used as a tool to monitor the traffic of every interface, queue, or firewall rule in real-time. The screenshot below shows Ethernet traffic monitoring graphs.

Item copy

This shows how easy it is to copy an item in WinboxWinBox. In this example, we will use the COPY button to make a Dynamic PPPoE server interface into a Static interface.

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After this Down/Up event this interface will be Static:

Transferring Settings

• Managed router transfer - In the File menu, use Save As and Open functions to save the managed router list to file and open it up again on a new workstation.

• Router sessions transfer - In the Tools menu, use Export and Import functions to save existing sessions to file and import them again on a new workstation.

Troubleshooting

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WinBox cannot connect to the router's IP address, devices do not show up in the Neighbors list

Make sure that the Windows firewall is set to allow Winbox connections or disable the windows that the Windows firewall is set to allow WinBox connections through Private and/or Public network interfaces in the Windows firewall, it can be changed in Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Defender Firewall\Allowed applications or disable the Windows firewall.

I get an error '(port 20561) timed out' when connecting to routers mac address

Windows (7/8) does not allow mac connection if file and print sharing is disabled.

I can't find my device in WinBox IPv4 Neighbors list or MAC connection fails with "ERROR could not connect to XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX"

Most of the network drivers will not enable IP stack unless your host device has an IP configuration. Set IPv4 configuration on your host device.

Sometimes the device will be discovered due to caching, but MAC connection will still fail with "ERROR: could not connect to XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX