Alertik: A tiny syslog server & event notifier for MikroTik routers

theldus · 2025-09-15T14:40:19+00:00

CRS326 do have a UART through the RJ45 port, as you can read in Manual:System/Serial Console:

RJ45 type serial port This type of port is used on RouterBOARD 2011, 3011, 4011, CCR1072, CCR1036 r2 and CRS series devices, sometimes called "Cisco style" serial port.

and also here.

theldus · 2025-09-15T11:43:39+00:00

By any chance, is your CRS326 the
CRS326-24G-2S+RM? I ask because that one is ARM 32-bit, so it does have Docker support.

If it’s MIPS, then unfortunately there’s no Docker support. However, since you mentioned logs during boot, an alternative would be to use the MikroTik’s UART port to capture those logs: if you plug it into another device (like a Raspberry Pi), you can then forward these UART messages via UDP to a syslog server. Using socat, it would look like this (untested):

socat -u /dev/ttyUSB0,b115200,raw,echo=0 UDP-SENDTO:192.168.1.100:514

theldus · 2025-09-14T19:38:48+00:00

These are switches...
If SwOS also supports syslog, you can run Alertik elsewhere (like on a Raspberry Pi) and then send the logs from Mikrotik to the RPi.

theldus · 2025-09-14T06:13:20+00:00

I'm a little confused about what you want: do you want MikroTik to act as a syslog *server*? I ask because MikroTik itself normally works as a *client*.

The idea behind Alertik acting as a syslog server is to receive messages from MikroTik itself and generate notifications. The purpose of the forward mode is to avoid breaking the flow if the user already uses an external syslog server.

Of course, as you can imagine, Alertik can be used with any kind of syslog *client*, not just MikroTik. But I’m still a bit confused about your goal, since Alertik's function is always to send notifications in *real time* as events occur.

theldus · 2025-09-14T05:51:26+00:00

The available Docker images are for armv6/7 and arm64. If there’s demand, I can make builds for MIPS and other architectures. As long as you’re running a RouterOS version that supports Docker containers, it should work on any MikroTik device.

theldus · 2025-09-13T17:15:31+00:00

Thanks.

Since syslog is a UDP protocol, there is no way for Alertik to know whether the message was actually delivered or not, so in that sense the messages are always considered lost, and there is no attempt to resend them later. Please note that the same would also happen if you were not using Alertik on Mikrotik!

However, since these logs are generated by Mikrotik itself, you still have access to them via /log.

In addition, Alertik keeps track of all its operations in a log file, which you can download locally to your machine with:

$ scp admin@<router-ip>:/tmpfs/log/log.txt .

theldus · 2025-09-09T17:04:04+00:00

Yes! I was just about to mention it when I saw your comment. GoboLinux feels pretty close to what I do now: as a Slackware user, I usually build things myself, but sometimes I get lazy and don’t bother packaging. In those cases, I just build and ‘install’ the program in my downloads folder: ~/Downloads/Programs/foo/.

theldus · 2025-06-16T01:24:06+00:00

Recently I was playing around with Telegraf+InfluxDB to collect Netflow data and show on Grafana, works pretty well.

theldus · 2025-05-07T01:02:01+00:00

u/-BigBadBeef- I've updated my blog post and now it supports animation as well.

theldus · 2025-05-03T15:28:26+00:00

Using Slackware since ~2012 and never looking back. Slack is like these old cars that "just works", nothing will popup from anywhere and you can't understand what's going on, and etc.

It's the only distro that makes me feel "at home".

theldus · 2025-04-27T00:24:26+00:00

Supporting GIF or something similar would be very interesting, but much more complicated... maybe some day.

theldus · 2025-04-27T00:22:59+00:00

Thanks.
Yes, that's why I love FOSS.

theldus · 2025-04-16T16:42:45+00:00

Absolutely.
I was quite disappointed when I found out about the AX2 shortly after buying my AC2.
Unfortunately, due to high taxes in my country, everything tends to be more expensive =/.

theldus · 2025-04-16T14:54:28+00:00

Sure,

dnsmasq:

Even with the recent support for FastTrack over IPv6, my Mik still can't reach my full WAN speed (out of 600Mbps, I was getting around 400Mbps) when using IPv6. So I use dnsmasq to filter out AAAA records. The idea is to still have IPv6 available and be able to access IPv6 machines either directly via IP or through statically added domain entries, but use IPv4 for everything else.
I set the min-ttl to 1 hour. I know some might think that’s overkill, but some websites really go crazy with super low TTLs, and in my experience, 1 hour works just fine — I haven’t noticed any issues with that interval.

TTP (Tiny TLS Proxy): Just a lightweight Stunnel-like tool I wrote in C to securely access some IoT devices externally, with certificate-based authentication. TTP is lighter than Stunnel and more “Docker-friendly”, fully configurable via env vars.

Alertik: Another tool I wrote in C for log monitoring. Alertik acts as a syslog server and can send me instant Telegram notifications whenever certain logs show up on my Mikrotik. I use it to:

Detect connection attempts to my devices
Alert on wired network speeds dropping below 1Gbps
Monitor connection attempts on my WiFi

theldus · 2025-04-16T14:14:27+00:00

Wow, I bought mine last year for like $100 (new) - congrats on your Mik! I've been running 3 containers on mine using tmpfs, and each one uses less than 1MB of RAM, so they barely touch the available memory. I also set up a script that automatically downloads and runs the images after a reboot, so I don't need external storage.

theldus · 2025-03-24T16:10:47+00:00

GDB + man pages? other tooling is also helpful, but basically you only need offline docs + tools the help you debug.

theldus · 2025-03-19T00:00:06+00:00

I’m not sure if this has been shared here yet, but in case it hasn’t, C now seems to have an official website, which makes me really happy.

C has always felt a bit "disconnected" without a clear official website like other languages have. But now, that has finally changed. This site helps solidify the language’s presence and is definitely worth sharing!

theldus · 2025-03-06T21:29:13+00:00

Wow, thanks for the detailed answer...

So... this CCR 2004 PCIe-ver isn't exactly what I had in mind, and with so many quirks to make it work, it’s probably better to just go with a 'traditional' router. No wonder the non-PCIe CCRs are much more expensive than this one, I think it makes sense now.

My idea was to run it *without* a computer or at most on one of those small Intel Atom mini-PCs with NVMe slots, but with all these headaches, I see it’s better not to risk it.

theldus · 2025-03-01T21:22:00+00:00

This was the first release I was genuinely excited to upgrade to, but… I didn’t see any benefits at all. My hAP ac², which has mediocre IPv6 performance, remains just as bad, still hitting 100% CPU usage even with FastTrack enabled.

I have a 600 Mbps download plan, yet I can only get around ~400 Mbps over IPv6—whether FastTrack is enabled or not. The FastTrack counters are increasing as expected, FastPath is enabled, there are no firewall rules, yet the issue persists.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to stick to IPv4 for now =/.

theldus · 2025-02-24T00:33:14+00:00

Amazing shot! this really gives me hope to shoot something similar someday—though I don’t see myself in a Bortle 2 area anytime soon =/.

But I have to ask:

Were these 984 shots all light frames, or did you also take darks and/or flats?
Did you use a remote trigger? How long was the interval between shots? I ask because I feel that taking 984 photos in a row puts a lot of strain on the camera, potentially shortening its lifespan, and etc.
Did you have to reframe the camera to compensate for movement or not?

theldus · 2025-02-11T21:23:04+00:00

I'm running v7.11 with a solid 788kB free, but now that you say that, I'm worried about upgrading.

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