MikroTik RouterOS SSH Installation and Usage

Document revision 31-Jan-2002
This document applies to the MikroTik RouterOS V2.5

Overview

The SSH feature can be used with various SSH Telnet clients to securely connect to and administrate the router.

The MikroTik RouterOS supports:

SSH 1.3, 1.5, and 2.0 protocol standards
server functions for secure administration of the router
telnet session termination with 40 bit RSA SSH encryption is supported
secure ftp is not supported

The MikroTik RouterOS has been tested with the following SSH telnet terminals:

PuTTY
Secure CRT
Most SSH compatible telnet clients

Contents of the Manual

The following topics are covered in this manual:

Installation
Hardware Resource Usage
Suggested Windows Client Setup
Suggested UNIX/Linux Client Setup

Installation

The 'ssh-2.x.npk' (less than 1MB) package for installation of SSH is required. The package can be downloaded from MikroTik’s web page www.mikrotik.com. To install the package, please upload it to the router with ftp and reboot. No additional settings are required. You may check to see if the SSH package is installed with the command:

[MikroTik] > system package print                                              
Flags: I - invalid 
  #   NAME                  VERSION              BUILD-TIME           UNINSTALL
  0   routing               2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:43:38 no       
  1   pppoe                 2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:37:47 no       
  2   ssh                   2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:33:52 no       
  3   system                2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:31:32 no       
  4   snmp                  2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:32:13 no       
  5   ppp                   2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:36:03 no       
  6   pptp                  2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:36:42 no       
  7   aironet               2.5                  jan/30/2002 10:39:05 no       
  8   prism                 2.5                  jan/30/2002 15:51:12 no       
[MikroTik] >

Line 2 shows that the SSH package is installed.

Hardware Resource Usage

The uncompressed package will use approximately 1MB of additional Flash/HD IDE memory. A minimum amount of additional RAM is used. No hardware upgrades are suggested.

Suggested Windows Client Setup

PuTTY is a free Windows (all Windows) SSH client which needs no complex installation. It is one .exe file which can be downloaded and run.

Download this program from the MikroTik utilities download page or http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty.html (suggested for the most recent program version).

Simple instructions:

After downloading, run the program,
Set the connection type to SSH,
On the first connection to the router a Security Alert will notify that the server’s host is not in the registry. Answer 'YES' to trust this server.
The normal router login will not be display. Instead, 'login as:' and 'name@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’s password:' will appear.

Suggested UNIX/Linux Client Setup

No client installation is needed on all standard Linux distributions. The command: ssh –l [username] [router address] will initiate a connection.

Additional Resources

Links for Windows Client:

http://www.zip.com.au/~roca/ttssh.html
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty.html
http://www.massconfusion.com/ssh/
http://telneat.lipetsk.ru/
http://support.jgaa.com/?cmd=ShowArticle&ID=11
http://akson.sgh.waw.pl/~chopin/ssh/index_en.html
http://cs.mscd.edu/MSSH/index.html
http://www.networksimplicity.com/openssh/