I need some help with DHCP on this wireless setup.

Mojoharry · Jun 26, 2009, 3:28 PM

Hi,

Hope some one can help with this I have read almost everything here from present to about 2007.. and I just cant get this working

Here is the equipment:

Pf Sense server: Toshiba laptop with intergrated NIC (WAN) and a PCMCIA Dlink DWL- 650 wireless card (LAN).
This is down stairs in the living room where the Cable modem is.

Upstairs I have a D Link 2000AP connected to a 4p switch with an uplink port. I have 3 Windows 2k3 servers connected to the switch. One of which is the DHCP server.

I have managed to get the Dlink DWL-G650 wireless card as the LAN and intergrated NIC as the WAN.

I have the D Link 2000AP in Client Mode wired to the uplink on the switch. The servers upstairs work fine with internet and connecting to the PF Sense box..

However I have some wireless laptops that cannot get DHCP from the W2k3 Server.

If I staticly assign the the laptops they get internet and can ping fine. I have opened up the firewall on Pf Sense to let anything through even explicitly opening UDP 67 - 68 for DHCP. ???

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

wallabybob · Jun 26, 2009, 10:02 PM

Why not make the pfSense box the DHCP server?

If you don't want to do that then how will the DHCP traffic get from the pfSense AP to the W2k3 DHCP server?

Have you configured and enabled DHCP Relay (in the web GUI, Services -> DHCP Relay)? (I've never used DHCP relay and can't enable it on my box because its a DHCP server so I can't look at the DHCP Relay options to see if its possible to 'relay' DHCP requests out the same interface on which they arrive.)

Otherwise, in the wireless interface configuration have you checked Enable Intra BSS communication? (I'm guessing this would make the AP hardware or driver send out every packet it receives as well as pass them on to the host.)

Another option might be to make the DLink 2000AP the AP and pfSense the wireless client

wallabybob · Jun 27, 2009, 10:34 PM

I think you'll be better off using pfSense as your DHCP server. If something goes wrong with the existing DHCP server such that you need to restore it from backup it will almost certainly take much longer to restore DHCP service than it would if you were using pfSense as the DHCP server.

Mojoharry · Jun 29, 2009, 12:59 PM

@ wallabybob.

I have checked Enable Intra BSS communication and now I can ping the Win2k3 server from the ping util in PfSense. Thanks!

I don't want to use PfSense as the DHCP server because I have the W2k3 box setup and was going to reflect those DHCP setting on the PFSense box if the server whent down.

This little setup is for home use / studdy. So nothing to critical.

Thakns for the help!