Ammar Tawabini's blog

Mikrotik WAN Failover with Twitter Notifications (Tutorial)

2018-02-09T19:13:00.000+03:00

Introduction
In some scenarios, you want to be able to failover to another WAN in case your main link goes down.
I prepared this tutorial to explain how to achieve that with RouterOS and the ability to send a notification using Twitter on Failover events.
How it works
Basically, the script will ping Google DNS 8.8.8.8 every 5 minutes using the main route (wan1), if it fails to ping, the script will change the distance of the main route by setting the value to 3 or any value higher than the second route (wan2). If the link is back, it will change the distance back to the original value.
Setup

Configure two WAN interfaces in the router. In my case I have them on ether1 and ether6 ports as the below diagrams.

Add two routes for both WANs with distance of 1 for the main WAN link and 2 for the backup link

Then, created a new route entry that you will be using to test the internet connection on wan1 as it is your default wan connection and set the Distance to 100 and Route Mark to wan1_test

Pre-requisites

Create a separate Twitter account for notifications then create a Twitter App

Visit https://apps.twitter.com/

Click on Create New App

Fill the app creation form and create your app

From Keys and Access Tokens, write down your Consumer Key, and Consumer Secret

From Keys and Access Tokens -> Your Access Token, Click Crate my access token

From Keys and Access Tokens -> Your Access Token, write down your generated Access Token, and Access Token Secret

Create a web application to consume twitter API
For that, I used Visual Studio and ASP.NET MVC web application. Feel free to develop the application with any programming language you are comfortable with.

Define string variables for Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, Access Token, and Access Token Secret

string consumerKey = "xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX"; // The application's consumer key
        string consumerSecret = "xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX"; // The application's consumer secret
        string accessToken = "xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX"; // The access token granted after OAuth authorization
        string accessTokenSecret = "xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX"; // The access token secret granted after OAuth authorization

Install NuGet Package Spring.Social.Twitter version 2.0.0-M1

Create a new function in your controller, this function will be called from RouterOS script every time failover happens and that function will tweet the failover details.

public ActionResult UpdateConnectionStatus(string currentConnection)
        {

            ITwitter twitter = new TwitterTemplate(consumerKey, consumerSecret, accessToken, accessTokenSecret);
            if (currentConnection != null)
            {
                twitter.TimelineOperations.UpdateStatusAsync(String.Format("Internet service is now provided by {0} network", currentConnection));
                return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.OK);
            }
            else
            {
                return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
            }


        }

Compile and publish the application on IIS

Scripting RouterOS

Create a new script to check the internet connection on your default wan using the test route that we created in the above step as following

:global currentConnection;
:local GW1 ether1-wan1
:local RouteNameGW1 wan1
:local RouteTableTest wan1_test
:local PingTarget 8.8.8.8
:local PingResult


:set PingResult [ping $PingTarget count=5 routing-table=$RouteTableTest interface=$GW1]
:if ( $PingResult > 2 ) do={
/ip route set [/ip route find where comment=$RouteNameGW1] distance=1;

:if ( $currentConnection = "Mobily 4G" ) do={
:set currentConnection "STC Fiber";

/tool fetch address= src-path="/currentConnection=$currentConnection" mode=http keep-result=no url="http:///Home/UpdateConnectionStatus\?currentConnection=STC%20Fiber";
}


:if ( [ :typeof $currentConnection ] = "nothing" ) do={
:set currentConnection "STC Fiber";
}

:set PingResult 0;
} else={
/ip route set [/ip route find where comment=$RouteNameGW1] distance=3;


:if ( $currentConnection = "STC Fiber" ) do={
:set currentConnection "Mobily 4G";

/tool fetch address= src-path="/currentConnection=$currentConnection" mode=http keep-result=no url="http:///Home/UpdateConnectionStatus\?currentConnection=Mobily%204G";
}

:if ( [ :typeof $currentConnection ] = "nothing" ) do={
:set currentConnection "Mobily 4G";}
:set PingResult 0; }

Schedule the script to run every 5 minutes

Follow the twitter account, that you use to tweet these notifications, from your personal account and set SMS notifications on that account

Now whenever my connection fails over the backup link, I get the following notification on my phone.

GridView Ajax Filter

2010-09-07T04:46:00.001+03:00

Upon users’ requests to enhance the GridView Ajax Filter control, I made some changes to the control to allow more flexibility and functionality to it. I will discuss all the features of the control and how to use it on your project. P.S. I am using Visual Studio 2010 for the current demo.
Features:
1. More operations have been added “=, LIKE, NOT LIKE, <>, >, <, >=, <=”:

2. Search for multiple keyword in the same filter by adding a semicolon after each keyword:

3. Updating the filter (Column , Operation, or Keyword) without removing it:

4. Adding multiple filter with AND / OR operation between them:

5. Adding dynamic date values to the keyword:
“For this example I am selecting all the products that have been created 8 months from today’s date using this value { t - m(8) }”. t: today, m:month

6. The filter for each page will be stored throughout your session, so you don’t have to re-create the filter if you visited another page then came back to the filtered page again.
How to Use:
- Create a new ASP.NET Empty Web Application and name it DataFilterDemo

- Drag and drop the following files from DataFilter folder to your project “DataFilter.ascx, DataFilter.ascx.cs, and Filter.cs” (Can be found in the attached file below)

- Right-click on your project and click on Convert to Web Application

-Right-Click on your project and click on Add -> New Item… -> Web Form then name it “Default.aspx”

- From Solution Explorer drag DataFilter.ascx control to the design view of Default.aspx Page.

- Add Script Manager and Update Panel to the page.

- Add new GridView inside the Update Panel “UpdatePanel1” to the page and just keep the name as “GridView1” for demonstration proposes.

- Expand GridView Properties and add new Sql Data Source

- Choose your database connection and configure the SELECT data for your GridView

- If you want, change columns’ names to whatever names you like.
- Right click on the page and click View Code

- Inside Page_Load function, add the following code:

- Add a new Event Handler function to handle the call back from the control:

- Done, press F5 to debug and run your application
Please note the following:
- Date format must be as dd/MM/yyyy to be able to filter the column or you can change that by re-write the part of Filter.cs that handles the date format.
- To Implement Sorting and Paging when the filter is applied call the Event Handler “DataFilter1_OnDataBound()” on the following Events of GridView “Sorted” and “PageIndexChanged”

Source Code & Demo

ASP.NET GridView Ajax Data Filter Control

2008-06-12T15:14:00.000+03:00

UPDATE: new release of the control found here

I was looking for an ASP.net 2.0 custom control that enables the user to filter the data in a GridView control by adding filters to the GridView. The control can be found in applications such as Microsoft BI Studio. So I decided to develop a web based control that will do such thing.

note:
1-ASP.NET Ajax Extensions must be installed in your VS.NET evironment.
2-GridView must be placed inside Ajax UpdatePanel.
3-You don't have to add ScriptManager inside your aspx page since the control contains one.
4-In case your page has a ScriptManager, you can delete the one inside the custom control.

Here are some pictures demonstrating the use of the control:

Here is the demo of the custom control:

If you would like to download the high resolution flash video you can download it from here:

The source code for the control is available here:

update: I uploaded a newer version of the control.
Current version:
1- Adding a session field to the control to enables the user to use the control on any page at the same time, or on the same page with multiple GridView controls.
2- And / Or operators between filters.
3- search for multiple keyword in the same filter by adding a semicolon after each keyword.
4- Adding new filters programmaticaly.

Screenshot:

Example + Source Code: