Automatic Updates: Upgrade MikroTik RouterOS
RouterOS is very powerful and can quickly overwhelm you with its many functions. However, as a beginner, you can also use QuickSet to simply make a basic setting and then never have to touch the router again.
However, there is one thing you should set up beforehand: automatic updates. What you can simply switch on with a tick in a FritzBox, we have to do with a scheduler at Mikrotik. But don't worry, it's basically just a few words.
Automatically update MikroTik RouteOS via scheduler.
Mikrotik differentiates between the operating system on the device and the firmware of the router. Both always have the same version number in current versions, but must be updated separately. We show you how it works under RouterOS 7. It's really quite simple.
First you switch on the "Auto Upgrade" in System - Routerboard - Settings. This relatively new function enables the firmware to be updated automatically after a software update and saves separate entries for this task (more on that later).
Then go to System - Scheduler and create a new entry there. See the screenshot what to enter. The time interval at which the software is to be tested is important. We have decided on a week, so we enter "7d 00:00:00", i.e. seven days, zero hours, zero minutes, zero seconds. For testing you can set the start time to in a few minutes; for everyday use maybe Sunday morning at 4 a.m..
The command to be executed is called system package update install and does exactly what the name describes. The router downloads the latest update of your software branch (long term e.g.) and installs it. Then the router restarts. It all takes about three minutes, but can always vary.
After the restart, you can see the red notice under System - Routerboard that the firmware has also been updated (we checked the box for this at the very beginning), but a restart is necessary. You don't do this manually now, we create a second entry in the scheduler so we can test it right away.
So make a new entry in System - Scheduler, this time simply with the command system reboot. This restarts the router a second time. Since this can only happen when the actual software has already been updated, you should start the reboot ten to 15 minutes after the first scheduler command.
After these two restarts (if new software is available), the router will automatically install the latest version every Sunday and you will hopefully only have to take care of it again when the hardware dies - or of course when you want to try one of the many functions of RouterOS.