Migrating a config from a Mikrotik 4011 to the newer 5009

 

 

A LOT of the articles online and the Mikrotik forums are filled with easily panicked people. they will tell you what I am about to tell you to do "is impossible" or "highly dangerous".  They are all extremely wrong.

The 4011 and the 5009 are basically the same thing but with upgraded processing and communication on the 5009.   It has 2 less ports and does not have 2 serial interfaces.

Step 0 upgrade both routers to the exact same firmware version of routerOS

Step 1.  Export the config from your 4011.  I use winbox on a mac fire up a console and  /export show-sensitive file=4011

Step 2 copy that file to your laptop/GamingPC/Mainframe/Space Shuttle Computer/whatever and open in a text editor on that file

delete anything in the interface setup (top of file) that talks about ether 9 and ether 10

delete both of the serial interfaces

Using winbox. blow out the config on the new 5009. tell it you want no default config.

reconnect and set your password as it forces you to.

using winbox copy the file you edited to the 5009

go into the terminal and type /import 4011.rsc

if successful (mine was) you should be good to go.  I would look around at your settings and compare to the old one.  In my case I also have Mikrotik AP's so I had to remove the running router from my network by unplugging,  and then plugged in the new router and let everything settle down.  the AP's found the new router and were happy as clams in warm shallow water and everything was working perfect after the AP's found the new router and re pulled their config.

Now this works because the two routers are basically the same thing just slight port differences and we edited it to remove the ports that dont exist.

This only works for an export.  DO NOT try this with a binary backup unless you want a dead 5009.

Can I use this to migrate from a 30 year old router?  no of course not and you should not be that silly to think it would.  And yes I had that question from someone when talking on those forums.

Be aware that both the mikrotik subreddit and their own forums are filled with a lot of people that really dont know what they are doing and they parrot others a lot.  There are some great people in both that actually know what they are doing, and you can figure out who they are quickly.

How did I figure this out?  I used my brain and read the specs on both routers,  I looked up info on both and asked questions about both.  when I had enough to tell me they are basically the same thing with the 5009 being a 4011 with all the bugs fixed and a 2.5gig port.  I went for it.  worst that would happen using export and import is to blow it out and do all the configurations from scratch.