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+# librouteros
+
+**librouteros** is a library to communicate with *RouterOS*, the operating
+system of MikroTik's RouterBoards. It uses the *API port* provided by those
+systems to connect and talk to the devices. librouteros is a low-level library
+in that it abstracts the network protocol used but has next to no knowledge
+about the commands and responses available. Should such an high-level interface
+prove useful, it will be added as the need arises.
+
+
+## Dependencies
+
+The RouterOS API uses a simple challenge-response authentication schema using
+cryptographically secure MD5 hashes. The library used for MD5 computation is
+*gcrypt*, a cryptographic library originally written for the GnuPG project.
+
+## Enabling API connections
+
+API connections (sometimes also called “Winbox connections”) must be explicitly
+enabled. To do so, issue the following command:
+
+    /ip service enable api
+
+To allow a specific user / group to use the API, the “winbox” item must be
+added to the user's “policy” in “/user group”.
+
+## Contact
+
+There's currently no mailing list available for librouteros. In case of
+questions, suggestions and feedback in general, please contact the author
+directly (see [Author](#Author) below).
+
+
+## License
+
+librouteros is licensed under the terms of the ISC License. Terms of the
+license can be found in the file `COPYING`.
+
+
+## See also
+
+Information about MikroTik and RouterOS can be found on [MikroTik's
+homepage](http://www.mikrotik.com/). The API documentation used to write this
+library is available from [the Mikrotik
+wiki](http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/API).
+
+
+## Author
+
+*librouteros* was originally written in 2009 by *Florian Forster*
+<ff at octo.it> (@octo on Github).
+
+Additional contributors are listed in the file called `AUTHORS`.