Butch Evans Blog

I recently announced 2 new training courses that I will be offering online.  Details can be found at the registration pages linked below.  You can view ALL currently available courses HERE

The first course is a WISP Basics course.  This course is a discussion of IP basics and an RF Primer.  The IP Basics portion is a detailed look at network fundamentals.  This course is perfect for those that are new to the WISP business or anyone who wishes to learn more about how data flows over an IP network, including wired and wireless networks.  There is a lot of detail in this course and it is possible that it will extend to about 2.5 days.  Registration for this course is HERE

The second course is our Mikrotik Standard training course adapted for use online.  The online course is not exactly the same as our live training, however, it is similar in many ways.  The content of the course is mostly the same, however, the labs are rewritten to accomodate an online environment.  This is a 4 day training and is a detailed look at most of the features in RouterOS.  Registration and more information is HERE.

Because the training is online, there is no need to make travel arrangements.  Online training offers you the ability to have multiple employees trained for the price of one.  Online training offers you the ability to learn from the comfort of your own office space.  The training we are offering is of the highest quality and should not be confused with other training offers currently in the marketplace.  We offer:
* The most mature (over 4 years in development) training material
* An expert in networking as trainer (not just Mikrotik)
* An experienced trainer (I’ve been teaching in one form or another since 1998)
* An experienced ISP with the expertise to adapt materials to the WISP network

You don’t have to spend HUNDREDS of dollars more in order to get quality training.  You don’t have to spend MONTHS learning this material.  If you’ve ever considered attending a live training, but have been waiting for one to be “near you”, then this is your chance to see what it’s all about.  Registration information is available for both courses HERE.  Seating is limited and the special discounts won’t last long, so don’t hesitate.

In my recent article regarding the implementation of a MIP solution with Mikrotik RouterOS clients, I described some of the issues surrounding the a MIP solution as well as some of the solutions.  This article generated quite a bit of response and I wanted to take the time to now offer some business ideas for how this can be useful to WISPs.

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It seems to be “all the rage”.  Mobile IP.  In reality, mobile IP, describes the ability for a user to move across a network without having to renumber his devices.  This definition holds true even if a user moves from one network to another.  In other words, a user is able to keep his IP address without regard to where his device exists on the internet.  That’s not exactly what I’m gonna describe here, but it is a very close approximation.

The solution you are about to read is real and tested….names (and IPs) may be changed to protect the innocent…

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In this article, I want to describe how to tunnel EoIP over a PPtP connection.  EoIP is a Mikrotik specific method of bridging ethernet traffic over a routed network.  The problem with using EoIP as a “VPN”, is that it is not encrypted.  The network we will build in this article will tunnel the EoIP traffic over an encrypted PPtP tunnel.  There are other methods available in later versions of Mikrotik RouterOS to accomplish this functionality (OpenVPN, for one example) and I will be adding articles on some of these at a later time.  the method described in this article will work in any version of Mikrotik RouterOS.  It has been tested under 2.8.28, 2.9.51 and 3.13.

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In “normal” routing, you have a set of routes that tell the router about how to reach certain networks.  Policy routing is a way to do the same thing, but have different “paths” or routes for various types of traffic.  In this article, we will explore the requirements for setting up policy routing and explain some of the concepts involved.

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It’s a question that I get from time to time and it’s time to answer here.  If you understand the fundamental principles of networking, then all the other parts of building and maintaining an ISP network (wired OR wireless) are much simpler.  In this series of articles we will discuss the processes that make IP networking function by delving into the fundamentals of how subnetting works, how a router USES subnet information and the very important arp process.

This topic is an easy topic to understand, but it is difficult to organize the materials and ideas needed to easily explain.  This is because there are so many pieces that are related and understanding one part is necessary to understand the next.  You, as a reader, may need to read this article more than once in order to fully understand all of the parts.  We will use the following “talking points” to cover this topic:

1. Networking basics – what is needed to make two or more computers communicate?
2. What is a router and why is it a necessary component in a  network?
3. Subnet masks and what they mean.  What, exactly, IS a subnet address and why do I care?
4. ARP – what is it and what does it do?
5. Wrap up and tying up the loose ends.

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Over the course of the past several days, I have seen a significant number of folks who misunderstand the proper use for the new interface based routing option in MikroTik’s RouterOS.

First, what is interface routing anyway?  In order to understand the answer to this question, we first have to understand how network communications works.  More specifically, we will discuss how IP communications happens.

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