Backhaul
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And all of that is currently up and running? You just need to add failover?
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And all of that is currently up and running? You just need to add failover?
Currently our system we have is "functioning" but it doesn't do it very well; it doesn't handle load balancing/failover/link aggregation very well at all. Also 2 ports are dead on the remote side, possibly due to a surge from the cable modem.
I will know later today if the pfsense box is working if I am confident with the current rule setup, I will drive to the other location and fix the box there and mirror the rules.
I have set the 2 WiFi WAN interfaces up on the same tier. From my previous testing they should have roughly the same throughput, though 1 varies wildly. I'll need to do some fine tuning later once I actually get the link up.
So again, could you clarify my question about your comment in the previous post for the rules. And when I set the adv. GW –> MultiWAN setting for the rule, I have to choose either in or out, do I need to setup both? or OUT for LAN (what I already set up) and IN for the WAN's?
Also, thank you for responding to my post and trying to be helpful.
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In/Out is for limiters and is totally unrelated to multi-wan. All you have to do is set the gateway group in the rule.
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In/Out is for limiters and is totally unrelated to multi-wan. All you have to do is set the gateway group in the rule.
Well that's where I get confused because when I set the GW group for the rule, it says I need to state a direction IN/OUT.
Could you clarify "the rule" it seems I don't need to set IN/OUT when setting rules on individual interfaces vs a floating rule.
So which interface should have the GW set? the WAN's? with ANY source to ANY dest?
I currently can ping from my computer the WiFi2 Interface, the WiFi router, but not the remote WiFi router or Interface. The pfSense box CAN.
Granted those are not critical to access, however if I cannot access those with the rules I have set, I'm skeptical of reaching the 2.0/24 network over the WiFi.
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No idea what you're talking about. See the attached. All you have to do is set the gateway group. If it's doing something else, fix your javascript/browser. All of those advanced sections are independent of each other.
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No idea what you're talking about. See the attached. All you have to do is set the gateway group. If it's doing something else, fix your javascript/browser. All of those advanced sections are independent of each other.
Yeah I did that already, all I'm asking is which interface this needs to be done on, or set of interfaces. Earlier you said interfaces in question, I'm trying to figure out which ones. Maybe I have the right config and something is wrong with my wifi router, but I can't ping the remote one from my PC but I can from the pfsense box.
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Well I guess my rules are fine, I for some reason cannot ping the gateway on the remote side as well as the wifi router, however now that I have fixed the pfsense box rules, I can connect to the box from this side. cannot ping any of it's interfaces though, or the remote network
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You need static routes to the remote network. Did you allow any traffic or just TCP/UDP? If the latter, it will block ICMP (ping).
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You need static routes to the remote network. Did you allow any traffic or just TCP/UDP? If the latter, it will block ICMP (ping).
Allow Any, Figured out the ping issue, there was an old rule set that I had to delete. Will set statics now. This is where I have been confused before, when I set the static for a remote network over the multiWAN WiFi backhaul, it wants to choose an interface, and I cannot replicate the rule over another interface. Does the multiWAN gateway handle the second route?
I noticed if I use an alias it seems to allow me to set statics for the same alias across multiple GW's, is this OK?
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You need static routes for the cisco to pfsense and pfsense to cisco paths. From pfSense over the wireless links, use policy routing on your LAN rules to the gateway group.
The Cisco1 needs to know how to get to 192.168.2.0/24. It needs a route for 192.168.2.0/24 to pfSense 1.
pfSense 1 needs to know how to get to 192.168.2.0/24. It needs a policy route on LAN source any dest 192.168.2.0/24 with the wireless gateway group set.
pfSense 2 needs to know how to get to 192.168.2.0/24. It needs a gateway created for Cisco2. and a static route for 192.168.2.0/24 to Cisco2.
Cisco2 does not need a route because 192.168.2.0/24 is a connected network.And the reverse for the other direction. This is assuming the wireless links/pfSense is not the default gateway at either location. in that case just point the default to the next upstream device.
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My point is why not just failover on the Ciscos?
Ok this is true, but on the other hand why not laod balance using policy based routing
between the pfSense firewalls? -
I am not sure why you are using floating rules - that is where the confusion about In/Out is coming from, floating rules let you apply the rule on traffic coming In or Out of an Interface, there is also the terminology of In/Out for limiters - a different place in the GUI and different thing.
I think you really want:
- Static route on each pfSense pointing to its local Cisco for a route to the subnet behind the Cisco.
- Do not do any NAT on the "WAN" backhaul interfaces - perhaps just make those ordinary LAN-style interfaces (no Upstream Gateway defined)
- Gateway defined for the IP address on the other side of each "WAN" backhaul link.
- Gateway group/s that include the 2 gateways with whatever tiers you want to make it load-balance or fail-over.
- Pass rule/s on the LAN interface to pass traffic source: the subnet behind the Cisco (and the local pfSense LAN subnet for completeness), destination: the subnet behind remote end Cisco (and the remote end pfSense LAN subnet for completeness), gateway: the gateway group you made.
- Pass rule/s on the WAN backhaul interfaces to allow incoming traffic from the other end (or just allow all to get it going).
(These "pass" rules on individual interfaces are "In" rules - you do not get a choice about that - they will apply to traffic flows initiated from the interface they are on)
It should all work in a conceptually similar way to having a couple of site-to-site VPN tunnels between pfSense systems and routing intranet traffic across them.
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I am not sure why you are using floating rules - that is where the confusion about In/Out is coming from, floating rules let you apply the rule on traffic coming In or Out of an Interface, there is also the terminology of In/Out for limiters - a different place in the GUI and different thing.
I think you really want:
- Static route on each pfSense pointing to its local Cisco for a route to the subnet behind the Cisco.
- Do not do any NAT on the "WAN" backhaul interfaces - perhaps just make those ordinary LAN-style interfaces (no Upstream Gateway defined)
- Gateway defined for the IP address on the other side of each "WAN" backhaul link.
- Gateway group/s that include the 2 gateways with whatever tiers you want to make it load-balance or fail-over.
- Pass rule/s on the LAN interface to pass traffic source: the subnet behind the Cisco (and the local pfSense LAN subnet for completeness), destination: the subnet behind remote end Cisco (and the remote end pfSense LAN subnet for completeness), gateway: the gateway group you made.
- Pass rule/s on the WAN backhaul interfaces to allow incoming traffic from the other end (or just allow all to get it going).
(These "pass" rules on individual interfaces are "In" rules - you do not get a choice about that - they will apply to traffic flows initiated from the interface they are on)
It should all work in a conceptually similar way to having a couple of site-to-site VPN tunnels between pfSense systems and routing intranet traffic across them.
Thanks, I will try this out. What Derelict recommended may work, I need to go to the remote site and fix/replace the remote pfsense box. It gets stuck in the shutdown process when restarting. I got sick last week and took time off so I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will try both and respond back with the results.
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I am not sure why you are using floating rules - that is where the confusion about In/Out is coming from, floating rules let you apply the rule on traffic coming In or Out of an Interface, there is also the terminology of In/Out for limiters - a different place in the GUI and different thing.
I think you really want:
- Static route on each pfSense pointing to its local Cisco for a route to the subnet behind the Cisco.
- Do not do any NAT on the "WAN" backhaul interfaces - perhaps just make those ordinary LAN-style interfaces (no Upstream Gateway defined)
- Gateway defined for the IP address on the other side of each "WAN" backhaul link.
- Gateway group/s that include the 2 gateways with whatever tiers you want to make it load-balance or fail-over.
- Pass rule/s on the LAN interface to pass traffic source: the subnet behind the Cisco (and the local pfSense LAN subnet for completeness), destination: the subnet behind remote end Cisco (and the remote end pfSense LAN subnet for completeness), gateway: the gateway group you made.
- Pass rule/s on the WAN backhaul interfaces to allow incoming traffic from the other end (or just allow all to get it going).
(These "pass" rules on individual interfaces are "In" rules - you do not get a choice about that - they will apply to traffic flows initiated from the interface they are on)
It should all work in a conceptually similar way to having a couple of site-to-site VPN tunnels between pfSense systems and routing intranet traffic across them.
Thanks, I will try this out. What Derelict recommended may work, I need to go to the remote site and fix/replace the remote pfsense box. It gets stuck in the shutdown process when restarting. I got sick last week and took time off so I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will try both and respond back with the results.
After doing my testing, I got the setup working. Used this as the guide and it does work. The pfsense box is deployed on 1 end, the end which was in need of being replaced. Had a few issues which needed to be resolved as we have several networks to join up and allow traffic to, however they are not critical to business processes, only critical for IT and some small use cases for some users. They are resolved afaik, guess I'll find out when something doesn't work and someone complains about it to me.
A big thank you to phil.davis and Derelict for the helpful input. I learned a lot through the input from you two. Also thanks to the others who gave input, promoting useful discussion of this topic.
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One issue I've been seeing is that sometimes pings will not resolve going across the wifi link between the pfsense and opposite linux box. The ping is going from client to server or server to client, both do not resolve, and not all clients experience the problems. They are on the same network.
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What does "resolve" mean in the context of using ping/icmp?
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What does "resolve" mean in the context of using ping/icmp?
requests time out. Also, if a gateway goes down in a group, clients that were once able to ping, can no longer ping.
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well this may be unnecessary. I replaced the box on this side with a pfsense box and the timeouts stopped. It may have been an issue with the linux box on this side. Will post with updates after it's been running overnight.
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One question I have is how do I give this box access to the internet? Normally you would have a wan connected to the internet, but this is routing for a private network. Do I need to create policy routing?
pfsense box [LAN port 10.2] –-- [10.1 WiFi backhaul port] Cisco [to external IP]
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NAT for 10.2 on the Cisco. Set pfSense's default gateway to 10.1 and configure DNS, etc.