If you need to create connections across the tunnel in both directions you need a floating outbound rule with floating state binding set to allow the replies. It's shown in the doc there now.
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/config/advanced-firewall-nat.html#interface-bound-states

So you might only add one floating rule and edit the existing IPSec rule. Two rules are needed if none existed.

@Konstanti

My goal is to use this as my main gateway to the internet for a routable /24 (23.170.184.0) IP block and IPv6. I just have a simple test interface for now, to just get the link up (or so I thought). I use 8.8.8.8 for ping, as I don't have an EC2 to ping.

Logs attached from AWS: aws-log.txt

Screenshot 2024-04-26 at 16.10.05.png

Subnets wouldn't matter for that. The auth it's mentioning would be entirely in Phase 1, not Phase 2. The remote end is saying authentication failed so you will need to check the logs on the remote side (if possible) for any more detail about why it failed.

In most cases it's down to something in Phase 1 either being mismatched or incorrect in some way (e.g. a config that could technically match multiple remote peers ends up matching both remotes)

@viragomann Thanx! You made me look at the "local networks" setting in the OpenVPN configuration and I had the subnet mask incorrect for the OPT4 interface /24 instead of /28 . So now connecting via OpenVPN I have access to IPSEC Interface machines with ip addresses of .97 to .110. I have two Phase2 objects on the IPSEC tunnel for two different subnet machines and they have been working fine being accessed from the 10.22.143.96/28 subnet. No changes there or additions. Data is flowing.

Gave up trying to troubleshoot this, took out the branch office pfsense, and connected the same VPN direct from the 4G/5G router. Worked instantly...

@Piter-0 Hello! I have the same problem! If WAN 1 fails, I still can't connect to WAN 2! If I deactivate ipsec for a short time and then activate it again, it works over WAN 2 until next time!

@frog
Not that I know. But if your subnets are successive you can state a larger subnet, which includes all or multiple at least.

E.g. your subnets are
10.66.20.0/24
10.66.21.0/24
...
10.66.29.0/24
10.66.30.0/24

So set you local network to 10.66.25.0/20, which includes 10.66.16.0 - 10.66.31.255.

However, you will also have to configure the remote site accordingly.

Ok, I believe I've found the root cause and it was a misconfiguration.

I have "Manual Outbound NAT" configured. This is to use a 4 address pool instead of the firewall's WAN address for NAT.

So even though there was an wildcard "Auto Created Rule" for TCP port 500 (ISAKMP) using the WAN address, there wasn't a rule for the ESP protocol. I added a wildcard rule for ESP that used the WAN address last night, and haven't had any issues since.

In retrospect, this makes sense, since each time I lost connection, the source address was one of the addresses in the pool. What doesn't make sense to me is that it ever used the WAN IP address. Like so many things, it would have been a lot easier to diagnose than a connection that always failed than one that sometimes worked.

I think an argument could be made that if pfsense is going to add an Auto Created Outbound NAT rule for ISAKMP, it should probably create an Auto Created rule for ESP at the same time.

@keyser That worked perfectly! Thank you guys!

@CodingCharlie said in A valid remote gateway address or host name must be specified:

Am trying to setup an IPSec VPN but get this error. I am putting in a remote gateway address so am confused. Is this a bug?

Pretty many people here did this. So why should there be a bug?
How did you configure the phase 1 exactly?

To answer my own question:

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/148452/virtual-address-pool-in-pre-shared-keys-is-not-used-for-ipsec/9

@theshao in my case, maybe is also more complex: I'm simulating my tunnel future need, running one pfsense in an hypervisor, and the other one on a VM hosted on Azure. So a lot of things that maybe I haven't considered, like the NAT of my internet provider. I'll give a shot reproducing the setup with physical devices.

@viragomann It is set for the firewall to configure the rules automatically.

Both links connect, as long as it is set as the default gateway.

I have two gateway groups, where each link is primary and the other secondary and vice versa.

At the other end I configured the connection via DDNS.

@fcostars Resolvido!
Estava clonando configuração ipsec para não digitar tudo novamente e dessa forma o firewall se perde!

Segue a dica! Nunca clone uma regra e sim reescreva novamente!

@viragomann OK this is great news, thanks for testing this, I hadn't had a chance to do that yet, helps a ton!

I figured it wouldn't interrupt anything, or at least not for long at all, but incredibly nice to confirm it.