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

    cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    61 Posts 6 Posters 5.6k 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.
    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @JonathanLee
      last edited by

      @JonathanLee said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

      I mean 10baseT was the hottest thing since sliced bread a couple years ago

      It was a bit longer than a couple of years.. But yeah as you get older, 20 years seem like just last week ;)

      Doesn't seem like that long ago was installing tcp/ip on the old windows 3.11 machines via a bunch of floppies..

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • JonathanLeeJ
        JonathanLee
        last edited by JonathanLee

        What we need is to build a firewall on Xenix it has a tcp stack hahaha, use that new April 4th release of pfSense.

        Make sure to upvote

        GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • JKnottJ
          JKnott @JonathanLee
          last edited by

          @JonathanLee said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

          Pre dated BNC stuff. Pre Ethernet. It was wicked cool.

          Actually, Ethernet predated token ring. That MAU is used for token ring. I don't think BNC connectors were ever used for it, just Ethernet and ARCNET.

          I used to work for IBM Canada in the late 90s and there were racks full of those MAUs. When I was back on contract a few years later, token ring was nowhere to be found and everything was Ethernet.

          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...

          JonathanLeeJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • JonathanLeeJ
            JonathanLee @JKnott
            last edited by JonathanLee

            @JKnott it was like they erased history of that network equipment, they don’t talk about MAU at all in any publication for higher education. I wanted to share it as it was an amazing find and rabbit hole to learn what it was for me. I remember token ring in elementary school. But never MAU technology. They had a token ring network for an apple computer lab with bnc cables 10baset stuff all wired in a circle with t connectors it was so cool to see it and work with.

            Make sure to upvote

            JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • GertjanG
              Gertjan @JonathanLee
              last edited by

              @JonathanLee

              A while back, last year already, I found these : How To Start An ISP (like it's 1993)

              All the big brands, operating systems, all the equipment, most of them I 'heard' about, but never actually saw it.
              All I remember is that I had a Robotics Sporter 56K modem (that actually only synced up to 33.6).
              Now you can see what was on the other side.

              No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
              Edit : and where are the logs ??

              JKnottJ JonathanLeeJ 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • JKnottJ
                JKnott @JonathanLee
                last edited by

                @JonathanLee

                That Mac network might have been AppleTalk. (Do Apple computers have Mac addresses? 😉 )

                MTU is something that should be discussed, otherwise we'll be stuck with 1500 forever. 16 Mb token ring could go almost 18K bytes. I doubt most people even know why 1500 was picked for Ethernet. Back in those days, networks weren't reliable and collisions were expected. So it became a trade off between efficiency and retransmitting lost frames. It became locked in with early Ethernet NICs that were hardware limited and also when 802.3 was introduced and the Ethertype/Length field was used to determine whether it was an Ethernet II or 802.3 frame.

                These days, with switches, collisions are history and networks are both much faster and more reliable, so the 1500 MTU has become a bottleneck. I have a cheap TP-Link switch that can handle 16K frames and 9K are often used in data centres, etc.. It's time to move on.

                BTW, my first Ethernet experience was with DECNet over 10base5 "Thicknet" and I'm probably the only one here who has ever hand wired an Ethernet controller.

                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...

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JKnottJ
                  JKnott @Gertjan
                  last edited by

                  @Gertjan said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

                  All I remember is that I had a Robotics Sporter 56K modem (that actually only synced up to 33.6).

                  I have a Courier (collecting dust in my junque closet). It could deliver 56K down, provided the ISP was on a digital phone connection. Up was always 33.6K max.

                  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...

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • C
                    cyberstudentnewbie
                    last edited by cyberstudentnewbie

                    that makes sense... the /32 isnt possible and it makes it a single ip address,

                    here is an easy one..

                    What does it mean when the WAN interface is set to DHCP?
                    Does that mean that PFsense is acting as the dhcp server handing out Ip addresses?

                    i put a pic up
                    Screenshot 2024-04-23 111731.png

                    JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • JonathanLeeJ
                      JonathanLee @Gertjan
                      last edited by

                      @Gertjan my wife walked in with this YouTube video running… “are you actually watching dialup?” Ummm yeah!

                      Make sure to upvote

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JKnottJ
                        JKnott @cyberstudentnewbie
                        last edited by

                        @cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

                        What does it mean when the WAN interface is set to DHCP?
                        Does that mean that PFsense is acting as the dhcp server handing out Ip addresses?

                        No, it means pfSense is the DHCP client, getting it's address from the ISP. However, it can also provide a DHCP server on the LAN side, to provide addresses to devices on the LAN.

                        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...

                        C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • JKnottJ
                          JKnott @Gertjan
                          last edited by

                          @Gertjan said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

                          A while back, last year already, I found these : How To Start An ISP (like it's 1993)

                          Several years ago, I set up my own "ISP". I was running Red Hat Linux and configured to to accept calls via dial up modem. My ThinkPad had a modem back then and I was on a cable modem at home. However, I lost that modem, when I upgraded the WiFi from 802.11b to g, as the modem and WiFi shared the same card and the new card didn't have a modem. 😦

                          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...

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • C
                            cyberstudentnewbie @JKnott
                            last edited by cyberstudentnewbie

                            @JKnott
                            okay so what do i set the WAN to so that pfsense will be my DHCP server?
                            or do i not want to do that?🤔

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

                              That's not a setting on WAN. You would enable it on internal interfaces from Services > DHCP Server as required.

                              https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/services/dhcp/ipv4.html

                              It's enabled on LAN by default.

                              C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • C
                                cyberstudentnewbie @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10
                                okay so just leave it on WAN as DHCP and the go to services and enable them independently in the services section for each interface?

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

                                  Yes, exactly. Assuming you want the WAN to pull it's IP address via DHCP from some upstream server that is. 😉

                                  C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • C
                                    cyberstudentnewbie @stephenw10
                                    last edited by cyberstudentnewbie

                                    @stephenw10
                                    ahhh... so that setting on WAN gives me my public IP address from my ISP...
                                    Then each one of my interfaces which i just enabled dhcp on, will hand out the ip addresses from the cooresponding address pools i have just configured....
                                    Okay now im getting it..

                                    you guys are awesome!

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • GertjanG
                                      Gertjan @cyberstudentnewbie
                                      last edited by Gertjan

                                      @cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

                                      DHCP

                                      See it like this :
                                      @home, you have a program called 'a browser'. For example : Edge. Edge connects to a server (there are many server, you as a human, you have to chose a server).
                                      This is what is called a client and server concept.
                                      For "DHCP", it's somewhat identical.
                                      The interface that you've declared as "WAN" is used by a DHCP program ( its process name is dhcpc from DHCP Client) and it sends out over the WAN interface - it actually broadcasts - a request : "Is there a DHCP server out there, as I want to a 'lease').
                                      It's your ISP router, or some other router, more far away, that has a DHCP server, and this server will give your dhcpc process a DHCP lease => an IP, a DNS, a gateway, and network info.
                                      Now, pfSense is happy, it obtained an IP on it LAN.

                                      Now, lets go one step back. Your pfSense LAN. Most devices, PC's phones, printers, doorbells, etc have a build in DHCP Client.
                                      So it's the same story all over again.
                                      But this time, it is the DHCP Server, that runs on your pfSense LAN (it listens all the time, ready to answer a request coming in from one of your LAN devices) that will hand over a lease to this device, and all other LAN devices.

                                      So, pfSense can use a DHCP client on it's WAN and a DCHP server on its LAN.
                                      They do the same 'related' things. But are opposite in functionality.

                                      Btw : both aren't strictly needed.
                                      You can set up your WAN with static "hard coded" IP settings (network, IP DNS, gateway).
                                      Same thing on your LAN : stop the DHCP server, and "hard" hand code all your devices with static IP settings (IP, network, DNS, gateway).
                                      This will work just fine.

                                      No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                                      Edit : and where are the logs ??

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • JKnottJ
                                        JKnott @cyberstudentnewbie
                                        last edited by

                                        @cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

                                        @JKnott
                                        okay so what do i set the WAN to so that pfsense will be my DHCP server?
                                        or do i not want to do that?

                                        It should already do that. Check Services / DHCP Server.

                                        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...

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • JKnottJ
                                          JKnott @JonathanLee
                                          last edited by

                                          @JonathanLee

                                          No such thing as collision domains with token ring. No collisions!

                                          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...

                                          JonathanLeeJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • JonathanLeeJ
                                            JonathanLee @JKnott
                                            last edited by

                                            @JKnott in the 90s it was all about the HUB they would blink different colors for collisions.

                                            Make sure to upvote

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