How to create a Vagrant box for Mikrotik CHR

Some quick instructions to create a Vagrant box (libvirt box) for Mikrotik CHR RouterOS, version 6.

First of all, you need to download the RouterOS CHR vmdk file from the Mikrotik’s website, and convert it to qcow2 format with the qemu-img tool:

qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 chr-6.49.1.vmdk chr-6.49.1.qcow2

After that, you can use it with virt-install to boot up a CHR instance for the first time, and apply some initial configuration:

virt-install \
    --connect=qemu:///system \
    --name=chr-6.49.1 \
    --os-type=linux \
    --arch=x86_64 \
    --cpu host \
    --vcpus=1 \
    --hvm \
    --ram=512 \
    --disk path=chr-6.49.1.qcow2,bus=ide,format=qcow2 \
    --network=network:vagrant-libvirt,model=virtio \
    --import --noautoconsole --graphics none

You can connect to the KVM instance using virsh:

virsh console chr-6.49.1

accept the license, and verify the IP address taken using DHCP.

You also need to add a vagrant user, and copy the Vagrant SSH Public Key. Let’s start with the key file copy, using SCP:

scp ~/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key [email protected]:

Using the console, add the user and associate the public key to it:

/user add group=full name=vagrant
/user set 1 password=vagrant
/user ssh-keys import public-key-file=insecure_private_key user=vagrant

You can also test the result trying to connect with the new user and its key:

ssh [email protected] -i ~/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key

Now it comes the hacks: it seems that RouterOS saves somewhere the existing network interfaces, together with their own names, checking for their existance on the subsequent boots. Every time it founds a new ethernet interface, this will be added to the list with a “sequence number”, i.e., ether2, ether3, and so on.

The network interface we are using during the installation won’t be present anymore on the next boot time, and the “new” first interface will be called ether2 - which we don’t like it.

But, we can simply rename the current interface to something different than ether1. Doing so, the “new” first interface will be called exactly ether1. Much better!

At the same time, since any configuration about DHCP Client is linked to the current interface (and the configuration is referenced by ID, not by interface name), we need to change the DHCP Client config on every boot to use the new interface. This can be done using a system scheduler script at every system startup.

/interface ethernet set 0 name=temp

/system scheduler
add name="boot" on-event=":delay 00:00:10 \r\n/ip dhcp-client set 0 interface=[/interface ethernet get 0 name]" start-time=startup interval=0s disabled=no

Additionally, we do want to enable IPv6:

/system package enable ipv6

After that, you can shutdown the VM.

/system shutdown

We need then to create the Vagrant metadata file (metadata.json), in the same directory of our qcow file, with the following content:

{"provider":"libvirt","format":"qcow2"}

and to create the final box file we just need to run:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vagrant-libvirt/vagrant-libvirt/master/tools/create_box.sh
bash create_box.sh chr-6.49.1.qcow2

The box file can be imported into Vagrant with:

vagrant box add chr-6.49.1.box --name mikrotik/chr

NOTE: this Vagrant box image has been created for use with the netlab (formerly netsim-tools): https://github.com/ipspace/netlab