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Winbox is a small utility that allows administration of Mikrotik RouterOS using a fast and simple GUI. It is a native Win32 binary, but can be run on Linux and Mac OSX using Wine.

All Winbox interface functions are as close as possible to Console functions, that is why there are no Winbox sections in the manual.

Some of advanced and system critical configurations are not possible from winbox, like MAC address change on an interface.

Running Winbox

First you need to download winbox loader executable. You can get it from mikrotik.com download section or directly from the Router (if it is accessible by IP/IPv6 address)

When winbox.exe is downloaded, double click on it and winbox loader window will pop up:

To connect to the router enter IP or MAC address of the router, specify username and password (default username is admin with no password) and click on Connect button.

You can also enter the port number after the IP address, separating them with a colon, like this 192.168.88.1:9999. The port can be changed later in RouterOS services menu.

IPv6 address must be in square brackets, and port is specified after the square brackets, for example, [2001::2]:9999.
Warning! It is recommended to use IP/IPv6 address whenever possible. MAC session uses network broadcasts and is not 100% reliable.

Notice the Neighbors tab in lowest section of the window. It will list all discovered routers located in the same broadcast network where your PC is connected.

You can click on IP or MAC address column to auto fill Connect to field with either MAC or IP/IPv6 address.
Note: Neighbor discovery will show also devices which are not compatible with Winbox, like Cisco routers or any other device that uses CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol)

Description of buttons and fields of loader screen

  • Connect To - ip/ipv6 or mac address of target device
  • Login - username used for authentication
  • Password - password used for authentication
  • Add/Set - Save address, login, password, group and note to the Managed list
  • Connect To RoMON - connect to RoMON Agent
  • Connect - connect to the router
  • Keep Password - if unchecked, password is not saved to the list
  • Open In New Window - if checked, winbox will open in new window
  • Managed list - list of all saved routers. List can be exported and then later imported on another PC using Export and Import buttons
  • Neighbors list - lists all the routers from broadcast domain.

Description of menu items in loader screen.

File

  • New - Create new managed router list in specified location;
  • Open - Open managed router list file;
  • Save As - Save current managed router list to file;
  • Exit - Exit 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 cache;
  • Check For Updates - Check for Winbox loader updates.

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

winbox.exe [<connect-to> [<login> [<password>]]]
Advanced Mode

Advanced mode reveals few more options

  • Session - Saved router session;
  • Browse - to load specifi session saved to file;
  • Note - description of the router that will be saved to the list;
  • Group - group that saved router belongs to;
  • RoMON Agent - Select RoMON Agent from available device list;
  • Secure Mode - if checked, winbox will use encryption to secure session (Keys exchanged using DH-1984, encryption using modified and hardened RC4-drop3072);
  • Autosave Session - if checked, winbox will try to autosave winbox session;
  • Keep Password - if unchecked, password is not saved to the list
Import/Export Sessions

Interface Overview

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

  • Main toolbar at the top where users can add various info fields, like CPU and memory usage.
  • Menu bar on the left - list of all available menus and sub-menus. This list changes depending on what packages are installed. For example, if IPv6 package is disabled, then IPv6 menu and all it's sub-menus will not be displayed.
  • Work area - area where all child windows are opened.

Title bar shows information to identify which router Winbox session is connected to. Information is displayed in following format:

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

From screenshot above we can see that user krisjanis is logged into router with IP address [fe80::4e5e:cff:fef6:c0ab%3]. Router's ID is 3C18-Krisjanis_GW, currently installed RouterOS version is v6.36rc6, RouterBoard is CCR1036-12G-4S and platform is tile.

On the Main toolbar's left side is located undo, redo and Safe Mode buttons to quickly undo any changes made to configuration or enable/disable safe mode. It also shows currently loaded session.

On the right side is located:

  • winbox traffic indicator displayed as a green bar
  • indicator that shows whether winbox session uses TLS encryption

By Right-clicking on the main tool bar, you can add additional info fileds: time, date, cpu usage, memory usage and uptime (illustrated in screeshnot above). In the screenshot above two fileds are added to show CPU usage and free memory.

Work Area And Child Windows

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

Child windows can not be dragged out of working area. If any window is outside visible work area boundaries the vertical or/and horizontal scrollbars will appear. In screenshot below Interface List is dragged outside visible working area and horizontal scrollbar have appeared.

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

  • Add - add new item to the list
  • Remove - remove selected item from the list
  • Enable - enable selected item (the same as enable command from console)
  • Disable - disable selected item (the same as disable command from console)
  • Comment - add or edit comment
  • Sort - allows to sort out items depending on various parameters. Read more >>

Almost all windows have quick search input field at the right side of the toolbar. Any text entered in this field is searched through all the items and highlighted as illustrated in screenshot below

Notice that at the right side next to quick find input filed there is a dropdown box. For currently opened (IP Route) window this dropdown box allows to quickly sort out items by routing tables. For example if main is selected, then only routes from main routing table will be listed.

Similar dropdown 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 screenshot below

Example shows how to quickly filter out routes that are in 10.0.0.0/8 range

  1. Click on Sort button
  2. Chose Dst.Address from the first dropdown box.
  3. Chose in form the second dropdown box. "in" means that filter will check if dst address value is in range of specified network.
  4. Enter 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 Filter button to apply our filter.

As you can see from screenshot winbox sorted out only routes that are within 10.0.0.0/8 range. Comparison operators (Number 3 in screenshot) may be different for each window. For example "Ip Route" window has only two is and in. Other windows may have operators such as "is not", "contains", "contains not". Winbox allows to build stack of filters. For example if there is a need to filter by destination address and gateway, then

  • set first filter as described in example above,
  • press [+] button to add another filter bar in stack.
  • set up seconf filter to filter by gateway
  • press Filter button to apply filters.

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

Customizing List of Displayed Items

By default winbox shows most commonly used parameters. However sometimes it is needed to see another parameters, for example "BGP AS Path" or other BGP attributes to monitor if routes are selected properly. Winbox allows to customize displayed columns for each individual window. For example to add BGP AS path column:

  • Click on little arrow button (1) on the right side of the column titles or right mouse click on the route list.
  • From popped up menu move to Show Columns (2) and from the sub-menu pick desired column, in our case click on BGP AS Path (3)

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

Detail Mode

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

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

Category View

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

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

Monitoring

Winbox can be used as a tool to monitor traffic of interfaces, firewall stats, queue and many other in real-time. Screenshot below shows ethernet traffic monitoring graphs.

Drag and Drop

It is possible to upload and download files to/from router using winbox drag & drop functionality. Since drag and drop do not use ftp, files can be dragged even if you are connected to the router with MAC address.
Note: Drag & Drop may not work if Winbox is running on Linux using Wine. This is not a winbox problem, wine does not have proper drag and drop support.

Troubleshooting

Winbox cannot connect to router's IP address

Make sure that Windows firewall is set to allow Winbox connections or disable 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.

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