Cannot use WAN IP inside my own network

RedPull

Hi all!

I have a weird situation where i can't get my head around.
And i also don't know where to start looking.

Here is the situation:
I have some stuff running that have to be accessible from outside my network.
So i chose (temporary) to punche some holes in my network via port forwarding, which of course works like a charm when i am outside my network. But when i try

http://<WANIP>:<PORT>

inside my network it dos not work. Only when i connect to a VPN service it dos.
Is there some sort of setting that i am missing?

Thanks in advance!

bmeeks

Likely you would need to enable NAT Reflection in that case, but the first question is why are you attempting to connect that way? If you are inside the LAN where the resource is located, then simply connect to the native host IP.

If you have associated the IP with a domain name, then you can configure a host override in the DNS settings to point local clients directly to the native IP.

If you really, really want to use NAT Reflection, here is the documentation: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/reflection.html. Be aware that this comes with its own extra baggage, and that is what makes it not the first recommended solution. Be sure you read the caveats covered in that linked documentation. Plus, the docs show several ways to eliminate the need for NAT Reflection.

RedPull

Yes, i associated the IP with a subdomain name.
For instance:

I pointed cloud.my-domain-name.com to my WAN IP in Cloudflare.
Added it as a Dynamic DNS Client on my pfsense router.
Also did the necessary port forwarding.
Connecting to http://<WANIP>:<PORT> or http://<sub.domain.com>:<PORT> Works like a charm only when connected to a VPN inside my LAN
But when i'm outside my LAN with or without VPN connection.
So how come this ain't working with pfsense when i'm inside my LAN without a VPN connection?

It used to work with my previous (asus) router.

rcoleman-netgate

@redpull Please look over this doc: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/reflection.html

RedPull

Thx!
Got it to work by selecting "Pure NAT" on "NAT Reflection mode for port forwards"
Although i'm not exactly sure what that means in terms of security.

Will dive into that matter later on, so i know what i'm doing. ;-)