Solved

I used this tutorial: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point
to put the dd-wrt router into Wireless Access Point mode.  I gave the dd-wrt router an ip address in the same subnet of the main router that was outside the dhcp pool and then plugged the dd-wrt into the switch, not into the OPT1 port.

I was able to connect just fine after that and am now enjoying a blazing fast wireless signal  :D

-Dave

Hello Again,

Well, after long and exhausting work. I finally nailed down the issue, it was actually not from Pfsense routing at all. Apparently when I disable the SSID for WRT54GL, it becomes unreachable from anywhere including its own network port. But it still routes the traffic and everything else, only not reachable for administrative purpose :(

I guess, now we know that this issue is not particular for pfsense. However, I truly appreciate the assistance provided by this forum.

I hope this can help anyone else for future issue.

Nope. It's not that.

I brought everything home, and just took delivery of an ALIX 2D0 (2 ethernet, 2miniPCI).

vr0 (ethernet0) is always set to LAN.
If WAN is set to vr1, I can set OPT1 or OPT2 to AP mode, bridge them to the WAN, and it works fine (although very slow, very much slower than m0n0wall).
If WAN is set to ath0 (wireless0), even though the LAN works fine, and even though I receive no error message about bridging something to a wireless WAN, the bridge essentially does not work. The problem seems to be that you can't bridge anything to a wireless WAN.

So right now, I have several SBCs with a half dozen radio cards and working repeater stations.

So, do I try a Linux-based solution instead?

It's either that or I'm going to need to spend several months fixing m0n0wall to do what I want. I'd likely do it as a branch.

@wallabybob:

I think you will need some firewalls rules to allow the appropriate access between OPT1 and WAN.

@GruensFroeschli:

You have to set the "Mode" to "Access Point" and not to "Infrastructure (BSS)"

I have tried several configurations. Some from the wiki here.. http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Main_Page plus I tried the advice from the two post here (this thread), plus many other suggestions and configuration from the pfsense forums including - firewall rules, bridging, and so on. The result was the same, no internet/traffic to the network from/to the wireless but the laptop could see and connect to the pci wirelless card in the pfsense machine.

I did read up on subnets and configured them as well. I still did not get a functioning connection to the Internet from/to the wireless. It could be the wireless card, I'm not sure.

I'm not giving up just heading back to the forums and wiki's and until then I'll use my Linksys box for a semi-functioning, less secure network.

Thank you all for helping.

Lou

hm.
no edit feature?

Anywho - is there a way that I can make the packet sizes smaller in pf sense?

Thanks.

@chmodman:

Any idea why this would need to be disabled?
Thanks

Guess your AP had a firewall rule (or rules) that blocked your traffic from the laptop.

Looking at the firewall log on the AP or pf statistics can sometimes give a clue as to which rule is causing the blocking.

It seems that my questions/problems on here tent to be of the unanswerable breed..

anywho - i've noticed that the above problem always coincides with something. And that is; OUT errors.

whenever there's one of those, the internet drops out, and I have to release / renew once more ,to connect any program.

Any Ideas anyone?

@ashdavely : find a solution to your problem ?
I forced the channel (6) then all ok for me.

@ktims:

Yeah you can change it in the webui. Not a big deal really, just change the DHCP server configuration first and then change the interface address, then release/renew on your client. Even if you break DHCP or something you can always statically configure the client to go in and repair the config.

I tried this last night.
And LOORD, the heachaces.

Its something that I've noticed with PF sense for a while now.
Its like if I fiddle around with the WAN/LAN interface options too much - I'm unable to connect to the router.
And even when I restore factory defaults - whatever sub level settings have thrown the system haywire, I cant revert!

The only thing I could do last night, and in the previous instances, was reinstall.

Ever had the like?

Glad you got it sorted out. But take my advice - hold unto that other wireless card. Dont count him out just yet ;)

Its far more normal that the card would behave THAT way. Its understandable that it wouldnt use as much power to scan for a network, than to actively transceive. Many cards, and radio devices behave that way.

What WAS strange, is when it did the exact OPPOSITE! :|
in that case - I dunno. Noise I suppose. (Picked up raw Radio frequency from where ever, ALONG WITH wifi.)

Hop over here:
  http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,15705.msg86740.html#msg86740

The problem with Ubiquiti (bullet/nanostation) and similar equipment is they are normally based in atheros SoC that generally clock at 180Mhz. While this is ok with 802.11a/g non-turbo 20-25Mbps, when you go with Turbo Mode the CPU simply isn't capable of achieving much more than that. The testing i've done in the last years using x86 hardware I concluded that to fully saturate a radio in 802.11a Turbo (40Mhz channels) you need more than 300Mhz CPU power, but you can get 50Mbps with a single radio :)

You can only bridge on an accesspoint, but not on a wireless-client.
–> It's not possible to set up a wireless bridge.

You will have to resort to a routed scenario.

@GruensFroeschli:

Create an alias containing all subnets which should not be accessible.

Modify the default "allow rule" on the wireless-OPT interface.
Change the "destination: any" to "NOT "alias""

Hello,GruensFroeschlino

Thanks for the input. I tried that method with the Default LAN Rule because I have no wireless Antenna setup on this box. However I am in need of a little clarity here please. This only works for me if I add another rule not just modifying the default LAN rule.

Also,what is the bolded NOT for in the Source and Destination sections?

Another thing is I have to reboot the box everytime I make a rule change for it to take effect. Is this normal?

I am using version 1.2.3 RC1

Thank you
Joseph

@bbzidane:

so a second antenna of the same db doesn't help?  than what is the point of having an aux connector?

With a second antenna you can use diversity if you set your wireless accordingly.
Usually you gain more stability in reception with moving transmitters.

I had mentioned this as a second part to a previous question regarding DNS forwarding. After the fact, I realized it was unrelated and would be better suited as its own question in the proper section.

As for it being an issue with DD-WRT, that is very possible, but I had recently changed my setup from 3 routers (1 main Linksys router splitting into two separate LANs, DD-WRT router and pfSense router) into my current setup. The once I changed the setup so that the DD-WRT router was running off the OPT1 on pfSense, the wireless issue began.