The serial cable did the trick. Thanks a lot! /Hans

Thanks for all the answers. Also think I will be ok to live without setting up the cron job. My switch is clearly online if i am connected to my network.

@artgug: Assign a new "interface" to Pfsense with 192.168.1.1 which would "regulate" the traffic between 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.0.1 using the rules, so only specified traffic would be shared between both Ip spaces. FYI that will never work the way you want. Anyone could simply change their IP into the other subnet and bypass the rules. You also can't do DHCP for two subnets on one interface this way. To do this properly, and securely, you either need another NIC and another switch, or a proper switch that supports VLANs.

There is not a lot of traffic between the servers in the DMZ. If that were the case, I would suspect that having a single DMZ network connected to a switch would be the best approach. However, there is a lot of traffic between the LAN and the three servers. I have given myself a few weeks to get the new box online, and I might try both configurations. Might even try trunking a pair of interfaces (link aggregation) to both the DMZ switch and the LAN switch. I really like all the options that pfSense offers. Although, all the options might get me into trouble! Thanks again! Mark

I think you just need to allow multicast traffic to pass…. Me, I just leave the TV boxes connected direct to the 2wire box...

RE: questions at the end. Will Blackman of BSDTalk was nice enough to make audio recordings of each of the talks, so you may be able to get a better idea from there. (URL provided below.) Glad you enjoyed the video. http://www.nycbsdcon.org/2010/

I see. Cannot wait for 2.0 final release (aka stable) !

You should start by upgrading to 1.2.3 release, since there's no point in running a release candidate this long after the final version was released. Then try connecting a console and use that to reset the password. Then you'll also be able to see if there are any errors on the console that might explain your problem.

OpenVPN should be safe as well. The load balancer pools do not affect any traffic by themselves. And the gateway settings on the LAN rules won't affect your VPN traffic since it's not entering the firewall on the LAN interface.

The logs would also show problems with the WAN interface. It could be your ISP or your ISP connected device (cable/ADSL modem etc)  - what about other connections to the Internet?

@rooster: Thanks! Got a few more general questions if anyone has the time/answers. I will be reading the documentation, and hopefully have more challenging questions soon enough. What about load balancing by port? That is, does pfSense have the ability to designate a portion of bandwidth to say VPN connections, FTP, http? Inbound and outbound? What about outbound traffic from the DMZ going out as the same public IP as the actual server? That is, right now with my set-up of IPCop, all outbound traffic goes out under one IP address (Firewall IP address) rather than the “true” public address for that server. There is no real 'DMZ' in pfSense;  You simply need to do a 1:1 NAT for the server.  Alternatively, you simply use a firewall rule to force all traffic from the LAN client(s) IP(s) to the specific external IP you want to use.  Most of the 'features' you need are basically effected from Firewall rules. Even the traffic shaper rides on Firewall rules to assign traffic.  =) Get your firewall rules done right and your problems are all solved.

It was actually an issue with an internal ACL. Nothing to do with pfsense, sorry for wasting your time! :(

I was just about to ask where to find the informations how to set it up. Your description of the features sound awesome. I will have a look at it and then might be in touch for commercial support, depending on my impression ;) (if it is too easy it's a compliment for the developers although it might be bad for you :p - if it is too hard I might skip the pfSense idea, even with the option of commercial support - if it's just right, it's just right ;) ) thanks so far

try Goto System -> Generel Setup -> deselect "Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN"