Mikrotik RouterOS Upgrade from Version 6 to 7

The purpose of this guide is to provide a procedure that you can use to upgrade the RouterOS system (packages) and firmware (bootloader) from version 6 to version 7. If you already have a RouterOS version 6 system, upgrading to the latest version 7 is really easy and can be done from CLI. First, we will check the current version of RouterOS device is running.

Start your favorite terminal program and use ssh utility to connect to the IP that the device is listening on. As you can see, the system is up to date and uses the latest 6.49.2 RouterOS. Obviously, it does not offer an upgrade to version 7 (Figure 1).

Figure 1 - RouterOS Version 6.x.x Before Upgrade

The firmware (bootloader) version is also version 6.49.2 (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - Firmware Version 6.x.x Before Upgrade

We will choose channel to "upgrade" to switch from 6.x.x to 7.x.x.

[admin@MikroTik] > system package update set channel=upgrade

Update the packages using the command below. The device starts downloading packages, restarts, and finally installs a new RouterOS v7.

[admin@MikroTik] > system package update install

Packages have been updated to new 7.x.x version Figure 3).

Figure 3 - RouterOS v 7 After Upgrade

Set the channel to long term, stable or updated depending on the channel you want to receive updates from. I prefer the stable channel as I haven't experienced any problems so far. However, the long-term channel may be a better option for you if you want a completely error-free version of RouterOS.

[admin@MikroTik] > system package update set channel=stable

Now, check RouterOS version again; your device should report that system is up to date (Figure 4).

[admin@MikroTik] > system package update print

Figure 4 - RouterOS is Up to Date

The next step is to update firmware, so packages (RouterOS) and firmware (bootloader) are in the same 7.x.x versiop (Figure 5).

[admin@MikroTik] > system routerboard print

Figure 5 - Firmware Version 7.x.x. Available for Upgrade

So now we are ready to perform firmware upgrade with the command:

[admin@MikroTik] > system routerboard upgrade

Reboot the device for changes to take effect:

[admin@MikroTik] > system reboot

The firmware is now also updated (Figure 6).

Figure 6 - Firmware Upgraded to Version 7

End.