Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Port Forwarding ESXi VM no joy !

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    27 Posts 2 Posters 2.4k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • D
      dhenzler @stephenw10
      last edited by dhenzler

      @stephenw10

      Ok did that... as well played with ESXi's passthrough feature. Thought I'd set two of the 4 NIC's up as real hardware. Unfortunately they are still NOT considered as external. Been looking to see if there's a path to make them actually external.

      This is SO frustrating. I'm Network litterate enough to know enough to get by, but things like this require a LOT of reading to configure and benefit from.

      SR-IOV doesn't work with this hardware... perhaps if I looked for a more recent driver. What's strange to me is that the server NIC's are the path to the LAN for everything else. But blocked for BSD... Strange !

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Are you at least seeing the correct state created on WAN and LAN in pfSense when you try to connect?

        D 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • D
          dhenzler @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10

          I'm not sure I'd know the correct state if it fell on me !
          Wish the ESXi NIC thing would have worked. I can by the way ping out from BSD, and see the response... so that says something. I guess I could try firing up WireShark.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • D
            dhenzler @stephenw10
            last edited by dhenzler

            @stephenw10
            New info may shed some light on a solution...Screenshot from 2022-05-19 00-45-14.png

            https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005722/ethernet-products.html

            Frequently Asked Questions for SR-IOV on Intel® Ethernet Server...
            Intel® Network Adapter FreeBSD* Virtual Function Driver for Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 and E810 Series; ... Windows Server 2012* R2, Windows Server 2016*, and Windows Server 2019* include support for SR-IOV-capable network devices. An SR-IOV virtual function of a physical network adapter can assign directly to a virtual machine. Earlier ...

            I'm going to follow up on this path for a bit...

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              If you have a port forward like this:
              Screenshot from 2022-05-19 12-50-56.png

              And you try to connect to it from the WAN side you should see states like this:
              Screenshot from 2022-05-19 12-52-08.png

              There are no replies shown there because there is no server at 192.168.22.87 listening on port 5555. But the traffic is still NAT'd and routed as expected with states on both WAN and LAN.

              Steve

              D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • D
                dhenzler @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10
                This is what I got...
                states_test.png

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  You are testing from inside the network, the source IP is 192.168.15.39.

                  You have to test from outside the network to hit a port forward on WAN. If you need that to work from the LAN side you have to enable NAT reflection. And it looks like you must have done that since it is redirecting but you have not set 'Enable automatic outbound NAT for Reflection' in Sys > Adv > Firewall&NAT. And that means the server is replying directly to the client creating an asymmetric route.

                  Enable that or test from an external IP address.

                  Steve

                  D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • D
                    dhenzler @stephenw10
                    last edited by dhenzler

                    @stephenw10
                    states_test.png
                    my server isn't on 240...? 240 is the ring doorbell...

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Ok, then the wrong port forward rule is catching it. Possibly a 1:1 rule but port forwards override those if they match.

                      Let's see you port forwards.

                      Steve

                      D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • D
                        dhenzler @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10
                        Changed the order put doorbell last...
                        states_test.png

                        D 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • D
                          dhenzler @dhenzler
                          last edited by dhenzler

                          @dhenzler

                          Thank you for your perseverance... It restores my faith in use of support forums.

                          BSD is way quicker than using Linux Mint Apache... now to see if I have VHosts set up properly I'll have to move it over to port 80 and call up a website...

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • D
                            dhenzler @dhenzler
                            last edited by

                            @dhenzler

                            Woo Hoo... it works !

                            D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • D
                              dhenzler @dhenzler
                              last edited by dhenzler

                              @dhenzler

                              One of my old websites... no longer in business

                              nc_test.png

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • D
                                dhenzler @dhenzler
                                last edited by

                                @dhenzler

                                Many thanks Steve for all of your assistance. Wouldn't have ever found the rule order issue if it wasn't for you...

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  No worries, glad you got it working. 👍

                                  D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • D
                                    dhenzler @stephenw10
                                    last edited by

                                    @stephenw10

                                    I have dropped out of many groups because members reply with a redirection in effort instead of working a problem. One fellow asked why I wasn't using a VPN to access my web content. I explained that the purpose of the website was for public use, not private. Or one fellow suggested I change from ESXi to ProxMox... Naw... too complicated for my purposes, and it means starting over from ground up.

                                    I have enjoyed pfSense and need to be sure I've got it set up to give me maximum protection. One fella said Port Forwarding was risky as it opens you up to hackers. Well yeah, I knew the apps would be at risk. That's why I use ESXi, and backup my VM's. Get hacked... dump and replace...

                                    My next job is to configure the email blocking that is provided under "feeds".

                                    Thank you Steve

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • First post
                                      Last post
                                    Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.