RouterOS installation, upgrade and licensing

Most MikroTik devices arrive with RouterOS installed, so the common jobs are upgrading, adding a package, and recovering a device. Treat every one of them as a change that can leave the router unreachable: take a binary backup and an export first (routeros-initial-setup), and make sure you have physical or out-of-band access before a reboot that matters.

Know what is installed

/system/resource/print        # version, channel, architecture, board, factory-software (oldest allowed downgrade)
/system/package/print         # installed and available packages
/system/routerboard/print     # current-firmware (RouterBOOT) versus upgrade-firmware
/system/license/print         # software-id, level or expiry

scripts/check_latest_version.py asks upgrade.mikrotik.com for the newest version of each channel and can compare it with yours: python scripts/check_latest_version.py --channel stable --current 7.23.1. It is read-only and needs no router.

Upgrade