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    PfSense Bridge Mode with ISP Router

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @panzerscope
      last edited by

      @panzerscope said in PfSense Bridge Mode with ISP Router:

      I called the ISP today as their Bridge mode is still in its Trial Phase, as such you have to specifically request that your account be enabled.

      That's probably a good thing. There will be relatively few people doing it and they will be trying hard to make it work. They can probably tell you if you need a VLAN.

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      • JKnottJ
        JKnott @panzerscope
        last edited by

        @panzerscope said in PfSense Bridge Mode with ISP Router:

        Does Lightspeed provide IPv6? If so, you'll also want to set up that.

        I believe so, yes. They have IPv6 in their router, though I am using IPv4 at the moment. How would I go about enabling IPv6 on PfSense? I mean that could be something I can do now irrespective to what ISP I am using. At least that way it is done.

        Here's the basic setup for Rogers (my ISP). Perhaps someone here could provide more specific info for Lightspeed.

        PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
        i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
        UniFi AC-Lite access point

        I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

        P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • P
          panzerscope @JKnott
          last edited by panzerscope

          @JKnott said in PfSense Bridge Mode with ISP Router:

          @panzerscope said in PfSense Bridge Mode with ISP Router:

          Does Lightspeed provide IPv6? If so, you'll also want to set up that.

          I believe so, yes. They have IPv6 in their router, though I am using IPv4 at the moment. How would I go about enabling IPv6 on PfSense? I mean that could be something I can do now irrespective to what ISP I am using. At least that way it is done.

          Here's the basic setup for Rogers (my ISP). Perhaps someone here could provide more specific info for Lightspeed.

          Hey guys,

          So my ISP switched my service to Bridge Mode, I have set the WAN interface for IPv4 and IPv6 to DHCP on PfSense. I can see that my PfSense is fetching a public IP on my WAN, so that part is good. The issues I have having is a DNS Probe Failure Issue, that being said, if I ping a DNS server I am getting an unreachable message, so may not necessarily just be DNS.

          I am not sure if I need to setup some form of VLAN as mentioned before ? If so how would I go about doing that ? I did ask Lightspeed if there was anything specific I need to setup, other than simply turning on Bridge Mode, and they said no, but I was talking to a non techie.

          I also tried the above settings you tried for Rogers @JKnott but this has not helped unfortunately.

          FYI this is what the WAN pages of my ISP router look like

          7d86a23e-8e95-4871-98f2-f09baa427ca1-image.png

          6b55b317-0d5d-45e0-9b88-4bc92d58f43a-image.png

          This is what the WAN page on PfSense currently looks like (Excuse the photographs.)

          dd1584db-4fb4-4d52-836c-cea862d4a0a1-image.png

          3962e00b-1bee-49fb-855c-30b240e3be1e-image.png

          Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

          J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • J
            Jarhead @panzerscope
            last edited by

            @panzerscope Should just have to create vlan 1081 using the wan as parent, then in interfaces/assignments, assign the vlan to WAN.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              You might not have to since it still seems to be enabled in the 'modem' and dhcp seems to be working.

              Do you receive a gateway and default route on the WAN?

              Can you ping the gateway? Ping 8.8.8.8?

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              • P
                panzerscope
                last edited by

                Thanks for all the help guys.

                I actually found what the issue was. So to start, to get bridge mode working, as suspected, all I needed to do was change my WAN to DHCP on PfSense. I also enabled DHCP for IPv6, just for future. The issue was that in PfSense, my IPv4 default gateway was still set to use my WANGW profile which was using a static address for my old setup. After changing my default gateway to WAN_DHCP, everything came alive!

                So for anyone using Lightspeed with PfSense that wants to use Bridge Mode, take the following steps

                1. Call Lightspeed as they have to specifically enable Bridge Mode on your account (at least at the time of writing this as they are still trialling Bridge Mode)
                2. Login to your Nokia ISP router, go to Network>LAN and enable Bridge Mode on whichever LAN interface you will be plugging in your PfSense PC/Device WAN into. As per the below example

                637ef75a-988d-4f7f-9446-7ff5b7e1dc1f-image.png

                1. Log into PfSense, go to Interface>WAN.

                Ensure/Change your IPv4 and IPv6 WAN to DHCP as per below example.

                13e279b4-b625-4474-a53d-7ad59619c80a-image.png

                1. From System>Routing>Gateways, you need to ensure that your IPv4/IPv6 default gateways are set to WAN_DHCP as per the below example.

                1ac4f410-7283-4d6c-92e7-0bccba294735-image.png

                Only last thing I need to figure out guys, is how do you setup a "VIP" on PfSense so I can login to the ISP Router ?

                Thanks!

                JKnottJ stephenw10S 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • JKnottJ
                  JKnott @panzerscope
                  last edited by

                  @panzerscope

                  There is one other setting to check. On System / Advanced / Networking, select Do not allow PD/Address release. This will prevent the IPv6 prefix changing, provided the ISP supports it. If they don't, you may want to consider Unique Local Addresses so that devices on your LAN will have consistent addresses.

                  PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                  i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                  UniFi AC-Lite access point

                  I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

                  P 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @panzerscope
                    last edited by

                    @panzerscope said in PfSense Bridge Mode with ISP Router:

                    Only last thing I need to figure out guys, is how do you setup a "VIP" on PfSense so I can login to the ISP Router ?

                    You may not need a VIP, it depends how the router/modem handles the connection when it's in bridge mode.

                    Try to access the modems management IP from a client behind pfSense.

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                    • P
                      panzerscope @JKnott
                      last edited by

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                      • P
                        panzerscope @JKnott
                        last edited by

                        @JKnott

                        Thanks I will look into that :)

                        @stephenw10

                        I cannot access the ISP modem using anything behind PfSense :(

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          OK then you probably need a VIP on the WAN in the modems subnet and an outbound NAT rule.

                          https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/recipes/modem-access.html?highlight=modem#configure-nat

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