Many people may not be aware that you can turn commodity hardware into a Mikrotik OS and there are various options which is "CHR" (Cloud Hosted Router) which is a VM image meant for Virtualization only (seriously, I've tried to dd the image to a physical server and it just crashed as it does not contain any drivers for physical).

One note as well if you are trying to do a baremetal install you may get an error "Error Loading Operating System" or the normal "No OS drive detected" from your computer/server's BIOS.  This is a nice way of letting you know that your BIOS sucks/is not compatible with what I believe is syslinux that is installed as the boot loader.  One particular notorious problem vendor is HP's server line (eg. HP DL360e) will just not boot it.

You can download from here: https://mikrotik.com/download

Recommended CHR image: https://download.mikrotik.com/routeros/7.1beta6/chr-7.1beta6.img.zip

Recommended iso (for bare metal):  https://download.mikrotik.com/routeros/7.1beta6/mikrotik-7.1beta6.iso

Also be warned that not having the right license will mean a speed limitation of just 1mbit on CHR.  You can also get a free 60-day trial which will remove the speed limit for that time.

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/RouterOS+license+keys

Mikrotik Quick Setup CHR/Router OS Guide

You should set the new password first, before putting the router online, because the default is blank and you should have a secure password.

Set a new password:

/password


List All NICs

This is essential so you don't mess up your routing especially if you have more than one NIC.

The command below will print the interface name along with the MAC address.

/interface/ethernet
print

Add IP Address

Replace ether2 with the interface # and /30 with your subnet mask.

/ip/address add address 172.16.52.20/30 interface=ether2
 

Add Gateway

/ip/route add gateway 172.16.52.19
 

Add DNS

/ip/dns  set servers=4.2.2.1

Ping

/tool/ping 192.168.1.1

Beyond this it is fairly simple as you can just go to / and type ? and for any area such as /tool just type ? and you can see a list of possible commands.  You can even break it down and keep typing ? to see what parameters the tool/command takes.

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