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MikroTik Netinstall Recovery

How to resurrect a bootlooping OmniTIK with netinstall

Symptoms

OmniTIK boots up but continually reboots. The LEDs repeat the pattern: device boots up, power eventually turns blue, then 1-5 turn orange and reboots. Rinse and repeat.

Solution

Use netinstall to flash a fresh firmware on the router. This guide assumes Linux, though both Linux and Windows are supported. This should work for any RouterBOARD based device.

  • Install netinstall on your laptop from mikrotik, and make sure it is in your command line path
  • Download the firmware you want to reset to (e.g. routeros-mipsbe-6.47.8.npk)
  • Plug the data end of PoE injector into your computer's ethernet (e.g. enp0s13f0u2u4u5)
  • Press and hold the reset button on the omnitik
    • Plug the poe+data end into ether1 of omnitik
    • Keep holding the reset button until LED 1 is solid orange, and the blue light has stopped flashing and is now off
  • Finally, run netinstall and reset the board:
❱ netinstall -p ~/Downloads/routeros-mipsbe-6.47.8.npk -i enp0s13f0u2u4u5
Using server IP: 192.168.88.2
Starting PXE server
Waiting for RouterBOARD...
PXE client: CC:2D:E0:17:55:CB
Sending image: mips
Discovered RouterBOARD...
Formatting...
Sending package routeros-mipsbe-6.47.8.npk ...
Ready for reboot...
Sent reboot command

After all this, you should hear a few beeps indicating success. You can now try to connect via ether2 to configure it at 192.168.88.1 as normal.

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