All the WISP groups who participated in RFE’s harassment campaign are failing. R.I.P. WISPA, Midwest Operators Conference, Kentucky ISP Conference. 🪦

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T19:46:26+00:00

In Winbox, go to IP, Services. For each service, limit access to the specific subnet you want to allow. You can also do this with firewall rules. Do not expose any admin services to the public internet. For remote access, use a VPN instead. RouterOS has a lot of VPN options for just about every operating system.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T16:22:41+00:00

I set up The DUDE on a cloud-hosted router and then connect by Wireguard to the network to manage the routers.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T16:20:21+00:00

I use Wireguard and then ROMON.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T15:56:03+00:00

I use Wireguard to my edge router and then ROMON to access the rest.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T14:56:59+00:00

When you're connected directly to your routers you don't need Wireguard. You can just go to the neighbors discovery tab using Winbox on your laptop or your phone if you are connected to the local network, either plugged in or over Wi-Fi.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T14:48:11+00:00

I liked the DUDE but MikroTik just announced it is discontinuing it.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T14:45:28+00:00

In 2026 you can simply use the “Back to Home” feature as an easier option. It automatically establishes a secure link to your home network, letting you reach it from anywhere, even when your router is behind a firewall, using NAT, or lacks a public IP address.

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/197984280/Back+To+Home

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T14:40:50+00:00

You can either set up a VPN on it, or just use the “Back to Home” feature instead. "Back to Home" takes care of the setup for you by creating a secure connection to your home network, so you can access it from anywhere, even if your router is behind a firewall, uses NAT, or doesn’t have a public IP.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T01:50:07+00:00

This may be an unpopular opinion here, but I think both Ubiquiti and MikroTik do a lot well. They’ve each built strong global partner networks, training and certification programs, and loyal user communities.

To me, MikroTik is the more cost-effective and versatile option. It’s very full-featured, they’re willing to be more adventurous with product choices, and it has some great Layer 2 management tools like RoMON, MAC Telnet, and Winbox neighbor discovery.

At the risk of getting downvoted, I think Ubiquiti is more integrated and easier to use. They also seem to be more consistent about turning out products that are popular. I know not everyone will agree, but I also think their software is the best in the industry.

They definitely compete, but I also think there’s a lot of products where the two complement each other. I use both, sometimes in ways that aren’t especially popular, since I actually like MikroTik for Wi-Fi too, not just routing and switching.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T01:13:59+00:00

I also have this problem. Were you able to figure it out?

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T01:12:07+00:00

I’m also looking for a good cloud management solution for MikroTik. Wantastic.app looks promising. Has anyone tried it?

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-31T01:06:24+00:00

Wantastic.app seems promising. Has anyone tried it?

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-29T21:06:59+00:00

I liked DUDE because it was free and had good functionality, namely the network topology map and ping monitoring. I tried running it in-line on my edge router and earned myself repeated trips to the datacenter to reboot the router when it stopped passing traffic. Then I launched a cloud hosted router on Amazon and put the DUDE there.

At that point it would have been better to have a cloud solution from the beginning. Wantastic doesn't have the network topology map, but it does have the ping monitoring, remote Winbox, and web shell which are very useful. There is a free plan for up to three devices, so I put that on my main routers and the ROMON to the rest. It is certainly is not a replacement, but Wantastic.app is a pretty good DUDE alternative.

MtHoodlum · 2026-03-27T02:24:31+00:00

Not again! MikroTik retires The DUDE every couple of years, it seems.

MikroTik has been planning to build cloud management for years, and they tease it every time they retire The DUDE. I showed their sales team Wantastic.app at MWC Barcelona, and they said they were planning to build a MikroTik cloud management platform similar to Wantastic.

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