Newbie questions on Remote Desktop and Hostname

saikumargv

I am a newbie to pfSense and need help from experts out there.
Experience limitation using cheap plastic box routers and decided to go with pfSense running on a P4 with 512MB Ram.
The box has two Intel Pro 1000 cards and one Athreos wireless card.
I have setup the WAN, LAN and the Wifi successfully.

I am experiencing the following difficulties in network setup.
Would appreciate your help on this.

1. With my cheap plastic boxed routers I was able to ping using the hostname of the computers on the network. Now using the pfSense I have to use only the IP address. Why is this happening ?

2. With my cheap plastic boxed routers I was able to port forward WAN to a local computer for Remote Desktop connection. This allowed me to login to Windows 7 home computer when I am on the road. How to setup something similar. Will VPN/IPSec be a better option for this need?

3. I was able connect a 8x8 VOIP box successfully behind my old cheap plastic boxed routers. Now using the pfSense the VOIP box is not able to get a connection to the VOIP provider. Is some port needs to be forwarded? Any ideas?

4. Have to setup a FTP server so that I can upload/download files while on the road. Any tutorials would be helpful.

I have attached config file.

Thank you
Sai

config-pfsense.local-20101003203850.txt

Cry Havok

Your cheap plastic box probably allowed the computers to register in local DNS. pfSense doesn't do that by defualt.
Do the same, or set up a VPN according to your choice.
It probably supported UPnP. Try enabling it (it may be a package).
Just port forwarding, though FTP is tricky to get working correctly through port forwarding and you'd be better with SSH

saikumargv

Thanks Cry Havok for the reply. That was helpful.

The 8x8 VOIP box is still not working…...
I tried to enable the UPnP by Services->UPnP-> Check Enable UPnP and select Interfaces for LAN only.

I search through 8x8 FAQ and found this link
https://cognigen.8x8.com/support/faqs.aspx?docid=710099

Could you please explain what this means for QoS settings in pfSense.
I am using the BPA430 adapter

Regards

Cry Havok

QoS (Quality of Service) isn't your problem here but it may be that you need to ensure the VIOP box has a fixed IP on your LAN and the ports they list are forwarded to it.

saikumargv

Yes, tried the following and found the adapter not connecting…..

Firewall->NAT->
Proto Source Port Destination Port Gateway Schedule Description
TCP/UDP * * 192.168.1.201 15044 * WAN -> Vonage port forward

Firewall->Rules->
Proto Source Port Destination Port Gateway Schedule Description
TCP/UDP * * 192.168.1.201 15044 * WAN -> Vonage port forward

Cry Havok

The 1.2 NAT Port Forward screen doesn't have those headings - where did you get that from?

saikumargv

Sorry, I mixed it with the Rules page.
Here is the NAT screen contents

If Proto Ext. port range NAT IP Int. port range Description
WAN UDP 15044 192.168.1.201(ext.: any) 15044

Cry Havok

The 8x8 box has IP 192.168.1.201, with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and a gateway of the pfSense's LAN IP?

kpa

The port forward has external address set to "any" and that is almost always an error, set it to "WAN address".

Cry Havok

I have a number of "any" port forwards and they work perfectly.

saikumargv

The problem seem to be with the VOIP provider. Got it working after I made a call to the their tech support.

Thanks Cry Havok and kpa for your help.
To answer your questions I have "any" set for the external address.
Also yes the 8x8 box has IP 192.168.1.201, with a netmask of 255.255.255.0.

Thanks a lot,
Sai