Uverse, Dell 1950 with extra network cards, install ok, WAN won't work

kcits

After several days of fighting with pfSense, finally realized I was trying 32bit, switched to 64 and was finally able to get into the web config. Everything seems fine but I can not get Internet access to pfsense or any other device on the inside network. Everything I try on the WAN settings doesn't work. DHCP will not connect, PPoE says it connects but when I go from clicking connect button to anther menu item, back to status dashboard it is not connected.

From what I have read if I had a Uverse connection with static IP then I would have a solution. I unfortunately have found nothing helpful when it comes to dynamic IP with a 2wire Uverse box.

This is what I have:
2wire Uverse modem/router that has dynamic IP not 5 static ips like business accounts (I have tried setting connection to DMZplus (I think that us what it was called) and that didn't make a bt if difference. I have patch cable from 2wire box to pfsense. I believe LAN is correct because from pfsense I am going to a 24 port unmanaged gig switch. Connecting devices to the switch get ips from pfsense and can access the web config of pfsense.

This is what I had/have prior to introducing the pfsense box:
2wire patch cable to WAN on dlink-655 with LAN going to 24 port gig switch. All devices and Wireless worked flawlessly.

As I understand I will put the dlink-655 in access point mode and that will be connected from LAN on the 655 to the OPT port on the pfsense box. I'm not at this point yet but please correct this if I am wrong.

My questions are:

I am guessing I need to make some changes on the 2wire box but what? The DMZplus didn't seem to make a difference. I also read on some other forums that I needed to change the IP ranges on the 2wire box but those posts were not clear as to what changes and there was not a response from the poster if that solved their issue. Or was it IP changes on the pfsense box?
What WAN connection setting am I supposed to use in pfsense? DHCP, DNS, PPoE, (i dont remember off the top of my head without looking at list of options) other…. I can't tell from the dlink-655 as it has settings for every single option... Some are missing information and make the previous option the mane ones to look at/try.
pfsense has a crap load of options in a hundred different drop downs, am I missing anything with my setup like "...click this page, then this button, select this option then click this checkbox, go back to this setting and check this new box that wasn't there, go back to the previous check box and uncheck it and then save and finally apply..." (I hope you can read into my sarcasm, I thought it might be a little thick if I put in a 'cat 5 cable sacrifice with a razor blade')

Extra info: dell 1950 has 2 working brodcam gig ports. Port 1 is set for WAN, Port 2 is set for OPT1 but not connected because I have not changed my dlink655 because it still works... There are two dual port pci-e intel gig cards. Port em0 is set for LAN and connects, em1 seems to work, em2 seems to work, em3 does not seem to work because lights will not activate or blink when connected. I currently have nothing connected to this card's ports. The box has 12gb RAM, dual quad core Xeon 2.33ghz, two sata 36GB drives in Raid 1.

Please help, as I am trying to make be better more secure network for my home. :)

stephenw10

If you have your modem in some type of bridge mode then the pfSense WAN interface should get a public IP directly.
If you don't and the pfSense WAN interface is receiving a private IP address then it must be in a different subnet to the LAN interface.
By default pfSense uses 192.168.1.0/24 for LAN. There is a good chance your modem is also using this range in which case you must change one of them otherwise routing will be broken.

I think I can safely say that box is massive overkill for a home connection. ;) But if you have it to hand it should work.
At some point you should make the changes detailed on this page:
http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Tuning_and_Troubleshooting_Network_Cards
Much of that applies specifically to your system. That should not prevent your WAN connecting though so I'd get that up first.

Steve

kcits

Nice! That doc talks about both of which I have in my server. :o

Ya, I figured the box was a little overkill but it was a good deal that I couldn't pass up.

From what I have found the 2wire does not have a bridge mode, so I will have to try and change the IP range on the pfsense box.

Give me a day or two and I will see what I get worked out.