PPPoE Server HOWTO for MikroTik RouterOS 2.9

If you wish to run a PPPoE server, MikroTik RouterOS provides a convenient way to set one up in a few minutes (with built-in traffic shaping feature too!). Previously I used Fedora Core for my PPPoE servers, but I couldn’t find a working solution to keep ghost PPPoE sessions from bogging down my Linux server. I tried MikroTik DOM with RouterOS to replace my Linux-powered PPPoE servers, so far the results are very good.

Below is a mini guide that may be able to help you get your PPPoE server running in a few minutes using RouterOS.

First, make sure that your RouterOS server’s WAN connectivity has been properly configured. Remember that you need at least 2 network interface cards (NICs). This guide assumes that both NICs are ethernet — ether1 and ether2. If you haven’t set anything up on the new system, let me help you with the checklist: (based on my experience, the following issues are the most common)

• Make sure that the Internet-facing NIC has an IP address assigned on it and the default gateway is set (/ip route add gateway=…)
• If NAT is used, ensure that src-nat/masquerade firewall rule has been added (/ip firewall nat …) and it is working properly

Once you have verified the server’s connectivity, create a PPP profile (/ppp profile add name=”pppoe-profile” local-address=10.1.1.1 dns-server=… rate-limit=128k/128k). Every user account that uses this profile will get 128Kbps upload and download limit. If you wish to have different types of accounts (for example some customers pay for 256Kbps), create a new PPP profile (change the rate-limit attribute).

Next, create a user account assigned to the new PPP profile (/ppp secret add name=”andryan” password=”test” service=pppoe profile=”pppoe-profile” remote-address=10.1.1.2). When this user logs in successfully, this user gets assigned 10.1.1.2. To dynamically assign IP addresses, there is an example here.

Finally, create a PPPoE server instance (/interface pppoe-server server add service-name=”pppoe1″ interface=ether2 one-session-per-host=yes default-profile=”pppoe-profile”) and enable it. Now your RouterOS PPPoE server is ready to answer PPPoE requests and authenticate your PPPoE clients.