Can't Access Internet or WebGUI
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@milkwaygalaxy You did set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0 as well, correct? It might also be a good idea to make sure the Mac's wifi is off.
It sounds like you're running quite an old version of macOS. For at least the past three major releases, manual assignment of an IP address is done in a per-interface way not globally. I don't remember exactly what the options were like before that, but you might want to make sure that the assignment does apply to the ethernet port you're connecting to the router. Also, does the Mac show the ethernet port as "connected"?
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@tgl Yes the Subnet is set to 255.255.255.0 and my wifi is off. I also have tested on a brand new MacBook Air and the Network interface is the same. I can select the Ethernet connection on both machines. The ethernet port does show as connected on both devices but 192.168.1.1 won't open in any browser. Do I need to enable DHCP on the LAN in PFSense on the console? That's the only thing I can think of at this point.
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@milkwaygalaxy Oh, I didn't understand that you do still have the ability to reach the management GUI. Yeah, by all means enable DHCP on the LAN port. That might or might not fix the immediate problem, but you will want it, and there's no reason to delay.
At this point I'm wondering if you have a firewall that's blocking reaching the management port from the LAN. Normally a pfSense device will have an "anti-lockout rule" on its LAN ports that is a high-priority PASS rule for traffic to the router's ports 80, 443, and 22. Maybe that is missing, or enabled on the wrong port?
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@milkwaygalaxy If you can ping 192.168.1.1, try typing out "https://192.168.1.1" manually in-full in the browser's address bar.
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@tgl Yes I can reach the management GUI via console no problem. I have the firewall turned off on my mac and the ethernet is connected directly to my Spectrum modem. I can't modify anything whatsoever on the modem...customer support said there shouldn't be anything blocking access but it could just be the modem. Checked the IP Address in ipconfig and it doesn't conflict.
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@milkwaygalaxy Uhh ... wait. I thought you had the Mac plugged into the Protectli's LAN port?
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@tgl Yes I have the mac plugged into the Protectli's LAN port and another ethernet cable going from the Protectli WAN to the Spectrum modem.
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@milkwaygalaxy Well, that's what it should be, but you didn't respond to my question about checking the Protectli's firewall rules.
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@tgl As far as I can tell the firewall rules can only be configured in the WebGUI, which I can't access, unless I've missed something in the documentation?
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@milkwaygalaxy One of us is really confused. You said you did have access to the Protectli's configuration screens via its console port. That would be where to look.
If you don't in fact have that access, I think it would be good to factory-reset the Protectli and start over. Pay closer attention to whatever choices the setup procedure offers you about LAN-port configuration.
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@tgl The console is very limited, as far as I can tell I can only designate the LAN port, static IP or DHCP and https or http. There aren't options for Firewall Rules when you set up the interface and Protectli's documentation only explains how to set up firewall rules in the WebGUI
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@milkwaygalaxy Hmm ... I just refreshed my memory about what pfSense's default configuration is. According to this page all the things I was worried about should be okay already. So there should not be any configuration-related reason why you can't get in, nor why DHCP doesn't seem to be working on the LAN port.
I'm reduced to wondering whether you have a bad ethernet cable or something like that. Maybe someone else will have other ideas.
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@tgl I've tried three ethernet cables, one is brand new....I think PfSense is just not compatible with my Spectrum modem, not sure what else it could be
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@milkwaygalaxy The Spectrum modem is connected to the Protectli's WAN port, no? It should not have anything to do with the LAN-side behavior. I could imagine it giving you problems in accessing the internet-at-large, but you've not gotten that far. Right now what you have is a LAN-side problem.
As I said, I'm out of ideas. I'd still lean a little bit to reset-and-reinstall, just in case you messed up the installation somehow.
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@tgl Okay yeah I'll try to reinstall everything and see what happens
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The Protectli has 4 rj45 ports.
Are you sure you are connected to the LAN port configured during installation?
Try moving the LAN cable from one port to another and see which one responds to the ping 192.168.1.1.
Sometimes the numbering of the rj45 ports on the firewall does not correspond to the numbering that pfSense assigns -
What does the console show pfSense has as a WAN address?
If the upstream router/modem is passing it a 192.168.1.X address that would conflict with the default LAN subnet and one of them must be changed.
