My solution is to simply run pfSense in a virtualbox under a minimal linux host (I installed ubuntu from the minimal.iso and selected minimal mate desktop). I configured wpa_supplicant on the linux host to associate the wireless adapter to the AP, and then bridged it to pfSense as a WAN gateway. I have a triple-WAN setup with failover (not load balancing) with FiOS, xfinity and cellular broadband as the WAN gateways. All good, it works great.

@viktor_g
Yes, more info there would be good. A lot of that is probably out of date at this point.

@Phelton said in 4G Modem miniPCIE - Sierra Wireless, Incorporated EM7305:

@Phelton
i'm very happy 💪 💪 💪
After being up all night working on it, i am proud to say that everything is working properly now. 😂

Nice! 👍

@RyanM said in Adding a mesh wifi network:

plays nice with a dedicated pfSense route

Ryan, Hi) the pfSense from FreeBSD for use as a firewall and router with an easy-to-use web interface -the only pros, don't even try, just time was spent . I installed the software yourself on my own hardware. Thought it would be great. It works well only in a house. When I go outside for a meter it immediately turns off. Also have been looking for smth that works cool with a dedicated pfSense route.

@jimp thank you! I will try few devices and see what gives me the best coverage with AP only.

What did you actually try to get this working?

I have that modem. It works.

The only caveat is the modem needs to be in the correct usb-profile otherwise you don't get an AT port. If it's a rebranded device it may be supplied locked to MBIM or QMI only and you have the change the profile first.

Steve

Thanka for the help. I'll try it tonight

Thank you stephenw10

Some stuff seems to be reversed here. What exactly do you ant to achieve?

It seems like you want to setup the laptop running pfSense as an additional access point. Perhaps so that when you connect to it all you traffic goes via a VPN?

You have the wifi interface assigned as WAN and it's logically the LAN. Those are just names in pfSense, you can do it like that, but it's very confusing.

Steve

Just for clarity loader.conf doesn't get overwritten at boot. It may get overwritten when making changes to settings or at upgrade. But any custom values should be in loader.conf.local as said.

What version of pfSense are you running? What hardware are you running it on?

iwm or it's firmware are not loaded by default. They also don't appear to be available as modules in 2.4.5 so you would need to copy them across from a compatible FreeBSD version.

Steve

Nice. I had read a lot of that but not all. Some great info on that github page. 👍

Yes you can. You can have a look at this list provided by netgate of known 3g/4g modem devices. https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/cellular/known-working-3g-4g-modems.html

@stephenw10
I just got mine up and running. I cancelled with the controller and just did the android app configuration. Super Ez.
At least for my case with just one AP

Everything is perfectly setup right now

corrected code:

$cat /usr/local/bin/e3372.sh #/bin/sh echo 'AT^NDISDUP=1,1,"your APN here"' > /dev/cuaU0.1 $chmod +x /usr/local/bin/e3372.sh $cat /usr/local/etc/devd/e3372h.conf #12d1:1506 attach 20 { match "vendor" "0x12d1"; match "product" "0x1506"; action "/usr/local/bin/e3372.sh"; };

Modem should be running 21.x stick firmware, switching to a proper composition prior to use should not harm:

AT^SETPORT="FF;10,12,16"

Depending on the firmware version used the command above could be not available. If switching to PID:1506 is required that could be achieved by using usb_modeswitch, not tested with the above mentioned scripts though.

😁 Yeah, it's definitely not been disabled on some fundamental level!

That's a TP-Link TL-WN7200ND but there is no significant difference between an external USB device like that and one connected via USB on a mPCIe port.
Hard to imagine what might have changed since 2.4.4p1 that could effect this really. I assume the USB device itself doesn't show as disconnecting/reconnecting?

Your show up any different?

[2.4.4-RELEASE][admin@7100.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl dev.run dev.run.0.%parent: uhub0 dev.run.0.%pnpinfo: vendor=0x148f product=0x3070 devclass=0x00 devsubclass=0x00 devproto=0x00 sernum="1.0" release=0x0101 mode=host intclass=0xff intsubclass=0xff intprotocol=0xff dev.run.0.%location: bus=0 hubaddr=1 port=2 devaddr=2 interface=0 ugen=ugen0.2 dev.run.0.%driver: run dev.run.0.%desc: 1.0 dev.run.%parent:

Steve

An actual access point will generally work much better and can use current wifi tech etc.

I have had some success with a TP-Link tl-wn7200nd. It's a Ralink rt2800 based device. It's only 1x1 though so 150Mbps theoretical max. I've not tested anything newer myself.

Steve

Possibly not and if it does should that really be the target? 😉

You can use internal mPCIe/m.2 modems and they work well enough, I use one here. Whether you would count it as '4G LTE' though..... I get ~40Mbps on good days.

Steve

check this, it's useful if you need a wifi card
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/book/wireless/wireless-hardware.html
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11cF4UoNL68Me5ZC6qhjFPmzdW7mib56dBIAKz30Qpug/edit?hl=en&hl=en#gid=0

thanx wil try this