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    Port Forwarding stopped working after upgrading to 2.8.0

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

      There's no way you can have all DNS queries run over the VPN if the VPN servers are defined as FQDNs which require DNS to connect. 😉

      If you don't have forwarding enabled Unbound resolves directly against the DNS root servers. It can do that across any route.

      If you want to avoid DNS "leaks" from clients using one of the VPNs it's usually best to pas clients different DNS servers to use via DHCP and then route traffic to those over the VPN. You can also then add block rules to prevent any other DNS traffic leaving over the WAN directly.

      Doing that means DNS from pfSense itself can be left as default because clients being routed via the VPN won't use it. But it would also mean those clients don't use the overrides and hence the lancache.

      An alternative would be so set the DNS behaviour in general setup to 'use remote, ignore local'. Then pfSense itself will use the defined external servers and you can allow VPN clients to use Unbound with the overrides. Unbound itself should be set to only use the VPNs for outgoing queries in that scenario.

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      • C Offline
        comet424 @comet424
        last edited by

        @stephenw10 so internet lasted a few hours then went down again.. when my vpn goes down or 100% packet loss it just takes out the wan

        so i did dns resolver logs when it failed.. and when i rebooted and it never fixed itself..

        the dns resolver i left it as forwarding and i only had the 2 vpns selected as outgoing.. and that seemed to work wan worked vpn worked and then it just fails or what not...

        i did notice i could ping 1.1.1.1 but dnslookup failed for 1.1.1.1 i left it as the general i didnt know if u wanted raw or formated..

        but here is the screen shots

        issue1.png issue2.png issue4.png issue5.png issue7.png issue8.png issue9.png

        here i rebooted the pfsense

        issue10.png issue11.png issue12.png

        here is the dns logger files.. 1 is when it failed.. and the other is when i rebooted. and nothing fixed itself
        dns resolver after reboot.txt dns resolver.txt

        is it doing that its removing the dns servers and it cant resolve as its showing that there is no server.. and if so how can i fix this then so wan is seperate from the vpn they dont leak over to vpn and nothing fails

        and is this cuz my internet is so poor its buggering up the vpn or loosing internet...

        i will retest again without the vpns tommorow.... but any other tricks or a Check box to make the vpn and wan seperate and work and not fail....

        i do hope when i get better internet all this issues go away

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        • C Offline
          comet424 @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 my reply was before i saw your reply

          ill re read what you said what to do and the use remote ignore local ill have to look that up and google too.. as right now all you mentioned kinda lost me... so i have to re read it a few times with my disylexia and then review how to fix it...

          so for the dhcp i just tell it dns is 192.168.0.1 i left it simple so that covered vpn and just plain
          and if you you dont use 192.168.0.1 as the dns dont u loose local domains like the server names?

          ill re read your comments tommorow.. as i got a headache and trying to understand what you wrote with a headache just makes headaches work... i appreciate the help so far

          and i wish there was a video i could learn from as i a visual learner...

          but ill try this stuff tommorow to look it up or figure it out from google what you mentioned

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          • C Offline
            comet424 @comet424
            last edited by comet424

            so i set General Setup
            just the 2 dns servers

            i set the use remote dns ignore local

            under dns resolver

            i unchecked dns sec, left the enable forwarding, and i set the incoming all and outgoing to just the 2 vpn servers

            now i going to let that run all night and see what happens....

            and ill look up that other information tommorow

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            • stephenw10S Offline
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              You can't DNS Lookup 1.1.1.1, it's not an FQDN.

              When you have the outgoing interfaces in Unbound set to only the VPNs then it will fail to resolve anything if the VPNs go down.

              If pfSense itself it also set to use only the VPN DNS servers it won't be able to resolve the VPN servers to connect to them.

              pfSense itself must have access to some other DNS server. Or the VPN servers must be entered as IP addresses directly.

              I would revert to a much simpler more default config and make sure that works first.

              C dennypageD 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • C Offline
                comet424 @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10 sorry i havent replied i was outta town for family issues and i didnt get notifications that you replied so i also tried other sites and youtube. but still stuck

                so i did a more simplier as you mentioned

                so couple issues i but i followed a Lawerence Systems setup of the pia vpn he had 2 different videos plus i watched ca couple others

                they dont have any general/setup servers
                and they dont touch the dns resolver.. so i set it to default

                all and all for incoming and outgoing
                i check enable dnssec support
                i check Register DHCP leases in the DNS Resolver
                i check Register DHCP static mappings in the DNS Resolver
                i check Register connected OpenVPN clients in the DNS Resolver

                and i removed the host overrides i had for the time being

                so this setup works for a while till my internet bogs down for a while and then things dont work.. but i can disable my vpn or reboot and internet works again..
                my wan connections still cant resolve home depot right i get that something goes wrong.. but if i change the dns in windows to 1.1.1.1 it can resolve home depot searchs fine.. remove to to use 192.168.0.1 it wont work right

                i even made the NAT simplier i went to also hybrid mode..

                and i had another question i had posted in youtub but no replies

                if i have the no wan egress so no VPN traffic can go out the WAN but i get like my ISP dns on the VPN or the 1.1.1.1 on the VPN as a dns... does it matter? does it still get monitored or does it only monitored going out the WAN

                and so far the only way i can keep my internet from crapping total out

                i set
                General setup 1.1.1.1 wan_ppoe
                Dns resolver All/All incoming/outgoing
                i check enable dnssec support
                i check Register DHCP leases in the DNS Resolver
                i check Register DHCP static mappings in the DNS Resolver
                i check Register connected OpenVPN clients in the DNS Resolver
                i uncheck Enable Forwarding Mode

                but thats when i get cloudflare on my VPN

                to get my ISP on my VPN
                i set
                general/setup - i remove all the dns's
                Dns resolver All/All incoming/outgoing
                i check enable dnssec support
                i check Register DHCP leases in the DNS Resolver
                i check Register DHCP static mappings in the DNS Resolver
                i check Register connected OpenVPN clients in the DNS Resolver
                i uncheck Enable Forwarding Mode

                so curious in the end if it matters if the dns of the isp or cloudflare matters on the vpn thats supposed to be secure... or can i block the cloudflare or the isp dns on the vpn side

                oh and i tried for the vpn settings

                persist-key;
                persist-tun;
                remote-cert-tls server;
                reneg-sec 0;
                auth-retry interact;
                dhcp-option DNS 10.0.0.243;
                
                persist-key
                persist-tun
                remote-cert-tls server
                reneg-sec 0
                auth-retry interact
                dhcp-option DNS 10.0.0.243
                

                i seen some use the ; on the back of each option and some dont but i didnt find any made a difference

                sorry for the delay

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                • C Offline
                  comet424 @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10
                  oh and what i did have that worked but dns still leaked to vpn side

                  was 1.1.1.1 general setup to wan_ppoe this kept the wan from going down

                  and then had selected the VPN in the outgoing on outbound interface..
                  and i had unchecked the forwarding

                  that seemed to keep things going but WAN clients werent able to work Homedepote serach right

                  i also tried a setting i found under Adavanced Firewall
                  i set Firewall State Policy to
                  interface Bound States... to keep the states to the gateways i thought that would keep each dns in its own lane.. 1.1.1.1 only goes to wan_ppoe 10.0.0.243 goes out the one vpn gateway... under the general setup.. but that didnt keep them seperated either.. still went to the vpn side

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                  • dennypageD Offline
                    dennypage @stephenw10
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10 said in Port Forwarding stopped working after upgrading to 2.8.0:

                    You can't DNS Lookup 1.1.1.1, it's not an FQDN.

                    You should be able to:

                    Screenshot 2025-08-19 at 08.56.16.png

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                    • C Offline
                      comet424 @dennypage
                      last edited by

                      @dennypage ya i can do that

                      i changed the 1.1.1.1 in general setup to 103.86.99.100 NordVPN dns

                      when i set the wan_ppoe to 1.1.1.1 i get like 10 Cloudflare DNS's on VPN side clients instead of 1 dns name for the 10.0.0.243 and tells me dns maybe leaking

                      but using the 103.86.99.100 only pops up 2 dns servers on the VPN side then

                      but here is the 103.86.99.100
                      snip2.png snip1.png

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                      • C Offline
                        comet424 @comet424
                        last edited by

                        and this is my current settings
                        and yet WAN DNS keeps showing up on VPN side.. when really only 1 dns

                        but i dunno if its just ok

                        as you can see with the current settings the 103 germany dns server shows up on the vpn side it doesnt leave just the 1 dns server... but i dunno is it ok since the traffic isnt going out the wan.. or does it matter and any dns's even though secure on vpn if the like cloudflare shows on the vpn side does it mean they see what your secure traffic is doing

                        snip3.png snip4.png snip5.png snip6.png snip7.png

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                        • C Offline
                          comet424 @comet424
                          last edited by

                          oh and PIA VPN customer service are not willing to help there response is we dont know pfsense and to use community forums to get any help

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                          • C Offline
                            comet424 @comet424
                            last edited by comet424

                            @dennypage so i was able to make the dnslookup 1.1.1.1 fail after several hours i defaulted my DNS Resolver.. so it is out the ALL interface.. no General Setup

                            Pfsense Cant ping doman names.. it can ping 1.1.1.1
                            pfsense cant dnslookup 1.1.1.1 but it could ping it

                            Windows machine on WAN side lost its internet cant ping domain names but it can ping ip address 1.1.1.1

                            my Ubuntu 2 VMS 1 behind VPN and other on my DMZ which is just WAN

                            both can ping domain names both can go to like google. or amazon.com but windows machine looses it

                            and so does pfsense ... and pfsense default gateway is using the wan_ppoe not the automatic..
                            i swear it has to be my provider..

                            also when my windows machine is using 192.168.0.1 as dns it should be using the ISP dns and resolve Home depot search engine but it cant.. but as soon as i change the 192.168.0.1 dns to 1.1.1.1 it can perfectly resolve it...

                            i guess also windows must resolve things differentl then ubuntu

                            i swear my 3megabit internet cant handle both vpn and wan tunneling when wan bogs down but it cant resolve in windows right unless pfsense factory reset then it can desolve right
                            i figure it has to be my provider too buggering up things i dunno

                            i swear its like it stalls out cuz everything requires faster then 3mb so if you go to long maxed out it really buggers it all up.. least thats my idea

                            but here is some screen shots
                            fail1.png fail2.png fail3.png fail4.png

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                            • stephenw10S Offline
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              You can't use the ISPs DNS servers over the VPN. They are almost certainly only available from the WAN IPs so not via the VPN.

                              What do you have the DNS behaviour set to in General Setup?
                              That's important because it determines what pfSense can use to resolve the VPN servers (assuming you are still using FQDNs).

                              @comet424 said in Port Forwarding stopped working after upgrading to 2.8.0:

                              if i have the no wan egress so no VPN traffic can go out the WAN but i get like my ISP dns on the VPN or the 1.1.1.1 on the VPN as a dns... does it matter?

                              You mean a firewall rule that blocks outgoing traffic on WAN? What exactly is that rule?

                              Does the setup work fine if you don't use VPNs at all?

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                              • C Offline
                                comet424 @stephenw10
                                last edited by comet424

                                This post is deleted!
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                                • C Offline
                                  comet424 @comet424
                                  last edited by

                                  so i turn off the traffic rule for vpn and the VPN traffic is going out the WAN

                                  so guess my blocking rule isnt working in the dns leak test now you see for the VPN it went from 1 ISP and VPN DNS to now 2 ISP DNS

                                  failaa.png failbb.png

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                                    comet424 @comet424
                                    last edited by

                                    so when i disable the VPN

                                    and i use the windows machine thats on the WAN

                                    i get 1 DNS the ISP and i cant resolve a search in HD
                                    dsl.png dsl2.png

                                    so it doesnt work right for WAN even though i disabled the VPN

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                                    • C Offline
                                      comet424 @comet424
                                      last edited by comet424

                                      and here is where i re activate the VPN rule in rules LAN
                                      this is on the ubuntu VPN clients side

                                      the web gui points to cloudflare but the dns command line points to a PIA dns and ISP DNS

                                      pia.png

                                      and this is the custom options for the one vpn

                                      persist-key;
                                      persist-tun;
                                      remote-cert-tls server;
                                      reneg-sec 0;
                                      auth-retry interact;
                                      dhcp-option DNS 10.0.0.243;
                                      

                                      a few minlater the isp shows up on dnsleaktest website on VPN Clients
                                      dns.png

                                      some articles videos use ; and some remove it so i dunno whats right

                                      i followed both lawerenc System Videos neither use dns resolver and they dont address dns of ISP showing up on the vpn side or cloudflare
                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulRgecz0UsQ
                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TglViu6ctWE

                                      and i followed this sheridan guy but also doesnt cover dns resolver or dns of isp or cloudflare showing up on the VPN side
                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffVPOaLCuMQ

                                      i followed this guys tutorial. doenst use Dns Resolver.. but also sets the PIA interface to use the WAN NAT Address. in NAT Outbound.. where others use PIA Interface to go out the PIA NAT Address.
                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SckOaNfptAA

                                      so unless i really messed up somewhere i dont know why they show up on the vpn as dnsleak.com also says leakage..
                                      i even left them messages on how to stop the leakage

                                      and PIA customer service isnt willing to help.. they just stop replying and say go ask the community for help

                                      also whats funny if i disable the VPN so the vpn clients use WAN connect
                                      the windows machine gets the ISP DNS... but the ubuntu dnsleaktest website keeps pulling cloudflare.. but the command line will just pull the isp dns.. i guess ill try again restart from scratch and just setup the vpn and wan and a couple ips not the whole network.. as i cant figure it why things dont work and ill just do 1 check box at a time and test cuz its gotta be just 1 check box.. one semi colon something in the wrong spot thats doing it...

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                                      • stephenw10S Offline
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        OK so your block rule to prevent leak relies on tagging traffic from clients. Where is that being tagged?

                                        Can you search in the HD site before you added any of the VPN stuff? If looks more like something is blocked there. Like maybe you have pfBlocker with DNSBL enabled that's blocking something required for that serach. Enabling the VPN with external DNS bypasses that.

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                                        • C Offline
                                          comet424 @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10 oh i guess i should labeled the screen shots like sections

                                          so the WAN has the TAGGED section

                                          and the VPN uses the TAG screen shot so

                                          and i tried this morning and desktop windows seems to be working i let it rest cuz filter reload states reset ipconfig /flushdns didnt do anything..

                                          so ill test more to see if its the pfblocker if it fails later today

                                          and i have question if you have say 3 computers behind WAN or behind VPN and you run dnsleaktest should they not all respond with the exact same dns server? as my desktop comes with my ISP windows machine... ubunutu comes back with cira-cloud1 dns Firefox docker comes back wit cira-cloud dns or sometimes it comes back with cira-cloud1 plus my DSL dns

                                          and on the VPN side i get the screen shots i sent i get vpn datacamp but also the ISP dns,, or on ubuntu i get Cloudflare and a windows machine i get cira-tsi.tor.teksavv... dns

                                          so i confused cuz dnsleaktests tell me i leaking gui dnsleak tests show different from the command line dnsleaktest

                                          does the semi colon in the vpn custom options matter? as some use it some dont use it

                                          and does it matter what dns shows up on the vpn side if you block the vpn traffic going out the wan.. i asked PIA customer service they never bothered to even get back to me poor service. should stuck with nordvpn

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                                          • stephenw10S Offline
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            Hmm, just to be clear you are taking about OpenVPN clients configured in pfSense? Conneting to PIA? Not a remote access OpenVPN server in pfSense?

                                            The firewall rules applying the tags to traffic would need to be on the interface where traffic enters the firewall. So on LAN or some other internal interface.

                                            And are you running any sort of DNS filtering like pfBlocker?

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