IPs matter on transparent bridge?

chpalmer

This post helped me the most… http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,38042.0.html

chpalmer

If your port lights "light up" when you plug your ethernet in, you should be golden.

Sounds like your cablemodem is a router also.

cmb

You need an IP somewhere to manage the system, so it can sync its time, maybe syslog to another system, etc. Whether it should be on a dedicated NIC, the bridge interface itself, or one of its members, depends on what you're doing. Probably a dedicated NIC from the sounds of it, and just set all the bridged interfaces to type "none" so they have no IPs.

motodude

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. I still don't have it working but I think I'm really close.

I've done a lot of reading/searching on the topic and I believe this discussion was the only mention of needing to assign the bridge as an interface. All other documentation simply said to bridge the two existing interfaces. So the screen shots and the tip about adding the bridge as a defined interface was most helpful!

Here is what I have for "interfaces > assign" :

OPT type=none (no IP)
WAN type=none (no IP)
BRIDGE type=none (no IP)
LAN_ADMIN type=static. IP 192.168.0.100

OPT and WAN are bridged.

LAN_ADMIN is for access the pfSense webGUI and its working fine.

I have no gateway defined.

I also have rules set to pass everything on WAN and OPT. I'll set restrictive rules after I get this working.

In "firewall > NAT > Outbound" I selected the Manual Outbound NAT rule generation (AON - Advanced Outbound NAT) radio button. I then created a rule with "Do not NAT" selected. The rule is assigned to the WAN interface:

WAN any * * * * * NO Disable NAT

I don't know if the rule was necessary but it appeared it might be the only way to shut NAT off.

This is similar to how I've configured transparently bridged OpenBSD firewalls in the past. The two interfaces and the bridge didn't need IPs.

I'm a little confused on the, "You enable your bridged interface and give it the credentials".

In openBSD, this is essentially what I've done before:

echo up > /etc/hostname.xl0
echo up > /etc/hostname.xl1
echo add xl0 add xl1 up > /etc/bridgename.bridge0
Enable port forwarding: net.inet.ip.forwarding=1″

Enabling port forwarding is supposed to pass traffic from one interface to the other. If I go into "firewall > NAT > Port Forward" it seems that it wants you to create rule with specific destination IPs. Haven't quite figured out here what my rule should look like to forward everything.

chpalmer

You enable your bridged interface and give it the credentials

Sorry I was punchy last night… Lack of sleep thing,

You give it your IP address, subnet, gateway ect... Only so the firewall can do what it needs as CMB posted.

Ill post some screenshots of my config later...

motodude

Been there, done that (the punchy thing). :)

Thanks,

cmb

There's no need to assign the bridge itself when you aren't giving it an IP. If you're bridging multiple internal NICs, then you usually want to assign the bridge and put your IP there, in this case there isn't any reason to do so (though not really any reason not to either, assigning it's not doing anything).

motodude

@cmb:

There's no need to assign the bridge itself when you aren't giving it an IP. If you're bridging multiple internal NICs, then you usually want to assign the bridge and put your IP there, in this case there isn't any reason to do so (though not really any reason not to either, assigning it's not doing anything).

Okay, thanks. Any idea why its not working? This should be pretty simple to do but it doesn't pass any traffic across the bridge.

motodude

Never mind. I got it working. :)

cr_hyland

What did you do to get it working?

I have a transparent bridge with Ips on the interfaces and want to remove the ips for security. What trickery do I need to get it to work smoothly?

Thanks.