Summary

SwOS Lite is an operating system designed specifically for the administration of MikroTik CSS610 series switch products. CSS610 series switches support only SwOS Lite operating system.

The main differences compared to CSS3xx series switches are:

unsupported Independent VLAN Learning;
unsupported VLAN mode "enabled";
unsupported ACL Rate limiting;
supported Port Egress Rate limiting

CSS610 series features

Features	Description
Forwarding	Full non-blocking wirespeed switching Up to 16k MAC entries in the Host table Forwarding Database works based only on SVL Port Isolation Jumbo frame support - 10218 bytes
Spanning Tree Protocol	RSTP support
Link Aggregation	Supports 802.3ad LACP groups Supports static link aggregation groups Up to 16 link aggregation groups Up to 8 member ports per a group Hardware automatic failover and load balancing
Multicast Forwarding	IGMP Snooping support Unknown Multicast Filtering
Mirroring	Port-based mirroring
VLAN	Fully compatible with IEEE802.1Q Port-based VLAN Up to 250 VLAN entries (limited by SwOS) VLAN filtering
Security	Port Lock Broadcast Storm Control DHCP & PPPoE Snooping
Quality of Service (QoS)	Ingress traffic limiting Egress traffic limiting
Access Control List	Ingress ACL tables Up to 32 ACL rules (limited by SwOS) Classification based on ports, L2, L3, L4 protocol header fields ACL actions include filtering, forwarding, and modifying the protocol header fields

Connecting to the Switch

Open your web browser and enter the IP address of your switch (192.168.88.1 by default) and a login screen will appear. The switch can also run a DHCP client, see if a different IP address has been assigned by the DHCP server.

SwOS default IP address: 192.168.88.1, user name: admin and there is no password.

MikroTik Neighbor Discovery can be used to discover the IP address of the Mikrotik switch. LLDP is not supported.

Interface Overview

SwOS interface menu consists of multiple tabs depending on the device model. These are all possible SwOS menus: Link, PoE, SFP, Port Isolation, LAG, Forwarding, RSTP, Stats, Errors, Hist, VLAN, VLANs, Hosts, IGMP, SNMP, ACL, System, Health and Upgrade.

Description of buttons in SwOS configuration tool:

Append - add a new item to the end of the list
Apply All - applies current configuration changes
Cut - removes an item from the list
Clear - reset properties of the item
Discard Changes - removes unsaved configuration
Insert - add a new item to the list (places it before current item)
Sort - sort VLAN table by VLAN-IDs; sort host table by MAC addresses
Change Password - changes the password of the switch
Logout - logout from the current switch
Reboot - reboot the switch
Reset Configuration - reset configuration back to factory defaults
Choose File - browse for upgrade or backup file
Upgrade - upgrade the firmware of the switch using the selected file
Download & Upgrade - automatically try to download and upgrade the firmware, the PC which is running a web browser should be able to access the Internet
Restore Backup - restore switch using a selected backup file
Save Backup - generate and download the backup file from the switch

Each RouterBoard switch series device has its own firmware which cannot be installed on other series models!

CSS610-1Gi-7R-2S+ supports SwOS Lite v2.12 and newer.
CSS610-8G-2S+ supports SwOS Lite v2.12 and newer.

System

System Tab performs the following functions:

General information about switch
Switch management
Configuration reset
Backup and restore configuration

SwOS uses a simple algorithm to ensure TCP/IP communication - it just replies to the same IP and MAC address packet came from. This way there is no need for Default Gateway on the device itself.

Property	Description
Address Acquisition	Specify which address acquisition method to use: `DHCP with fallback` - switch is trying to request an IP address from a DHCP server. If the requests are unsuccessful, then the switch can be accessed using a Static IP Address value `static` - address is set as a Static IP Address value `DHCP only` - switch uses DHCP client to acquire address
Static IP Address	IP address of the switch in case of Address Acquisition is set as `DHCP with fallback` or `static`
Identity	Name of the switch (for Mikrotik Neighbor Discovery protocol)
Allow From	IP address from which the switch is accessible. Default value is '0.0.0.0/0' - any address
Allow From Ports	List of switch ports from which it is accessible
Allow From VLAN	VLAN ID from which the service is accessible. Make sure to first configure VLANs and VLAN pages
Watchdog	Enable or disable system Watchdog. It will reset CPU of the switch in case of fault condition
Independent VLAN Lookup	Enable or disable independent VLAN lookup in the Host table for packet forwarding
IGMP Snooping	Enable or disable IGMP Snooping
Mikrotik Discovery Protocol	Enable or disable Mikrotik Neighbor Discovery protocol
MAC Address	MAC address of the switch (read-only)
Serial Number	Serial number of the switch (read-only)
Board Name	MikroTik model name of the switch (read-only)
Uptime	Current switch uptime (read-only)
Temperature	Shows CPU temperature in celsius temperature scale (read-only)
PoE Out Mode	Specifies PoE-Out state (CSS610-1Gi-7R-2S+ model only) auto-on - the board will attempt to detect if power can be applied to the port. For power-on to happen there should be resistance on spare pairs in the range from 3kΩ to 26.5kΩ forced-on - detection range is removed. As a result power over Ethernet will be always on off - all detection and power is turned off for this port
PoE Out Status	Shows current PoE-Out status on port (read-only, CSS610-1Gi-7R-2S+ model only)

DHCP & PPPoE Snooping

Property	Description
Trusted Ports	Group of ports, which allows DHCP or PPPoE servers to provide a requested information. Mainly used to limit unauthorized servers to provide malicious information for users, access ports usually do not configure as trusted
Add Information Option	Enables or disables DHCP Option-82 information. When enabled, the Option-82 information (Agent Remote ID and Circuit ID) is added for DHCP packets received from untrusted ports. Can be used together with Option-82 capable DHCP server to assign IP addresses and implement policies

Password and Backup

Link

Link Tab allows you to configure each interface settings and monitor the link status.

Property	Description
Enabled	Enable or disable port
Name	Editable port name
Link Status	Current link status (read-only)
Auto Negotiation	Enable or disable auto-negotiation
Speed	Specify speed setting of the port (requires auto-negotiation to be disabled)
Full Duplex	Specify the duplex mode of the port (requires auto-negotiation to be disabled)
Flow control Tx/Rx	Enable or disable 802.3x Flow control

PoE

Devices with PoE-out support have some configuration options and certain monitoring features, like PoE-out current, voltage, etc. For a more detailed description, see PoE-Out manual.

SFP

SFP tab allows you to monitor the status of SFP/SFP+ modules.

Port Isolation

The Port Isolation table allows or restricts traffic forwarding between specific ports. By default, all available switch chip ports can communicate with any other port, there is no isolation used. When the checkbox is enabled/ticked you allow to forward traffic from this port towards the ticked port. Below are some port isolation examples.

In some scenarios, you might need to isolate a group of devices from other groups. In this example devices on Port1-Port5 are not able to communicate with Port6-Port10 devices, and vice versa.

In some scenarios, you might need to forward all traffic to an uplink port while all other ports are isolated from each other. This kind of setup is called a Private VLAN configuration. The switch will forward all Ethernet frames only to the uplink Port1, while uplink can reach all other ports

Individual isolated Port1 (e.g. for management purpose), it cannot send or receive traffic from any other port

It is possible to check/uncheck multiple checkboxes by checking one of them and then dragging horizontally (Click & Drag).

(R)STP will only work properly in Private VLAN setups. In setups with multiple isolated switch groups (R)STP might not properly receive BPDUs and therefore fail to detect network loops.

LAG

IEEE 802.3ad (LACP) compatible link aggregation is supported, as well as static link aggregation to ensure failover and load balancing based only on Layer2 hashing. Up to 16 link aggregation groups with up to 8 ports per group are supported. Each individual port can be configured as Passive LACP, Active LACP, or a Static LAG port.

Property	Description
Mode (default: passive)	Specify LACP packet exchange mode or Static LAG mode on ports: `Passive`: Place port in listening state, use LACP only when its contrary port uses active LACP mode `Active`: Prefer to start LACP regardless of contrary port mode `Static`: Set port in a Static LAG mode
Group	Specify a Static LAG group
Trunk (read-only)	Represents group number port belongs to.
Partner (read-only)	Represents partner mac-address.

Forwarding

Forwarding Tab provides advanced forwarding options among switch ports, port locking, port mirroring, bandwidth limit, and broadcast storm control features.

Property	Description
Port Lock	`Port Lock` - Enables or disables MAC address learning on this port. When the option is enabled, it will restrict MAC address learning and static MAC addresses should be configured. Any received frames with unknown source MAC address will be dropped `Lock On First` - Allows to learn source MAC address from the first received frame, this property should be used together with `Port Lock`. Learning of the first MAC address will reset every time an interface status changes
Port Mirroring	`Mirror Ingress` - Whether traffic entering this port must be copied and forwarded to the mirroring target port `Mirror Egress` - Whether traffic leaving this port must be copied and forwarded to the mirroring target port `Mirror To` - Mirroring target port
Broadcast Storm Control	`Storm Rate` - Limit the number of broadcast packets transmitted by an interface. The rate is measured in bits per second (bps). `Include Unknown Unicast` - Include unicast packets without an entry in the host table in `Storm Rate` limitation
Multicast Flood Control	`Flood Unknown Multicast` - Changes the multicast flood option on a switch port, only controls the egress traffic. When enabled, the bridge allows flooding multicast packets to the specified switch port, but when disabled, it restricts multicast traffic from being flooded. The setting affects all multicast traffic, this includes non-IP, IPv4, IPv6 and the link-local multicast ranges (e.g. 224.0.0.0/24 and ff02::1).
Bandwidth Limit	`Ingress Rate` - Limit traffic entering this port (bps) `Egress Rate` - Limit traffic leaving this port (bps)

It is possible to limit ingress/egress traffic per port basis. The policer is used for ingress traffic, the shaper is used for egress traffic. The ingress policer controls the received traffic with packet drops. Everything that exceeds the defined limit will get dropped. This can affect the TCP congestion control mechanism on end hosts and achieved bandwidth can be actually less than defined. The egress shaper tries to queue packets that exceed the limit instead of dropping them. Eventually, it will also drop packets when the output queue gets full, however, it should allow utilizing the defined throughput better.

RSTP

Per-port and global RSTP configuration and monitoring are available in the RSTP menu.

Property	Description
Bridge Priority (hex)	RSTP bridge priority for Root Bridge selection
Port Cost Mode	There are two methods for automatically detecting RSTP port cost depending on link speed. `short`: 40G - 1; 10G - 2; 1G - 4; 100M - 10; 10M - 100 `long`: 40G - 500; 10G - 2000; 1G - 20000; 100M - 200000; 10M - 2000000
Root Bridge	The priority and MAC address of the selected Root Bridge in the network (read-only)
RSTP	Enable or disable STP/RSTP functionality on this port
Mode	Shows STP/RSTP functionality mode on a specific port (read-only): `RSTP` `STP`
Role	Shows specific port role (read-only): `root` - port that is facing towards the root bridge and will be used to forward traffic from/to the root bridge `alternate` - port that is facing towards root bridge, but is not going to forward traffic (a backup for root port) `backup` - port that is facing away from the root bridge, but is not going to forward traffic (a backup for non-root port) `designated` - port that is facing away from the root bridge and is going to forward traffic `disabled` - port that is not strictly part of STP (RSTP functionality is disabled)
Root Path Cost	Shows root path cost for ports that are facing root bridge (read-only)
Type	`edge` - ports that are not supposed to receive any BPDUs, should be connected to the end station (read-only) `point-to-point` - ports that operate in full-duplex links, can be part of STP and operate in a forwarding state (read-only)
State	Shows each port state (read-only): `forwarding` - port participates in traffic forwarding and is learning MAC addresses, is receiving BPDUs `discarding` - port does not participate in traffic forwarding and is not learning MAC addresses, is receiving BPDU `learning` - port does not participate in traffic forwarding but is learning MAC addresses

Stats, Errors and Histogram

These menus provide detailed information about received and transmitted packets.

Statistics for SFP+ interface are cleared whenever an active SFP+ link is established.

VLAN and VLANs

VLAN configuration for switch ports.

Property	Description
VLAN Mode (disabled \| optional \| strict; Default: optional)	VLAN filtering mode, these options are relevant to egress ports (except for strict mode). disabled - VLAN table is not used. The switch discards packets with a VLAN tag on egress ports. If the packet has a VLAN tag and the VLAN ID matches `Default VLAN ID` on egress ports, then with `VLAN Receive=any` the switch will remove the VLAN tag and forward the packet. optional - Disabled VLAN filtering. Handle packets with VLAN tag ID that is not present in the VLAN table just like packets without VLAN tag. strict - Enabled VLAN filtering with additional ingress filtering, which checks if the ingress port is a member of the received VLAN ID in the VLAN table. Received packets on the ingress port with a VLAN ID that does not match with the VLAN table will be dropped. Default VLAN ID must be specified for access ports since it will be used to tag ingress traffic and untag egress traffic for a certain port.
VLAN Receive (any \| only tagged \| only untagged; Default: optional)	Ingress traffic filtering based on VLAN tag presence. any - Allows tagged and untagged packets on a certain port only tagged - Allows only packets with a VLAN tag only untagged - Allows only packets without a VLAN tag
Default VLAN ID (integer: 1..4095; Default: 1)	VLAN ID which will be assigned on ingress traffic. Only has an effect on untagged traffic, it will be ignored for tagged traffic. This parameter is usually used to allocate access ports with specific VLAN. It is also used to untag egress traffic if the packet's VLAN ID matches Default VLAN ID.
Force VLAN ID (integer: yes \| no; Default: no)	Assigns the `Default VLAN ID` value to all ingress traffic (tagged and untagged). Has effect in all VLAN Modes. If the port receives tagged traffic and `Default VLAN ID` is set to 1, then with this parameter the egress traffic will be untagged.

VLAN membership configuration for switch ports.

Property	Description
VLAN ID (integer: 1..4095; Default: 0)	VLAN ID to which assign ports.
IGMP Snooping (yes \| no; Default: no)	Enables or disables IGMP Snooping on the defined VLAN. When enabled, the switch will listen to IGMP Join and Leave requests from the defined VLAN and only forward traffic to ports, which have sent IGMP membership requests from the defined VLAN. When disabled, the switch will flood all VLAN member ports with Multicast traffic.
Members (ports; Default: none)	Group of ports, which are allowed to forward traffic on the defined VLAN.

VLAN Configuration Example

Trunk and Access Ports

Trunk and Hybrid Ports

Management access

Hosts

This table represents dynamically learned MAC address to port mapping entries. It can contain two kinds of entries: dynamic and static. Dynamic entries get added automatically, this is also called a learning process: when a switch receives a packet from a certain port, it adds the packet's source MAC address and port it received the packet from to the host table, so when a packet comes in with a certain destination MAC address it knows to which port it should forward the packet. If the destination MAC address is not present in the host table then it forwards the packet to all ports in the group. Dynamic entries take about 5 minutes to time out.

Static entries will take over dynamic if dynamic entry with same mac-address already exists. Also by adding a static entry you get access to more functionality.

Property	Description
Ports	Ports the packet should be forwarded to
MAC	MAC address
Port (read-only)	Ports the packet should be forwarded to
MAC (read-only)	Learned MAC address

IGMP Snooping

IGMP Snooping which controls multicast streams and prevents multicast flooding. The feature allows a switch to listen in the IGMP conversation between hosts and routers.

Enable this option under the System tab.

Available IGMP snooping data can be found under the IGMP tab.

It is possible to enable IGMP Snooping for a specific VLAN ID under the VLANs menu.

SNMP

SwOS supports SNMP v1 and uses IF-MIB, SNMPv2-MIB, BRIDGE-MIB and MIKROTIK-MIB (only for health, PoE-out and SFP diagnostics).

Available SNMP data:

System information
System uptime
Port status
Interface statistics
Host table information

Property	Description
Enabled	Enable or disable SNMP service
Community	SNMP community name
Contact Info	Contact information for the NMS
Location	Location information for the NMS

ACL and ACL Stats Tabs

An access control list (ACL) rule table is a very powerful tool allowing wire-speed packet filtering, forwarding, and VLAN tagging based on L2,L3, and L4 protocol header field conditions. Each rule contains a conditions part and an action part.

Conditions part parameters

Property	Description
From	A port that packet came in from
MAC Src	Source MAC address and mask
MAC Dst	Destination MAC address and mask
Ethertype	Protocol encapsulated in the payload of an Ethernet Frame
VLAN	VLAN header presence: any present not present
VLAN ID	VLAN tag ID
Priority	Priority in VLAN tag
IP Src (IP/netmask:port)	Source IPv4 address, netmask, and L4 port number
IP Dst (IP/netmask:port)	Destination IPv4 address, netmask, and L4 port number
Protocol (integer)	IP protocol
DSCP	IP DSCP field

Action part parameters

Property	Description
Account as	Select the number where matched packets will be counted
Redirect To	Force new packets destination port
Mirror	Clones packet and sends it to mirror-target port
Drop	Drop packet
Set VLAN ID	Changes the VLAN tag ID, if VLAN tag is present
Priority	Changes the VLAN tag priority bits, if VLAN tag is present
DSCP	Changes the IP DSCP field

Each ACL rule can be selected to a specific counter where matched packets will be counted.

Reset and Reinstall

The CSS106-5G-1S and CSS106-1G-4P-1S have built-in backup SwOS firmware which can be loaded in case standard firmware breaks or upgrade fails:

Holding Reset button for few seconds while the device is booting will reset configuration and load backup firmware.
After loading backup firmware, it is possible to connect to 192.168.88.1 (or leased address from a DHCP server) using a web browser and install new SwOS firmware.

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CSS610 series Manual