MikroTik Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) is a version of RouterOS for cloud servers. It possesses the following features:

• Firewall.
• Virtual private network (VPN) server and client.
• Bandwidth shaping.
• Quality of Service (QoS).
• Ability to act as a wireless access point.
• Bridging.
• Portal-based hotspot.

Licensing

MikroTik CHR has free and paid license levels. The free license has a speed limit of 1Mbit.

1. Boot the SystemRescueCD ISO

1. Navigate to the Vultr cloud server deployment page.
2. Select ISO Library under Server Type.
3. Choose SystemRescueCD.
4. Choose your server plan and deploy the cloud server.

2. Download and install the MikroTik RouterOS raw disk image

1. Navigate to the MikroTik RouterOS download page.
2. Scroll down to the “Cloud Hosted Router” section.
3. Right click on the floppy disk image in the “Raw disk image” row and the “x.xx.x (Current)” column.
4. Select “Copy Link Location” on the menu. The raw disk image URL will be saved to your operating system’s clipboard.
5. Open a text editor and paste the URL for safe keeping.
6. On the Vultr server instance page, click on View Console for your running SystemRescueCD instance.
7. Use the wget command to retrieve the URL link you pasted in your text editor by typing it inside of the *View Console” window.

   wget https://download2.mikrotik.com/routeros/x.xx.x/chr-x.xx.x.img.zip
   

8. Use the unzip command to extract the raw disk image.

   unzip chr-x.xx.x.img.zip
   

9. Use the dd command to write the raw disk image to the Vultr virtual disk.

   dd if=chr-6.48.3.img of=/dev/vda
   

10. Under the Settings, Custom ISO section of your server instance, click the Remove ISO option. Your server will be rebooted.
11. Refresh the View Console windows and type admin at your new MikroTik login. The password is blank. Just hit the “return” key.

MikroTik RouterOS is now installed to your Vultr instance. Follow the guide here to secure your router, which will allow you to access it remotely. Thanks for reading.