Can't get pass VLAN /WAN setup
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The assume the redacted part is the same for both your IP and the gateway?
In that case it's not the problem I described, the gateway is in the subnet.
More likely it's some issue with the modem or ISP not accepting the MAC address. Have you tried rebooting the modem? Or spoofing the MAC in pfSense?
It could also be a compatibility problem between the two ethernet devices. I was dealing with some hardware yesterday which would negotiate a connection for about a minute and then fail, at the ethernet level. It happens more often than you think, but it's still quite rare. ;) You can usually see if that's the case as the connection shows as down (or flaps up - down) in ifconfig.
Steve
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Did you connect the Netgear's WAN port to the pfSense LAN?
If so and you can spare a LAN port, try connecting one of the Netgear's LAN ports instead - leaving the Netgear's WAN port empty.As Steve might have been suggesting, some ISPs will limit the number of MAC addresses to which they will give IP addresses through the same cable modem. My ISP only allows two different MAC addresses - supposedly one for the tech to set it up for you with his PC and one for your PC or router. In your case, your Netgear could have taken one IP and your Mac the other. It depends on your ISP's DHCP policies. Steve's suggestion of spoofing the MAC address of pfSense (so it looks like your Mac or the Netgear's MAC) should get around that limitation. Strange that an IP address appears and then disappears though.
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The assume the redacted part is the same for both your IP and the gateway?
In that case it's not the problem I described, the gateway is in the subnet.
More likely it's some issue with the modem or ISP not accepting the MAC address. Have you tried rebooting the modem? Or spoofing the MAC in pfSense?
It could also be a compatibility problem between the two ethernet devices. I was dealing with some hardware yesterday which would negotiate a connection for about a minute and then fail, at the ethernet level. It happens more often than you think, but it's still quite rare. ;) You can usually see if that's the case as the connection shows as down (or flaps up - down) in ifconfig.
Steve
Sorry, forgot to mention that, yes they are the same.
I actually have not tried to reboot the modem, that's pretty silly, but since the connection have worked with the Mac I haven't thought of that. On the other hand, while I've been at work posting this, my wife has been home trying to use the Internet on her Windows PC the same way I did with my Mac, and she couldn't get it to work, until, she rebooted the modem. So when I get back home, I will hook the pfSense box back up and see how that goes, even reboot the modem again while the box is connected. Will also check ifconfig.Thanks!
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Did you connect the Netgear's WAN port to the pfSense LAN?
If so and you can spare a LAN port, try connecting one of the Netgear's LAN ports instead - leaving the Netgear's WAN port empty.As Steve might have been suggesting, some ISPs will limit the number of MAC addresses to which they will give IP addresses through the same cable modem. My ISP only allows two different MAC addresses - supposedly one for the tech to set it up for you with his PC and one for your PC or router. In your case, your Netgear could have taken one IP and your Mac the other. It depends on your ISP's DHCP policies. Steve's suggestion of spoofing the MAC address of pfSense (so it looks like your Mac or the Netgear's MAC) should get around that limitation. Strange that an IP address appears and then disappears though.
I have not used the WAN port on the Netgear router, just one of the 4 LAN ports, so guess that is not the issues. But Some have suggested to use both the Netgear firewall and the pfsense box, and use the WAN and the LAN on both boxes, that would cause that issue I guess then?
as for the IP disappearing, that is strange, but as I told Steve, I have not tried to reboot the modem, so I will try that when I get home.
Thanks.
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rebooted the modem did not help.
Ifconfig shows wan has ipv6 but no ipv4. In the log i'm not sure how to read it so can't tell if it is up or down.
As for spoofing, what mac address should i put in?
Could there ne hardware issues?
Thanks.
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The ifconfig command will show an IPv6 address based on the device MAC even if it's disconnected.
Look at the end of the ifconfig output for your WAN NIC. It should show something like:
fxp0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500 options=9 <rxcsum,vlan_mtu>ether 00:90:7f:87:dc:74 inet6 fe80::290:7fff:fe87:dc74%fxp0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7 inet 192.168.5.11 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.5.255 nd6 options=1 <performnud>media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>) status: active</full-duplex></performnud></rxcsum,vlan_mtu></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>If it doesn't say either 'active' or 'autoselect' you have a problem.
Steve
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It says active, and if I type "ifconfig re0 down, it change status to blank, and back to Active after ifconfig re0 up, so it does respond and seem to be ok, other then no IP. After the reboot of the modem, the WAN ip says 0.0.0.0, and during the log, it shows the ISP IP for a short while after startup, then disappears.
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It's a bit hard to follow where you're up to with this. How does your network look now? Is the Netgear router between the cable modem and the pfSense WAN port?
How did you bridge the Netgear? Try it like this:
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/965
making your Netgear a Wireless AP and 3-port switch.
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It's a bit hard to follow where you're up to with this. How does your network look now? Is the Netgear router between the cable modem and the pfSense WAN port?
How did you bridge the Netgear? Try it like this:
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/965
making your Netgear a Wireless AP and 3-port switch.
My setup is like this: Cable Modem > WAN pfSense Box - LAN pfSense box (DHCP on - IP pool: 192.168.1.100-245 - Static IP:192.168.1.1 ) > LAN Netgeat router (DHCP off, set to bridge mode as far as I understand and WiFi AP, Static IP: 192.168.1.2) (Netgear WAN has no cable in it).
LAN works fine with no problem communicating between the computers on the network and from computer to router and to pfSense Box, both by cable and by WiFi. But I have no Internet access. unless I hook my MAC/ or PC straight up to the cable modem which then gives me correct IP and gateway.
If I hook the pfSense WAN cable to the cable modem, I get IP 0.0.0.0 on WAN on pfSense box, yet in the log I see the correct IP appear right after reboot, but then it disapears. LAN IP is fine. -
OK, Sorry I thought you might have gone back to Modem > Netgear > pfSense
Do what Steve suggested earlier and set the pfSense WAN interface to spoof the MAC address of your Mac: Interfaces > WAN > MAC address.
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It must also say 'autoselect' unless you have specifically told it not to auto-negotiate the link speed and duplex. This is where some hardware fails. The NIC I was dealing with recently ended up flapping (going up and down) continuously as it repeatedly failed to negotiate the line speed. I have no idea why. I also have a laptop with a Realtek NIC that just won't work with my SMC switch but works fine with other hardware.
Like I also said though this is very rare so I'd look at other thing first.Steve
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OK, Sorry I thought you might have gone back to Modem > Netgear > pfSense
Do what Steve suggested earlier and set the pfSense WAN interface to spoof the MAC address of your Mac: Interfaces > WAN > MAC address.
Got it, I didn't understand that it was the Mac's MAC I was spoofing. I will try try that. Thanks :)
Steve: It is set to "autoselect" but if it is flapping, would I see that in ifconfig where it then should liste different speed and duplex?
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In the two instances I reffered to if it is flapping you should see that in the logs and also at the link LED. The other card just refused to connect so showed status 'no carrier'. If you have a conflict in auto-negotiation the card often defaults to half duplex which can cause problems.
One other thing that I just remembered. Of all the interfaces/hardware you have tried how many (and which ones) are Gigabit Ethernet? A common problem that can present itself is a bad cable that works fine at 100Mbps but fails at Gigabit due to needing all 8 conductors. It can appear to be working as the negotiation stage only requires 4 conductors.
Steve
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The connection is stable as fare as I can tell - light stays on and I see no sign of flopping in the log.
I have reset the modem, resat the pfsense box again and still nothing.
One other thing that I just remembered. Of all the interfaces/hardware you have tried how many (and which ones) are Gigabit Ethernet? A common problem that can present itself is a bad cable that works fine at 100Mbps but fails at Gigabit due to needing all 8 conductors. It can appear to be working as the negotiation stage only requires 4 conductors.
The modem is Gigabit, the pfSense box is gigabit and the Netgear box is Gigabit, but the cable between the modem and the pfSense box is Cat-5e, while the cable between the pfSense box and the Netgear box is Cat-6. I didn't use cat-6 cable from the modem since my internet connection is not even close to a gigabit, but you mean this could be an issue?
Thanks!
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No it's not a cat5 vs cat6 issue. If one of the wires in the cable is broken (or if you used a cable economiser) it might work just fine at 100Mbps where you only need 4 out of the 8 wires. Gigabit needs all 8 so wouldn't work. If this was the first time you used gigabit devices at both ends that could show up a broken cable. It sounds like you already used gigabit hardware though. Swapping out the cable is an easy test though. ;)
Steve
Edit: typo
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Swapping out the cable is an easy test though. ;)
Steve
Guess what? That solved it! Used a CAT-6 patch cable and now it works. Guess something is wrong with that other cable…
Thank you SO much! I was about to give up. Had already downloaded Smoothwall, just to see if the issue was with pfSense on my box.
Thanks a lot again. Now I got to get working with the configuration of the firewall. :)
