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    New to pfsense, what are my options? Need help!

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
    27 Posts 5 Posters 4.7k Views
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    • S
      Supermule Banned
      last edited by

      RTFM

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      • KOMK
        KOM
        last edited by

        RTFM

        LOL what manual?

        What is the quickest and easiest way to setup pfsense to act as a firewall + inline transparent caching proxy + web filter on my LAN while continuing to use my router for DHCP, DNS, and QoS?

        pfSense + Squid w/WPAD instead of transparent mode + SquidGuard.

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        • S
          Supermule Banned
          last edited by

          Sorry

          RTFD

          https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Main_Page

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          • N
            ns7979
            last edited by

            @Supermule:

            RTFM

            Instead of being a "Forum Hero" and making useless posts pointing out the obvious (when I stated I spent hours reading relevant howto's and tutorials) to up your post count and not actually add anything of value to the thread why not post links to relevant documentation or posts or point out what I might have missed?

            Thanks.

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            • N
              ns7979
              last edited by

              @Supermule:

              Sorry

              RTFD

              https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Main_Page

              I've spent hours going through the documentation, over and over again… you're not helping. But keep that post count going up.... that's what's important right?

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              • S
                Supermule Banned
                last edited by

                Thanks mate….

                sigh

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                • N
                  ns7979
                  last edited by

                  @Supermule:

                  Thanks mate….

                  sigh

                  Yeah, you're welcome. And thanks for nothing.

                  If someone has any real advice or could point me to any specific documents / articles / howtos or have any ideas that are actually relevant to my question it would be greatly appreciated.

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                  • S
                    Supermule Banned
                    last edited by

                    1: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Gateway_Settings

                    2: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Example_basic_configuration

                    https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Setup_Squid_as_a_Transparent_Proxy

                    https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/SquidGuard_package

                    https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Traffic_Shaping_Guide

                    What more do you need?

                    Oh and get your modem running in bridgemode so you dont do double NAT.

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                    • N
                      ns7979
                      last edited by

                      @Supermule:

                      1: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Gateway_Settings

                      2: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Example_basic_configuration

                      https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Setup_Squid_as_a_Transparent_Proxy

                      https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/SquidGuard_package

                      https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Traffic_Shaping_Guide

                      What more do you need?

                      Oh and get your modem running in bridgemode so you dont do double NAT.

                      Thanks for posting something useful instead of just "RTFM".

                      These are the exact links I followed to setup my pfsense box… I have gone back through them over and over and verified that I did each step, in order... still not getting internet through the firewall... even with the default rules allowing all traffic on LAN and I can access the internet from the pfsense box. I was also not able to resolve the bandwidth saturation problem with pfsense... and I spent hours testing and tweaking settings as suggested in the traffic shaping guide link.

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                      • D
                        doktornotor Banned
                        last edited by

                        Why don't you just restore you previous working configuration, nuke the broken shaper and move on? Traffic shaping on pfSense requires a lot of reading (instead of unproductive rants), plus, you are essentially killing it with the proxy plague.

                        Want a simple shaper? Here.

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                        • N
                          ns7979
                          last edited by

                          @doktornotor:

                          Why don't you just restore you previous working configuration, nuke the broken shaper and move on?

                          Since I was never able to get QoS working satisfactorily I didn't consider it a working config so I never backed it up.  :(

                          @doktornotor:

                          Traffic shaping on pfSense requires a lot of reading (instead of unproductive rants),

                          I understand this, I spent several hours studying and following the Traffic Shaper Guide (as well as some other posts and was able to get the latency much better improved but no matter what settings I used I couldn't match the performance of the QoS on my router. It gets frustrating when you don't have days on end to put into trying to simply setup a firewall and proxy server so I decided to go back to tomato's QoS since it seems to be much better implemented or using a different algorithm that works better with my particular situation.

                          @doktornotor:

                          plus, you are essentially killing it with the proxy plague.

                          I had squid disabled during all my QoS trial and error, as to not complicate things.

                          @doktornotor:

                          Want a simple shaper? Here.

                          Cool thanks, I'll give it a try!

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                          • N
                            ns7979
                            last edited by

                            Now I can't get any traffic through the firewall… even after doing a factory reset and having it setup like this:

                            internet --> pfsense --> desktop pc

                            Still have internet access on the pfsense box though.... just can't get access the internet from any devices connected to the pfsense box.

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                            • N
                              ns7979
                              last edited by

                              After failing to get internet connectivity to any devices beyond the firewall after several factory resets I decided to reformat and reinstall… which corrected the connectivity issues.

                              @doktornotor:

                              Want a simple shaper? Here.

                              Tried using CODELQ for QOS like you suggested and still got 2000+ ms ping times with 1 youtube video playing in 360p. With Tomato doing the QoS on my old ASUS router and I can have 10+ youtube videos playing at once and ping times remain under 100ms.  I have tried many many many different combinations of QoS settings with pfsense and none of them have lead to a useable internet connection… even with no other packages installed and only 1 device connected to the pfsense box which is connected directly into my internet connection. What gives?

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                              • D
                                doktornotor Banned
                                last edited by

                                You know what? Stick with Tomato… I don't see this thread getting anywhere near anything productive. Noone can debug your QoS attempts with unknown configuration. And frankly, while the horrible proxy thing is in place, you won't get any decent shaping at all using the traffic shaper. If you insist, play with stuff like Squid's delay pools or whatnot.

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                                • N
                                  ns7979
                                  last edited by

                                  @doktornotor:

                                  You know what? Stick with Tomato… I don't see this thread getting anywhere near anything productive. Noone can debug your QoS attempts with unknown configuration.

                                  What information would be needed to debug my QoS? I'd be happy to provide any information that would be helpful, screenshots of my configs, whatever.

                                  I would be happy to stick with tomato but it can't do web caching or offer the level of parental controls which is what brought me to pfsense.

                                  What steps would I need to take to setup pfsense behind my tomato router, and let tomato handle Gateway, DHCP, QoS and have the pfsense box handle Firewall/NAS/Proxy/Web Filtering/DNS, etc?

                                  I was thinking something like this:

                                  Internet –> Tomato Router (QoS/DHCP) --> Pfsense Box ---> Switch ---> LAN

                                  @doktornotor:

                                  And frankly, while the horrible proxy thing is in place, you won't get any decent shaping at all using the traffic shaper. If you insist, play with stuff like Squid's delay pools or whatnot.

                                  Like I've stated several times now all my QoS testing was done with the proxy disabled, and now I am running with no packages installed and getting the same results.

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                                  • K
                                    kejianshi
                                    last edited by

                                    I'd dump whatever I didn't need.  Squid would be at the top of my list.

                                    Then I'd set up simple traffic shaping.

                                    Try that.

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                                    • N
                                      ns7979
                                      last edited by

                                      @kejianshi:

                                      I'd dump whatever I didn't need.  Squid would be at the top of my list.

                                      Then I'd set up simple traffic shaping.

                                      Try that.

                                      @ns7979:

                                      I had squid disabled during all my QoS trial and error, as to not complicate things.

                                      @ns7979:

                                      I have tried many many many different combinations of QoS settings with pfsense and none of them have lead to a useable internet connection… even with no other packages installed and only 1 device connected to the pfsense box which is connected directly into my internet connection.

                                      @ns7979:

                                      Like I've stated several times now all my QoS testing was done with the proxy disabled, and now I am running with no packages installed and getting the same results.

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                                      • K
                                        kejianshi
                                        last edited by

                                        After abit of reading, I just noticed.  No hardware specs.

                                        What is this running on?  CPU?  RAM?  Disk space?  etc etc…

                                        I can imagine, for instance that if your machine was running low on ram and was deep into swap usage things might get pretty laggy.

                                        (So, by "disabled" you mean there is no squid installed on your system?)

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                                        • N
                                          ns7979
                                          last edited by

                                          @kejianshi:

                                          After abit of reading, I just noticed.  No hardware specs.

                                          What is this running on?  CPU?  RAM?  Disk space?  etc etc…

                                          I can imagine, for instance that if your machine was running low on ram and was deep into swap usage things might get pretty laggy.

                                          (So, by "disabled" you mean there is no squid installed on your system?)

                                          Yes, by disabled I mean I removed all the packages related to squid to rule them out.

                                          System stats:

                                          Name pfSense.localdomain
                                          Version 2.2.1-RELEASE (amd64)
                                          built on Fri Mar 13 08:16:49 CDT 2015
                                          FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE-p6

                                          You are on the latest version.
                                          Platform cdrom
                                          CPU Type AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
                                          2 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 2 core(s)
                                          Uptime 01 Hour 49 Minutes 45 Seconds
                                          Current date/time
                                          Wed Mar 25 21:58:31 UTC 2015
                                          DNS server(s) 127.0.0.1
                                          8.8.8.8
                                          8.8.8.1
                                          Last config change Wed Mar 25 21:08:01 UTC 2015
                                          State table size
                                          0% (126/303000)
                                          Show states
                                          MBUF Usage
                                          1% (1270/189286)
                                          Load average
                                          0.00, 0.02, 0.00
                                          CPU usage
                                          (Updating in 10 seconds)
                                          Memory usage
                                          7% of 3036 MB
                                          Disk usage
                                          / (cd9660): 100% of 223M
                                          /tmp (ufs in RAM): 17% of 19M
                                          /var (ufs in RAM): 61% of 31M
                                          /etc (ufs in RAM): 42% of 19M
                                          /usr (unionfs): 94% of 242M
                                          /conf (ufs in RAM): 1% of 5.4M
                                          /home (ufs in RAM): 0% of 5.4M

                                          last pid: 38297;  load averages:  0.01,  0.02,  0.00  up 0+01:49:17    21:58:03
                                          123 processes: 3 running, 99 sleeping, 21 waiting

                                          Mem: 47M Active, 45M Inact, 173M Wired, 134M Buf, 2692M Free

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                                          • N
                                            ns7979
                                            last edited by

                                            Oh, and I am running off the live CD at the moment… testing QoS setups with a clean install with no additional packages. When I was using squid it was running from a hard drive install on the 80GB SSD drive in the box.

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