That sounds a good plan. Backup your configuration before you fiddle with it. Then if you decide you have messed it up so much you can't figure out how to go back you can reinstall, restore the configuration file and be back to a known working configuration.

I don't think you can setup a 1:1 for the same IP as the FW. You can port forward certain ports. I would setup a VIP (IP Alias) on 177.12.170.6 (or what ever) and then use the 1:1 NAT to translate that to 192.168.1.220. Then go and create FW rules. If you only have the 1 IP, then don't use 1:1 but use port forward.

I'm assuming that by 'G' you mean Gigabit rather than 802.11G. Yes, you can use the Linksys as a switch. If, in access mode, the WAN port is no different to any other then use that but I would probably use one of the other 'LAN' ports to be sure. You need to be sure the Linksys is acting purely as a switch or it will confuse things hugely!  ;) Steve

Not easily, no. Even if you could do a gmirror setup by hand (check the doc wiki) it would break the assumptions in the NanoBSD code about the system slice names and such.

ACPI can be disabled through /boot/loader.conf.local which should survive upgrades. See the FreeBSD man page on loader.conf for a description of the significance of /boot/loader.conf.local. See description of loader variable hint.acpi.0.disabled in the FreeBSD man page on ACPI at (for example) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=acpi&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE+and+Ports&arch=default&format=html

Your pfSense box should be in between the uverse box and your internal network (switch, PCs, consoles etc). You should not have two cables connected from your pfSense box to your uverse box. You cannot have the same subnet on the two NICs in the pfSense box. Since the uverse box is using 192.168.1.* you will have to change the pfSense LAN interface as that uses the same subnet by default. Set it to 192.168.100.1 for example. Steve

It would not auto detect the wlan. So I gave it the em0 interface, since that connects to the DSL modem. It appears to have moved on to the next step. So thank you very much for your help. :)

You can install captive portal software directly in the M2: http://coova.org/node/3685 for example. However this does require rebuilding the firmware unless there is an image available somewhere. This still requires an external radius server but would be a two box solution. Trying to run authentication software in a low end router is always going to be tight, IMHO. Steve

FAIL on my part: I had done a wireshark, checking for LAN & WAN addresses (see post #8). I used a capture filter and TYPO'd the IP for the WAN (got the LAN right, but that didn't matter). It was only by one digit…  :( Would have been good to know 2 days ago.

From my understanding, the ISP must set the IP for you. If you have more that one, then your WAN will take on the first one and you will setup proxy arp or perhaps ip alias for the extra.

Thanks, that worked!

@wallabybob: PPPoE log should be found in Status -> System Logs, click on PPP tab. I have found on my pfSense 2.0.1 system that the PPP log is sometimes empty even though PPP has successfully started. Not all PPP users seem to have had this problem. I got this in the logs: Apr 26 17:10:49 ppp: [wan] IFACE: Close event Apr 26 17:10:49 ppp: [wan] IPCP: Close event Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] PPPoE connection timeout after 9 seconds Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: DOWN event Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: giving up after 29 reconnection attempts Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: Close event Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: state change Starting --> Initial Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: LayerFinish Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: Down event Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan] Bundle: Shutdown Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: Shutdown Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: process 22392 terminated Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: Multi-link PPP daemon for FreeBSD Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: process 63995 started, version 5.5 (root@FreeBSD_8.0_pfSense_2.0-snaps.pfsense.org 10:25 12-Oct-2011) Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: web: web is not running Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan] Bundle: Interface ng0 created Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: OPEN event Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: Open event Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: state change Initial --> Starting Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: LayerStart Apr 26 17:10:51 ppp: [wan_link0] PPPoE: Connecting to 'Skynet' Apr 26 17:11:00 ppp: [wan_link0] PPPoE connection timeout after 9 seconds Apr 26 17:11:00 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: DOWN event Apr 26 17:11:00 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: Down event Apr 26 17:11:00 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: reconnection attempt 1 in 4 seconds Apr 26 17:11:04 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: reconnection attempt 1 Apr 26 17:11:04 ppp: [wan_link0] PPPoE: Connecting to 'Skynet' Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: Multi-link PPP daemon for FreeBSD Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: process 46058 started, version 5.5 (root@FreeBSD_8.0_pfSense_2.0-snaps.pfsense.org 10:25 12-Oct-2011) Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: caught fatal signal term Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: [wan] IFACE: Close event Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: [wan] IPCP: Close event Apr 26 17:11:11 ppp: waiting for process 63995 to die... Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan] Bundle: Shutdown Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: Shutdown Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: process 63995 terminated Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: waiting for process 63995 to die... Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: web: web is not running Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan] Bundle: Interface ng0 created Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: OPEN event Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: Open event Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: state change Initial --> Starting Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: LayerStart Apr 26 17:11:13 ppp: [wan_link0] PPPoE: Connecting to 'Skynet' Apr 26 17:11:22 ppp: [wan_link0] PPPoE connection timeout after 9 seconds Apr 26 17:11:22 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: DOWN event Apr 26 17:11:22 ppp: [wan_link0] LCP: Down event Apr 26 17:11:22 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: reconnection attempt 1 in 3 seconds funny thing is, if I use my laptop (Win 7) to do a pppoe connection everything works.

Well first thing I would do is turn off private IP blocking in the WAN interface properties. Then I would check subnet masks to make sure there is not overlap. Then I would make sure my default gateway is set to 192.168.2.1. I would also check traceroute to see where thinks break down. I would also check tcpdumps at the various NICs to see where it stops.

Or install the System Patches package and apply the following patch: https://github.com/bsdperimeter/pfsense/commit/d5d1554278233af6817d14a5a33444e2fdb7f1b9

@marcelloc: Frater,  hide you public IP address and pasword from your post. Those were fake… But thanks for your concern... I can't edit my post, but I saw a little error in the first wget where I hardcoded the --no-check-certificate That option is inside the variable "${WGETOPT}"  wget -qO/dev/null --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies /tmp/pfsense_cookies.txt  --post-data "login=Login&usernamefld=${USER}&passwordfld=${PASS}" ${WGETOPT} ${PROTO}://${IP}:${PORT}/diag_backup.php  wget -qO${FNAME} --keep-session-cookies --load-cookies /tmp/pfsense_cookies.txt  --post-data 'Submit=download&donotbackuprrd=yes' ${WGETOPT} ${PROTO}://${IP}:${PORT}/diag_backup.php I don't know if anyone will be using it, but if it even helps only one man it was worth posting it.

:D Sometimes 2" is more than enough! Steve

You need to introduce a delay to allow USB devices to be detected (option 3 does this) as detailed here: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting#Booting_from_USB Steve

So you have a triple NAT going on??  Why? Devices connected to your linksys are on a 192.168.2.0/24 network, then it nats to a 192.168.5.0/24 network, then it nats again 192.168.1.0/24 network and then finally public ip outside your uverse?? Why in the world would you set it up like that?? If your going to use your linksys as AP, then it would be on 192.168.5.0/24 network, all your clients would be on 192.168.5.0/24 then your only doing a double nat.  Again why? Can you not use your uverse box as bridge only?  So pfsense gets public on its wan interface, and then you would only have single nat, which is a normal setup.

So you have it booting successfully? Do you mean tips for pfSense in general? Steve