routeros-qemu-chr
RouterOS CHR with QEMU
What Is CHR
Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) is MikroTik's x86_64 and aarch64 RouterOS image designed for virtual machines. Free license allows unlimited use with 1 Mbps speed limit — sufficient for development, testing, API work, and packet sniffer debugging. A free 60-day trial removes the speed limit entirely (requires a free mikrotik.com account). See CHR licensing reference for full details on license tiers, trial activation, and expiry behavior.
Image Variants
| Image | Architecture | Boot method | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
chr-<ver>.img |
x86_64 | SeaBIOS (MBR chain-load) | download.mikrotik.com |
chr-<ver>-arm64.img |
aarch64 | UEFI (EDK2 pflash) | download.mikrotik.com |
chr-efi.img (fat-chr) |
x86_64 | UEFI (OVMF) | tikoci/fat-chr GitHub |
Standard x86 image has a proprietary boot partition — it looks like an EFI System Partition in GPT but is NOT FAT. UEFI firmware (OVMF) cannot read it. Only SeaBIOS can boot it via MBR chain-load.
The fat-chr repackaged image converts this to standard FAT16 with EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI, enabling UEFI boot. Required for Apple Virtualization.framework on X86 macOS, optional everywhere else.
Disk layout (128 MiB, both architectures): Hybrid GPT+MBR, partition 1 = boot (~33 MiB), partition 2 = ext4 root (~94 MiB).