Setting up MikroTik to integrate with MyPlace

To connect myplace.app to MikroTik, you give MyPlace access to the router’s API and it configures the guest portal for you. MikroTik has no cloud portal, so everything happens against the router itself — but you only need two things on it, and MyPlace does the rest.

MikroTik Integration Guide Overview

MikroTik’s HotSpot is a captive portal built into RouterOS. It holds each new device at a login page until that device is authorised, which is exactly what MyPlace uses: guests see your branded splash page, enter their details, and RouterOS lets them online.

This works on any device running RouterOS v7 — hEX, hAP, hAP ax, RB4011, RB5009, CCR, and the Cloud Hosted Router. HotSpot is included in RouterOS at no extra cost, and there is no cloud subscription or licence to buy.

Once connected, MyPlace creates and maintains the whole guest setup on the router: the address pool, the hotspot profile, the guest account, the walled garden, and the login page that points at your portal. You never type guest credentials — MyPlace generates them.

You will need: admin access to the router, an address MyPlace can reach it on, and a MyPlace account. Allow about 10 minutes.

Credentials Reference

These are the fields in the Add New Network Controller form in MyPlace:

• Router Address — where MyPlace reaches the router: a public IP, a forwarded port, or a VPN address. Because RouterOS has no cloud relay, an address that only exists inside your own network will not work.
• API Port — the port RouterOS serves its API on. Not 80; see Step 1.
• API Username — a RouterOS user with write access.
• API Password — that user’s password.

Note: MyPlace shows a Hotspot Username and Hotspot Password after setup. You do not fill these in — MyPlace generates the guest account on the router and keeps them visible so support can see what the router was given.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1 — Move the Router’s API Off Port 80

RouterOS serves its API on port 80 by default, but the hotspot claims that port for itself as soon as it starts. If you leave the API there, MyPlace loses contact with the router the moment the portal goes live.

Move it once, before anything else:

/ip service set www port=8081

Use 8081 in the API Port field later, or whichever free port you picked. You can confirm with:

/ip service print

Step 2 — Make the Router Reachable

MyPlace needs to open a connection to the router. Depending on your setup, that is a public IP address, a port forward to the API port from Step 1, or a VPN.

Important: If the router cannot be reached from outside your network, MyPlace cannot configure it. That is not a fault in either product — MikroTik simply has no cloud service to relay through. You can still run the portal by configuring the router by hand; contact us and we will send the manual steps.

Step 3 — Enter the Credentials in MyPlace

Go to Network → Controllers → Add New Network Controller and choose MikroTik.

Enter the Router Address, API Port, username and password, then press Finish. MyPlace connects to the router straight away and reports the model back, so a wrong password or port is caught here rather than later.

Step 4 — Attach Your Location and Pick the Guest Interface

Attach your location to the new controller. MyPlace reads the interfaces from the router and asks which one carries guest traffic — usually the bridge holding your guest VLAN or wireless network.

Choosing the wrong interface is the one mistake worth avoiding here: the hotspot would hold the wrong network’s traffic. Bridges are listed first because that is where guest networks normally live.

Step 5 — Let MyPlace Configure the Portal

When the location is attached, MyPlace applies the whole guest configuration to the router:

• an address pool for guests, derived from the interface’s own subnet;
• a hotspot profile with login-by=http-pap, which is what lets an external portal authorise guests;
• the hotspot server on your chosen interface;
• a generated guest account, with shared-users set to unlimited so more than one guest can be online;
• walled-garden entries for the MyPlace portal and the social-login providers guests sign in with;
• the hotspot login page, replaced with a redirect to your branded portal.

Re-applying is safe: MyPlace updates the objects it created rather than adding duplicates.

Step 6 — Test It

Connect a phone to the guest network. You should be redirected to your branded MyPlace page, and after submitting the form, be online.

For a check without a phone, open Settings → Local Network and run the guest portal health check. It verifies the parts that usually go wrong: that the router answers, that the portal is enabled, that the redirect points at your MyPlace domain, that the login method is http-pap, and that the walled garden is complete.

On the same screen, Wireless Networks lists the SSIDs the router knows about and marks the one your guests use — that is the network bridged to the interface running the hotspot.

Note: Keep the API port reachable. If it stops answering, MyPlace can no longer update the portal — guests already configured keep working, but branding or walled-garden changes will not reach the router.

Troubleshooting

“REST not answering on port …” when saving the controller. Either the port is wrong or the hotspot has taken it. Run /ip service print on the router, confirm which port www uses, and make sure it is not 80. See Step 1.

“Wrong API username or password”. The credentials were rejected by RouterOS. Check the user exists under System → Users and has write permission.

“RouterOS … has no REST API”. The API arrived in RouterOS v7. On v6 the portal can still be configured by hand — contact us for the manual steps.

MyPlace cannot connect at all. The router is not reachable from outside your network. See Step 2.

Only one guest can be online at a time. The hotspot user profile has shared-users set to 1. MyPlace sets it to unlimited when it applies the configuration, so this points to a second hotspot profile in use — check which profile your hotspot server references.

The login page never appears for guests. Check that the guest device received an address from the hotspot pool and shows up in /ip hotspot host print. An empty host list usually means the hotspot is bound to the wrong interface — re-attach the location and pick the right one (Step 4).

The page appears but does not load. Almost always the walled garden. MyPlace adds its own hosts and the social-login providers automatically, but anything else your splash page pulls in — your own images, a custom font, a booking widget — has to be added on the router with /ip hotspot walled-garden add dst-host=....

Your own entries are safe: MyPlace only removes walled-garden rules it created itself.

Everything worked until a firmware upgrade. A RouterOS upgrade can restore the stock hotspot files, replacing the login page. Re-attach the location in MyPlace to write it again.

Devices shows only the router, no access points. Expected on a single-router site: on a hAP or similar the router is the access point, so it appears as one. Separate access points are listed when they are CAPs managed by this router through CAPsMAN. Access points from another vendor, or ones managed elsewhere, cannot be seen over the RouterOS API.

The Devices screen is completely empty. MyPlace reads device information over the same API, so this means the API is no longer reachable — see the first two entries above.

Need Help?

If you get stuck, contact us with your router model, RouterOS version, and the output of /ip service print and /ip hotspot print. That is usually enough to identify the problem in one reply.