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    Using MultiWAN from the same ISP

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • H
      heper @Lucas Rey
      last edited by

      @lucas-rey you'd have to add the gateway group to a firewall rule on lan. (Edit your default any any rule to test(

      Chances are small a single client will see any speed improvement. Multiple clients might.
      Some speedtest sites use multiple sessions that occasionally go over multiwan simultaneously

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      • V
        viragomann @Lucas Rey
        last edited by

        @lucas-rey
        pfSense doesn't load-balance on a gateway group. It's just a fail-over group.
        So in case of high latency or packet losses it can switch over to the other gateway.

        What you can do to get benefit of higher throughput using both, is policy route either the upstream traffic of specific internal devices to one gateway and other devices to the other one, or route some ports to this one and the rest to the other one.

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        • H
          heper @viragomann
          last edited by

          @viragomann said in Using MultiWAN from the same ISP:

          pfSense doesn't load-balance on a gateway group.

          Since when? It has always done load balancing as long as I can remember. That's what the tiers are for.

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          • V
            viragomann @heper
            last edited by

            @heper
            Oh yes. You're right. With multiple equal tiers it does.

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            • L
              Lucas Rey
              last edited by

              I can confirm that the bandwidth is now increased with the above config at least 50% more.
              However my goal will be increase the wifi bandwidth due to multiple streaming devices at home (wife and sons use them :) )

              I'll use the lacp functionality of my orbi rbk853.

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              • L
                Lucas Rey
                last edited by

                Hi guys, sorry, but something is wrong in my config, could you please help to understand?

                I did some tests and if I setup the second GW (the one from pfSense 2) my clients are not able to surf internet anymore.
                From pfSense 2 ssh I can ping dns e.g. 8.8.8.8 and resolve address without issue, so I don't understand why this happen.
                My LAN rules are configured with default GW.

                I noticed that, because I seen that pfSense used only one GW when I setup MultiWAN as default GW even using different clients. That's normal I think, since the second GW doesn't allow to surf internet.

                Any clue?

                alt text

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                • V
                  viragomann @Lucas Rey
                  last edited by

                  @lucas-rey
                  Did you state the gateway in the WAN2 interface settings?

                  Check the outbound NAT, if pfSense added proper rules for WAN2.

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                  • L
                    Lucas Rey @viragomann
                    last edited by

                    @viragomann said in Using MultiWAN from the same ISP:

                    Did you state the gateway in the WAN2 interface settings?

                    DAMN! You're right, I forgot to add the GW 😅
                    Now I'm able to surf internet also if I setup GW2.

                    Anyway, the issue is still the same. Using 2 clients in my lan, the WAN2 is not used at all!!!

                    I understand the group GW cannot be used by 1 client to use aggregate speed, but I thought that using two or more clients in my lan I was able to use both GW and finally use my 2,5Gb fiber connection (at least 2Gb).

                    I don't understand why only one GW is used

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                    • V
                      viragomann @Lucas Rey
                      last edited by

                      @lucas-rey
                      As far as I know, pfSense uses both gateway in a round robin style to establish connection. So the first connection goes out on WAN1, second on WAN2, the third on WAN2...
                      It doesn't matter, which client is establishing it.

                      To verify initiate some connections and check the state table: Diagnostics > States

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                      • L
                        Lucas Rey @viragomann
                        last edited by

                        @viragomann said in Using MultiWAN from the same ISP:

                        To verify initiate some connections and check the state table: Diagnostics > States

                        Indeed I can see only WAN and WIFI interfaces there. No WAN2 connections. :(

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                        • L
                          Lucas Rey @Lucas Rey
                          last edited by

                          @lucas-rey said in Using MultiWAN from the same ISP:

                          Indeed I can see only WAN and WIFI interfaces there. No WAN2 connections. :(

                          I can see something strange on GW config. Even If I setup the MultiWAN as gateway, the default GW is now WAN2. Indeed, all traffic is now passing to this interface.
                          I can move the default GW to WAN, and in this case all traffic go to WAN.
                          There should be a way to setup MultiWAN as GW

                          alt text

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                          • H
                            heper @Lucas Rey
                            last edited by

                            @lucas-rey https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/multiwan/policy-route.html#configuring-firewall-rules-for-policy-routing

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              You cannot do load-balancing for clients just by using setting the system default gateway to load-balance gateway group. You need to use policy based routing on the LAN side firewall rule.

                              Setting a gateway group for the system default gateway can be used for failover for the system itself there. See: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/routing/gateway-groups.html#gateway-group-options

                              Steve

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