How Mikrotik fasttrack feature works in routerOS and why you should use it.

Mikrotik fasttrack is a feature in routerOS that most users have heard of but only a few understand and are willing to implement it. The IPV4 Fast Track is used for marked connections. In the firewall setting, users can use action=fasttrack-connection to mark connections for fasttrack. Though the fasttrack feature is technically explained, the simple reason for its implementation is not given and as such, many do not see reasons for its use. This brings us to why do you need to implement fasttrack on your Mikrotik router?

Mikrotik understands that implementing rules on a router slows down connection speed. This is simply because of several vetting processes that each connected IP address will have to go through. For example, if there is a layer 7 rule that denies youtube access to some IPs, all IP addresses on the LAN will be vetted irrespective of who is allowed or denied YouTube access. With fasttrack, you can except those with Youtube access from being screened by this rule. This makes the connection fast. Requiremenst: IPV4 fasttrack is on if these conditions are met: no mesh, meta router interface configuration; Sniffer, torch and traffic generator is not running; no active mac-ping, mac-telnet or mac-winbox sessions restriction removed in 6.33; /tool mac-scan is not actively used; /tool ip-scan is not actively used;

 Assuming we want to create a fasttrack rule to fasttrack all LAN traffic with this one rule placed at the top of the Firewall Filter. This will ensure that all established connections will be exempted from all kinds of vetting processes, thereby increasing their connection speeds.

Since not all packets can be fast tracked, an identical rule with the “accept” keyword must be entered immediately after the fasttrack rule to enable

>> Increase speed

>> Reduced load on the router’s CPU