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    Port forwarding problem

    General pfSense Questions
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
      last edited by

      And have you tried it from the outside?  Sounds like your trying it from a box on the 10.1.2 network – that would be a nat reflection, or loopback forwarding.  For that to work you have to enable it.

      If your on the same lan as your ssh server, why not just hit the 10.1.2.232 address directly - why are you hitting your pfsense wan IP just to be forwarded back in.

      Have some try it from the wan side of your network.  Also is your wan IP actually public IP, or is it behind a NAT as well.  Does your pfsense wan IP start with 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x or 172.16-31.x..x if so then your behind a double nat.  And for forwarding to work from the OUTSIDE you will need to make sure the device in front of pfsense doing nat is forwarding that port to your pfsense wan IP.

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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      • J
        jerwiles
        last edited by

        No, I am trying it from the wan. I have a ssh app on my phone, so I've been trying to ssh in from a 3G connection. I have also tried doing it tethering my laptop to my phone for internet. The actual owner of the server is currently overseas and also cannot access it.

        If I want to SSH to the server from within the lan, yeah, I just use 10.1.2.232, and that works fine. That's not the problem.

        Also, my wan IP is the public IP. I am using a block of static ip's from windstream. The modem/gateway is x.x.x.1 and the public IP for the pfsense box is x.x.x.2. Pardon the x's, but security, y'know? Publically, x.x.x.2 is the IP that's shown.

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        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
          last edited by

          And is your pfsense WAN IP NOT start with 10.x or 192.168.x.x or 172.16-31 – Quite often when users have issue with port forwarding its because they are behind a double nat and didn't know it.  Is your WAN IP an actual PUBLIC IP address?  Or is it behind some other NAT device.

          What does your pfsense plug into - what is the model number of the device pfsense is connected to?

          Port forwarding should take all of 2 seconds to setup.  Create the nat, and let it auto create the firewall wan rule for you - shazam forwarding is done.  Its not rocket science.  If your on a public IP on your pfsense wan, you have any host firewall running on your server that could be blocking traffic that is not coming from its lan network?

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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          • J
            jerwiles
            last edited by

            Ha, I edited my post to answer that question at the same time you posted.

            Anyway, yes, the only device between the pfsense box and the internet is windstream's equipment. We're on a T1.

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            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
              last edited by

              So then verify the traffic is hitting pfsense with a tcpdump or from the diag screen packet capture.  Then doing a sniff on the lan interface of the pfsense make sure its being sent to your server.

              So I access a ubuntu box behind my pfsense on 192.168.1.7, with public IP of 24.13.x.x

              So as you can see here are my nat and firewall lan rules that send 22 to my server on 192.168.1.7

              You can see my wan IP, and lan and wan interfaces in the pfsense screen.  Then doing a tcpdump on both my lan and wan interfaces you can see the traffic come in to 22 from public IP to my 24.13 public IP, and then it goes out on the lan interface from the public to my private IP on 22.

              And you can see the return traffic.

              First step in troubleshooting is make sure the traffic is hitting your firewall.  Maybe you have wrong IP, maybe your ISP blocks 22? etc..  You need to verify its hitting your pfsense wan, and then pfsense is sending it out.  You could then sniff on your server - is it seeing the traffic.  If it is seeing the traffic then there most be a host firewall on that server that not allowing it from that source IP.

              Another common mistake users make is putting something in that source PORT, like 22 when you have no idea what the source port of the traffic is going to be.  999/1000 times source port should be any in common rules.

              wanlanint.jpg
              wanlanint.jpg_thumb
              natrule22.jpg
              natrule22.jpg_thumb
              firewallrule.jpg
              firewallrule.jpg_thumb
              tcpdump.jpg
              tcpdump.jpg_thumb

              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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              • W
                wallabybob
                last edited by

                It is my recollection that some SSH servers need to be configured to specify which IP addresses are allowed access.

                I suggest you check your SSH configuration. SSH log might record failed access attempts.

                As johnpoz suggested, tcpdump is a useful tool to verify your access attempt passes various points along its path.

                Have you reset firewall states after setting up your port forward? See Diagnostics -> States, click on Reset States tab.

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                • M
                  marvosa
                  last edited by

                  Post your port forward and firewall rules.  Also… on the linux server... make sure it's actually listening on port 22... and that the software firewall is either off... or has 22 allowed.  I would turn it off for testing.

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                  • J
                    jerwiles
                    last edited by

                    Here's my NAT rule

                    Interface - WAN
                    External address - any
                    Protocol - TCP
                    External port range - from: SSH   to:(other)
                    NAT IP - 10.1.2.232
                    Local port - SSH
                    No XMLRPC Sync - Not Checked

                    And my Firewall Rule

                    Action - Pass
                    Disabled - not checked
                    Interface - WAN
                    Protocol - TCP
                    Source - "not" not checked   Type: Any   Address: Blank
                     Advanced / Source port range - from: any   to: any
                    Source OS - any
                    Destination - "not" not checked
                     Type: Single host or alias
                     Address: 10.1.2.232
                    Destination port range - from: SSH   to: SSH
                    Log - checked
                    Advanced Options - all empty
                    State type - keep state
                    No XMLRPC Sync - not checked
                    Schedule - none
                    Gateway - default

                    I deleted the rules regarding port 2222, since they weren't working anyway.

                    I tried doing screenshots but the forum says my image files are too large and I don't wanna mess with that.

                    To answer other questions - yes I have reset the states - And I also did a packet capture on port 22 while making an attempt to connect, and this was the result:

                    11:00:28.624981 IP 66.87.74.16.17597 > x.x.x.2.22: tcp 0
                    11:00:31.614608 IP 66.87.74.16.17597 > x.x.x.2.22: tcp 0
                    11:00:37.626820 IP 66.87.74.16.17597 > x.x.x.2.22: tcp 0

                    x's for privacy

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                    • J
                      jerwiles
                      last edited by

                      Also worth mentioning, tcpdump isn't logging anything at all when I do "tcpdump port 22" and attempt to connect to the server. Just for testing's sake, I also enabled ssh on the pfsense box and established a connection to it from the LAN side, and ran the same command "tcpdump port 22" and it logged my connection to the pfsense box.

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                      • M
                        marvosa
                        last edited by

                        You can use a service like photobucket.com, which will export the html image code… allowing you to post screenshots.

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          You haven't told us the 'source address' and 'destination address' fields in your NAT rule. Only 'external address' which isn't one of the fields. Confusing!  ;)

                          Steve

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                          • johnpozJ
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            ^ exactly.  there is no external address field in nat, do you mean src is set to any.  Then what is your dst address in the nat, it should be wan address.  If you put in the IP address of your server then no it would never work.  Because the wan would never see traffic dest of your private IP address.  All traffic on your wan interface would be a dst of your wan address.

                            Once your wan rule allows the traffic in, then the nat would nat and forward that traffic to where you want it to go.

                            Nor did you list what the source port in your nat rule is set too in your above.  Just post a screen shot.. As to it being too large - what the hell are you using to take it with print screen, that is going to be a BMP file?  Use one of the 1000's of free tools out there to take your screen shot and save it in a format that makes sense, jpg, png, etc.  And they also allow you to reduce size and quality to make for very small size.

                            Windows 7 has the built in snipping tool for example.

                            By default your firewall wan rule should be autocreated when you setup the nat/forward.

                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                            • J
                              jerwiles
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10:

                              You haven't told us the 'source address' and 'destination address' fields in your NAT rule. Only 'external address' which isn't one of the fields. Confusing!  ;)

                              Steve

                              I told you everything that's in the rule…

                              Anyway, the problem with posting screenshots was that I was trying to post all of my screenshots in one post... thus why the forum was saying too large. Anyway, here's screenshots... broken up over multiple posts

                              Attached here is my NAT settings

                              ![SSH Rule NAT.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/SSH Rule NAT.jpg)
                              ![SSH Rule NAT.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/SSH Rule NAT.jpg_thumb)
                              ![NAT Rules.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/NAT Rules.jpg)
                              ![NAT Rules.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/NAT Rules.jpg_thumb)

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                              • J
                                jerwiles
                                last edited by

                                And firewall settings

                                ![Firewall Rules.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall Rules.jpg)
                                ![Firewall Rules.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall Rules.jpg_thumb)

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                                • J
                                  jerwiles
                                  last edited by

                                  Firewall rule page 1

                                  ![Firewall SSH Rule pt1.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall SSH Rule pt1.jpg)
                                  ![Firewall SSH Rule pt1.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall SSH Rule pt1.jpg_thumb)

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                                  • J
                                    jerwiles
                                    last edited by

                                    Firewall rule page 2

                                    ![Firewall SSH Rule pt2.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall SSH Rule pt2.jpg)
                                    ![Firewall SSH Rule pt2.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall SSH Rule pt2.jpg_thumb)

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                                    • J
                                      jerwiles
                                      last edited by

                                      Firewall rule page 3

                                      ![Firewall SSH Rule pt3.jpg](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall SSH Rule pt3.jpg)
                                      ![Firewall SSH Rule pt3.jpg_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Firewall SSH Rule pt3.jpg_thumb)

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                                      • johnpozJ
                                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                        last edited by

                                        What version of of sense are you running?  I don't see interface on the nat rule

                                        It's on the edit page but not the rule listing.

                                        Are you using old 1.x line?

                                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          Hmm, looks like 1.2.3 or earlier. You should update when you have an opportunity to so safely.
                                          Anyway you should have 'external address' set to 'interface address'.

                                          Steve

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                                          • J
                                            jerwiles
                                            last edited by

                                            I'm using 1.2.3. I have a captive portal with user self registration, which is why the old version. There was a php script posted here on the forums by another user for user self registration that I am using (modified of coarse), but it does not work on 2.0+, just older versions of pfSense.

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