Wireless Question
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I would like to setup a wireless card in my PF-Sense firewall and connect a wireless linksys router to the wireless network. I would like to expand my wireless network.
RC -
I managed to do this recently, I would recommend an atheros based card for your pfsense box, I'm not sure if this can be done on Linksys stock firmware though, I had trouble getting it to work with DD-WRT firmware with a Linksys WRT54GL (my aim was transparent bridge to pass client IP to captive portal), but I think what you need is wireless repeater mode.
As I said, I have done this but with a LaFonera 2100 with DD-WRT 2.4 beta firmware, I disabled all firewall settings on the LaFonera, set LAN IP 192.168.30.20, subnet 255.255.255.0, gw 192.168.30.1 which is my pfsense OPT1 wireless interface, went to wireless/basic settings tab and changed wireless mode for ath0 to "bridge client" and gave it same SSID as my pfsense wireless card, then created a VAP (ath0.1) on the same page with a different SSID e.g "pfsense_repeater" and set it to "AP" mode, then went to wireless security tab and set the sharedkey for both ath0 and VAP (ath0.1) to what I had for my pfsense wireless card setting.
<pfsense>~~~ <client mode="" <<ath0="" -="" lafonera="" ath0.1="">> AP mode> ~~~ <wireless clients="">The above is self explanatory, the LaFonera connects at one end as a client then repeats the signal from the other end as an AP.
This works fine for personal use, if you dont need the mac addr passed to pfsense, if on the other hand you need/use the captive portal with mac filtering, it will still work but the LaFonera's mac gets passed as the authenticated user and the initial user that logs in gives access to any other clients that connects.
If you need the latter with captival portal and mac filtering, I would instead hook up the Linksys to a LAN port and then use WDS to repeat the signal to other AP's, which I have working and all clients pass their IP's and MAC's to pfsense via the portal, this took me several weeks to work out, but finally managed to get it working after reading dozens of RTFM's ;D
I hope the above isnt too confusing
Slam
P.S You dont need to change any setting on the pfsense box for the above to work</wireless></client></pfsense>
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I was just wondering. I wanted to take my Linksys and possible 1 more and extend my existing network out to my shop via wireless. I have my shop and house wired togethor but the wiring is in the front of the house, so I just wanted to just the wired between the two routers but tie them all togethor with the wireless adapter in ap mode in the back of the house. Do you think that that will work.
RC -
The problem doing it the way you describe, is that you will end up in a double/triple nat situation, I would recommend going the WDS route (wireless distribution system) as it is a transparent bridge and the only nat on your network would be your pfsense box, unless you switch off the firewall on your 2 linksys routers and probably some other settings, I've never played with stock linksys firmware as I usually flash ddwrt on them as soon as I get hold of them, I suggest firstly you find out what model you have and see if what you need is possible with stock firmware, if not then head over to the ddwrt forums and check if your model/revision if supported using their firmware.
Slam