Monitoring Interface Status and Uptime in MikroTik

Monitoring Interface Status on MikroTik

Interface up/down events are often the first indicator of network problems. Monitoring interface status proactively — and getting alerted when something goes down — is a core network operations skill.

Viewing Interface Status in Real Time

/interface print
/interface ethernet print

The R flag next to an interface means it is running (link is up). Absence of R means the link is down.

Checking Interface Statistics

/interface ethernet print stats

Look for:

• rx-error, tx-error: hardware or duplex errors
• rx-drop, tx-drop: queue overflow (traffic shaping issue)
• tx-queue-drop: high output congestion

Steadily growing error counters indicate a physical problem.

Monitoring a Specific Interface

/interface ethernet monitor ether1

This shows real-time link speed, duplex, and status — essential when troubleshooting physical connectivity.

Using Netwatch to Alert on Interface Down

While Netwatch is primarily for ping-based monitoring, you can combine Scheduler with interface checks:

/system script add name=check-interfaces source={
  :foreach i in=[/interface find where running=no type=ether] do={
    :local name [/interface get $i name]
    /tool e-mail send to=admin@example.com subject=("Interface DOWN: " . $name) body=$name
  }
}
/system scheduler add name=iface-monitor interval=5m on-event=check-interfaces

This emails you if any Ethernet interface goes down.

Automatic Interface Bounce on Error Threshold

If an interface accumulates errors beyond a threshold, reset it:

/system script add name=check-errors source={
  :local errs [/interface ethernet get ether2 rx-error]
  :if ($errs > 10000) do={
    /interface disable ether2
    :delay 3s
    /interface enable ether2
    /tool e-mail send to=admin@example.com subject="ether2 error threshold - bounced" body=("errors: " . $errs)
  }
}

SNMP for Interface Monitoring

The most scalable approach is SNMP polling via LibreNMS or Zabbix. These platforms automatically alert you when any interface status changes, show historical uptime/downtime, and trend error counters.

Key SNMP OIDs for interfaces:

• IF-MIB::ifOperStatus.X — operational state (1=up, 2=down)
• IF-MIB::ifInErrors.X — incoming error counter
• IF-MIB::ifInOctets.X — incoming byte counter

Graphing Interface Traffic

/tool graphing interface add interface=ether1 store-on-disk=yes

Browse http://routerip/graphs/iface/ether1/ for hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly traffic graphs.

Log-Based Interface Monitoring

RouterOS logs all interface up/down events by default:

/log print where topics~"interface"

Search for link up and link down messages to understand when an interface toggled.

Early detection of interface problems prevents outages from becoming major incidents. Set up at least basic alerting — even an email when an interface goes down — before you need it.