At this point, you will be probably disconnected, because you just removed the old management IP. Then remove ether1 and then ether2 from the bridge. Then add another management IP address on the current master port (ether2 in your case). So, I would start by going into safe mode. Ideally, you want to have ether1 have ether2 as a master port, and have any management addresses for the mikrotik on ether2 (the master port). So, with the current config, traffic from ether1 to any of the other ports on the switch may be slower than traffic between ether 2-5. The switching hardware switches between the ports, and the CPU only deals with packets to/from the address on the master port, offloading everything else to the hardware switch chip. Then, you configure any layer 3 config on the master port and leave the slave ports alone. The way the software handles this is that you go to the interfaces you want as the switch, and pick one port as a master port, and set all the others to use that master port. Usually 4 or 5 ports go to one switch chip, and usually it is the ports physically close to each other. This virtual interface is as if it is connected to the emulated switch, and is where you assign layer3 stuff (IP addresses, IP filter rules, etc).įor the hardware switch chip(s), ports are grouped and connected to a switch chip. So, how does Mikrotik handle the two options in software? Well, as you've seen, with a software bridge, you added each port to the bridge, and then the CPU emulates a switch, creating a new virtual interface with the name of the bridge.

This will get you performance closer to full wire speed. So, unless you have filtering/packet capture requirements, you want to use the switching function instead of bridge. But, you will have lower performance because it is not hardware accelerated. This means it can do filtering, packet capture of traffic between ports, etc. The processor is involved in each packet that goes through. It will give you better performance than a bridge, because the CPU for the most part is not involved in processing the packets.Ī bridge is a Linux Kernel software bridge. In a mikrotik, it makes the distinction between a bridge and a switch, even though functionally they do the same thing.Ī switch is a hardware accelerated function that uses an onboard switching chip.

Mikrotik routeros master port