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.
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
Description of menu items in loader screen.
File
Tools
It is possible to use command line to pass 'connect to', 'user' and 'password' parameters automatically
winbox.exe [<connect-to> [<login> [<password>]]]
Advanced mode reveals few more options
Winbox interface has been designed to be intuitive for most of the users. Interface consists of:
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:
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.
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:
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.
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
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
You can also remove unnecessary filter from the stack by pressing [-] button.
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:
Changes made to window layout are saved and next time when winbox is opened the same column order and size is applied.
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
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
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.
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.
Make sure that Windows firewall is set to allow Winbox connections or disable windows firewall.
Windows (7/8) does not allow mac connection if file and print sharing is disabled.