Netinstall | MikroTik Configurator

Netinstall is MikroTik's tool for installing RouterOS onto a device over the network, from scratch. It does not log in and change settings. It reformats the device's storage and writes a fresh RouterOS onto it, which is why it works when nothing else does, and why you do not reach for it first.

Netinstall erases the configuration and every file on the device. Files you uploaded, backups stored on the router, certificates, a container image: all of it. If you can still log in, take an export and a backup off the device first. See Backup and export.

When you need it

You have lost the password. RouterOS has no password recovery. A reset with the button gets you back in on most devices, and if that is blocked or does not help, Netinstall is what is left.
The device does not boot properly, or RouterOS starts and immediately falls over. A failed upgrade, a power cut during an install, corrupted storage.
A reset is not enough. Something survives the reset and you cannot find out what. Netinstall leaves nothing to survive.
You want a specific version on a device, including one older than what is on it, with exactly the packages you choose.
You are taking over a device whose history you do not know and you want to be sure of what is on it before it goes into a customer's network.

What it is not for: everyday upgrades, which go through /system package update from the device itself, and everyday clean starts, which are a /system reset-configuration away. Try those first. See Using the script for the normal reset.

What it does, and what it leaves alone

Netinstall reformats the system drive and installs the RouterOS packages you point it at. The configuration is gone, the files are gone, and the device comes up as if it had come out of the factory, either with the default configuration or with nothing at all, depending on what you chose.

Two things it does not touch, which is good news. It does not remove the device's RouterOS licence: a RouterBOARD stays licensed at its own level, see Licence levels and CHR. And it does not reset the RouterBOOT settings, the bootloader settings underneath RouterOS, so things like a changed CPU frequency or a chosen boot device stay as they were.

Roughly how it goes

There is a Windows version with a window, a Linux version on the command line, and in recent RouterOS releases a package that lets another MikroTik device act as the Netinstall host. The idea is the same in all three.

Prepare the machine you will install from. Download Netinstall and the RouterOS package for the architecture of the device you are installing, in the version you want, plus any extra packages you need in that same version. Architectures and versions are covered in Packages.
Put the two on the same piece of network. Netinstall talks to the device at layer 2, so no router in between. A direct cable or a plain unmanaged switch is what you want. Use a dedicated network card if you can, and switch off other things that hand out addresses, because a second DHCP server is the usual reason it does not work.
Start Netinstall and give it an address to lend to the device while it installs.
Boot the device into Etherboot. This is a special boot state in which the device asks the network for an operating system. Either press and hold the reset button a second or two after powering on, or, with the device off, hold the reset button down, power it on, and watch the indicator: it blinks, goes steady, then goes out, and that is the moment to let go. Which LED does this depends on the model. If one way does not work, try the other; there are two bootloaders on board and either may be the one that responds.
Wait for the device to appear in the list in Netinstall. This is the step that fails, and the reasons are always the same: the firewall on your own machine, the wrong network card, a switch in between that does not pass the traffic, or the device not actually being in Etherboot.
Select it, pick your packages, press install. You can also hand it a configuration script to run once it comes up, which is a neat way to put a device straight into service.
Let it finish and reboot. Do not unplug the power. When it comes back, it is at factory state and reachable the way a new device is, through the neighbour list if nothing else. See WinBox, WebFig and the terminal.

Afterwards

You now have an empty device on a known version, which happens to be exactly the state our scripts are written for. Generate the configuration, paste it into the terminal in one go, check that you can still reach the device, and keep the rollback script. See Using the script.

If you had an export from before, do not import it blindly onto a device that is now on a different RouterOS version. Read it, use it as a description of what the device used to do, and let the configurator write the current version of that. Importing an existing configuration does exactly that with a pasted export.

One honest warning

Netinstall is a service tool with a plain interface, and it is used by people who are already having a bad day. The mistakes that hurt are choosing a package for the wrong architecture, and running it against a device you did not mean to. Read the model in the list before you press install, and if the device is still reachable over the network, spend two minutes on an export first.