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    Can't connect two computers through pfsense router

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Firewalling
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    • B
      bartgrefte
      last edited by

      Hmm, now I am realising that I should have payed a little more attention at the Cisco classes… :P

      Anyway, so if I use a completely different IP range+subnetmask it should work?
      Gonna try that tomorrow.

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      • GruensFroeschliG
        GruensFroeschli
        last edited by

        Well you can have the same submask.
        You just need to be in a different range.
        (like 192.168.0.0/24 and 192.168.1.0/24)

        We do what we must, because we can.

        Asking questions the smart way: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

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        • B
          bartgrefte
          last edited by

          Just tried that, still no go.

          UDP works, TCP not, plus the jperf server (on lan port) says this:

          –----------------------------------------------------------
          Server listening on TCP port 5001
          TCP window size: 0.00 GByte (default)

          [1872] local 0.0.0.0 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.5 port 1098
          [ ID] Interval      Transfer    Bandwidth

          Iperf thread stopped [CAUSE=For input string: "1.#J"]

          Client still says connection timed out.

          Switched those two, server on wan and client on lan, still timed out but not that input string error on server, in fact, no error at all. It's still waiting for connection.

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          • B
            bartgrefte
            last edited by

            Just ruled out the cables, used them both (one at a time) to hook up the laptop and desktop directly -> iperf/jperf works fine.
            …
            Uhm, damn, now I'm emberrassed. Forgot to change the gateway on my laptop ::)
            So it works ;D

            But now, the throughput is lower than a direct connection.
            Direct connection: around 670Mbit maximum, this with 6 simaltaneous connections in jperf.
            pFsense throughput: 380Mbit, also with 6 and 3 connections.

            CPU (Atom N270) usage of the pFsense router is around 90% during the test, so guess 380Mbit is about the maximum it can do?
            Also noticed something in the firewall log. The desktop (on wan) is sending something via UDP through port 138 to 192.168.0.255, beneath action is shows a white x in red box.
            I know that port is used for NETBIOS Datagram Service, but eventhough I forwarded it, the packages are still being dropped. Not sure if that's a bad thing.

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            • D
              danswartz
              last edited by

              If your CPU is (almost) pegged, I'd guess you are not going to get much more than that.

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              • B
                bartgrefte
                last edited by

                Hmm…

                But why can the desktop transfer a lot faster? That one also has a singlecore Atom (230), same as the motherboard of the pfsense router.

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                • jimpJ
                  jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                  last edited by

                  If you are seeing 380Mbit through pfSense, then you are really seeing that * 2 = 760Mbit of throughput. 380 in, 380 out.

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                  • jimpJ
                    jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                    last edited by

                    Also…

                    Also noticed something in the firewall log. The desktop (on wan) is sending something via UDP through port 138 to 192.168.0.255, beneath action is shows a white x in red box.

                    That's standard Windows NetBIOS broadcasts. It must not be allowed by any rules you have specified if it's showing up in the firewall log as blocked.

                    Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

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                    • B
                      bartgrefte
                      last edited by

                      Uhm, so I have to delete the NAT and firewall rule that I made and that is supposed to let them get through?
                      O wait, just realized, I forwarded that port to the IP of the laptop, while they are directed to 192.168.0.255.

                      Should I even let those packages get through?

                      @jimp:

                      If you are seeing 380Mbit through pfSense, then you are really seeing that * 2 = 760Mbit of throughput. 380 in, 380 out.

                      It wasn't in and out simultaneously, one direction only with Iperf.

                      The singlecore Atom of the Desktop had no problem with 670MBit, I think the PCI bus of the Gb NIC was the limitation there when it was directly hooked up to my laptop.
                      Laptop has a T7600 + an expresscard Gb NIC, so no limitations there I guess.

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                      • jimpJ
                        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                        last edited by

                        If the desktop and laptop were on different interfaces of pfSense, then you were still getting 380 in and 380 out, they were just on different NICs.

                        Desktop -> nic1 | pfsense | nic2 -> Laptop

                        A 380Mbit transfer from Desktop to Laptop is 380 in nic1, 380 out nic2, 760Mbit total traffic being handled at the router.

                        As for the NetBIOS traffic, that's up to you if you want it allowed. That's really just local broadcast traffic to its own subnet, it doesn't hurt anything on pfSense and isn't trying to route out to the Internet.

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                        • B
                          bartgrefte
                          last edited by

                          They where, the desktop on the wan NIC and the laptop on the lan NIC, so 380Mbit is the maximum?
                          I think that will do for the next couple of years, till ISP's go further than that :P

                          Hmm, okay.

                          Now I only have to figure out why "halt system" isn't always able to completely shutdown the system.
                          Most of the time it works, but sometimes I have to hold the powerbutton to have it turn off completely.
                          But that's not really an issue though, since it will be up 24/7 soon.

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                          • jimpJ
                            jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                            last edited by

                            It may be the maximum for that particular set of hardware.

                            As for the power-off deal, that sounds like what could be an ACPI BIOS issue.

                            I saw that once or twice on an Atom system I had here but could never reproduce it. As you said, they were intended to be up 24/7 so it wasn't a big deal to figure that one out.

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                            • B
                              bartgrefte
                              last edited by

                              Okay.
                              Well, if/when upgrading becomes necessary, maybe pfsense will be supporting* dualcore cpu's by then?
                              (*Vaguely remember reading somewhere it doesn't, but could be wrong.)

                              That's what I thought, but most of the time the shutdown goes normally, so why every now and then it doesn't…

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                              • jimpJ
                                jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                last edited by

                                pfSense has supported dual core CPUs for some time. The OS just sees it as two processors. When doing a full install, make sure you select the "Symmetric Multiprocessing Kernel" (SMP) and it will use all detected cores, and if you have hyperthreading enabled, it will show cores*2 CPUs. (It showed 4 on my Atom 330 until I disabled hyperthreading)

                                Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

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                                Do not Chat/PM for help!

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                                • B
                                  bartgrefte
                                  last edited by

                                  Hmm, okay. :)

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