Router Recovery using Winbox Layer 2

Table of contents
  1. Standards
  2. Network Engineering
  3. Router Recovery using Winbox Layer 2

Sometimes a router gets into a bad state and it won't respond to ssh/telnet/winbox or even mac-telnet.  In such situations, the last thing that can be tried is winbox using its layer 2 mode.  These routers won't typcially be on your administrative LAN, so here's how to bridge that remote LAN to your LAN.

On a router sharing the remote LAN with the problematic router

/interface eoip add remote-address=<LOCAL ADMIN LAN ROUTER IP> local-address=<SOME IP ON THIS REMOTE ROUTER> tunnel-id=1 name=eoip1
/interface bridge add name=bridge1
/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge1 interface=wlan1-gateway
/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge1 interface=eoip1

On a router connected to your local admin LAN

/interface eoip add remote-address=<SOME IP ON REMOTE ROUTER> local-address=<LOCAL ADMIN LAN ROUTER IP> tunnel-id=1 name=eoip1
/interface bridge add name=bridge1
/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge1 interface=LAN
/interface bridge port add bridge=bridge1 interface=eoip1

After this you should be able to use Winbox's layer 2 discovery protocol and possibly connect to the problematic router. Don't forget to remove or disable these configs when you're done, since they present a layer 2 security problem for your admin LAN.