NL-2511 EXT2+ - Can't Pass Traffic

bryandj23 · Feb 11, 2009, 3:02 PM

Hello!

I'm looking to setup a pfsense box to act as an Access Point, along with captive portal for a hotspot setup. My current configuration is as follows:

[internet]–-[pfsense]–---Core Lan
(gw) |
----[pfsense (hotspot)]
WAN –--Wireless.

On the hotspot pfsense box, I have my wired Intel card as WAN and wi0 (NL-2511) as LAN. I can succesfully associate to the hotspot box, and optain DHCP from pfsense. However, I cannot pass any traffic.

In the sticky above, regarding wireless cards, the following was stated:

"My recomendation is Senao 2511 on Prism II chipset.. I have used many of this miniPCi card without any problems. Only one thing You have to do, is upgrade to latest firmware. "

regards
Michael

I'm running 1.1.1 primary and 1.8.0 station firmware on the NL2511. To ease any firewall issues, I have an "allow all" rule set on the WAN, and just the default "Lan Net" rule on the LAN.

To make this just a bit harder to troubleshoot, my laptop is currently out of service, and my only wireless client for testing is my Pocket PC Smartphone (so no CLI to try pings, etc).

Not sure if this matters, but I can't even get to the webgui through wireless.

Interface Statistics show an enormous amount of collisions on the wireless interface:

In/Out Packets: 1001/419
In/Out Errors : 22/173
Collisions : 2889

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

1. Firmware update to NL2511 as Michael suggests? Michael, are you reading this? What firmware version are you on?

2. Since I'm essentially double-natting (a seperate pfsense box is my internet gateway), could this be what's hampering wireless communication?

3. I'm missing something stupid.

Watching tcpdump, I can see requests for www.google.com when I try to access the site on my Pocket PC phone, but not as many packets as I'd expect.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. (Especially from Michael; if he would be so kind to let me know how he got his NL2511 cards working).

Thanks!

Bryan

bryandj23 · Feb 12, 2009, 2:59 AM

Update:

Posting from my laptop connected to pfsense (hotspot). Seems like everything is working just fine.

Still leads me to wonder why I'm unable to pass traffic when connected with an xv6800 Pocket PC running WM 6.1??