From RouterOS v6 to v7

MikroTik converts your configuration itself when you upgrade the same device. Move to new hardware that only runs v7 and that does not happen, leaving you holding a v6 export. That is what the v6 import is for.

This part is still in beta. It is tested against the cases we ran into, not against everything RouterOS can do. Read the result before you use it.

Importing

On the first screen choose Moving from RouterOS v6? and paste your /export. A v6 export is recognised in the normal import as well: the header line of an export says which version made it, and on a 6.x the tool switches the choice itself and tells you which version it saw. After that it continues like any import: you end up in advanced mode.

What happens is a translation pass in front of the ordinary import. The model line is kept, so your device is still recognised, but the v6 version line is dropped: you are generating for v7 now.

Converted automatically

• Routing marks become routing tables. In v7 a table has to exist before a route uses it. The tool collects every mark that appears in your routes, your mangle rules and your route rules, turns them into /routing table add fib name=... and puts those lines first.
• routing-mark= becomes routing-table= on every route that uses it.
• /ip route rule becomes /routing rule.
• The NTP client. primary-ntp, secondary-ntp and server-dns-names are merged into one servers=, and empty or zero addresses drop out.
• Everything that stayed the same — firewall, NAT, bridge, VLANs, addresses, DHCP, DNS, PPP and IPsec — is carried over unchanged.

The report

After reading it in you get a list where every point has one of three outcomes: converted, converted but check this, or not converted automatically. Above it sits a count of how many lines were converted, how many were kept unchanged and how many were left as comments. Every point links to the manual page it is about, and you can download the converted v7 export to look at it on its own.

Check these yourself

• Wi-Fi. This is the biggest trap, and what it says depends on your model. If your device runs the new wifi package on v7, SSIDs and passphrases are carried over and rebuilt as /interface wifi: check channels, guest SSIDs and VLANs. If your device can run either package, like an hAP ac², your v6 settings (/interface wireless) only work with the wireless package. If wifi-qcom-ac is installed after the upgrade, your Wi-Fi networks are gone while bridges, DHCP and leases are still there. If your device only does wireless, nothing changes and the Wi-Fi comes over as it was.
• CAPsMAN. /caps-man only works on v7 for access points with the wireless package. Access points on the wifi package use /interface wifi capsman and have to be set up again.
• Scripts and the scheduler. Those are carried over unchanged. Commands that changed name in v7 are not rewritten inside a script, so read them.
• master-port. Switching from before RouterOS 6.41 no longer exists. Those lines are left as comments; use a bridge with hardware offloading instead.

Not converted

OSPF, OSPFv3, BGP, routing filters, RIP, MME, MPLS, VRF and User Manager are structured differently in v7. Those lines stay in the result as comments, with a pointer to the manual. That is deliberate: a guessed OSPF or BGP configuration is worse than none. You find them again as the lines starting with # that say they have to be converted by hand.

When the package is missing

If Wi-Fi is gone after the upgrade, the package is usually not installed. Download the Extra packages for exactly the same RouterOS version as the device runs, upload the package you need, reboot, and only then import the Wi-Fi lines. A package from another version is refused.

When you need this, and when you do not

Upgrading the same device from v6 to v7 means RouterOS does the conversion itself, and you do not need this import. It is there for when that is not an option: new hardware that only runs v7, a device you cannot get going again, or an export from an archive you want to put on another board. It is also useful simply to see what would change about an old configuration, without touching anything.

What to do with the parts that were not converted

The lines left as comments are not something you translate by hand: you rebuild them in the Routing section. OSPF and BGP are laid out so differently in v7 that a literal translation would not work anyway; you have the old lines beside you for reference, and the tool writes the new ones. See OSPF and BGP.

Afterwards

You are then in the same tool as always, so walk through the sections and use the checks: they look at your converted configuration as if you had just filled it in yourself. To see what would change on the device, use the comparison at the bottom of the script screen; it works from the converted v7 text, because that is what the router will be running.

Read the result before you use it. This is beta, and a configuration that grew over years almost always holds something nobody remembered. Keeping an export of the old router costs nothing and saves an evening when something turns out to be missing.

Further reading: Importing an existing configuration, Setting up Wi-Fi and Advanced.