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    Router only, no internet on OPT1

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
      last edited by

      I am not sure, but I would assume if you turn off filtering then you loose nat.  So you would have to setup routing on your devices on the wan how to get to your lan and opt1 networks.  OR setup a transit network between your router in front of pfsense to pfsense with routing to those networks.

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
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      • L
        luna_s
        last edited by

        Then I think I'll be better off turning the firewall off, but then I'm back to square one not being able to access the Active Directory from the wan unless there's a WAN rule that can fix that ?

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        • D
          doktornotor Banned
          last edited by

          You can have no WAN (or any other interface) rules when you turn the packet filter off. If you do not want NAT, then disable NAT and not the packet filter. It is even written in the GUI notes next to the checkbox where you can disable the pf.

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            ^ exactly the way to use pfsense as router is disable nat and create any any rules.

            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 2.8, 24.11

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            • L
              luna_s
              last edited by

              Thanks, I'll test it out - feel like I've been going round in circles these past few days!

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              • KOMK
                KOM
                last edited by

                You can have no WAN (or any other interface) rules when you turn the packet filter off.

                ^ exactly the way to use pfsense as router is disable nat and create any any rules.

                Well, which is it?  No rules or Any:Any rules?  Or did you mean there must be no rules when the filter is disabled but then after you need to add Any:Any rules???

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                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                  last edited by

                  Those are 2 different people saying things that you put into 1 quote.

                  How I would use pfsense as router would be turn off nat and then any any.  You could then log traffic if you wanted in your any any rules, etc.  Or create rules just for logging even better.  You could still use the limiters, etc.

                  If you just going to turn off filtering and route - might as well just put in a L3 switch.

                  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 2.8, 24.11

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                  • KOMK
                    KOM
                    last edited by

                    Those are 2 different people saying things that you put into 1 quote.

                    Yes, I know, was done for brevity.  But you agreed with dok after saying something completely opposite.  He says no rules, you say any:any.

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                    • L
                      luna_s
                      last edited by

                      Wish I could just put a L3 switch in would save me the problems, as it is it's cheaper for me to use a pfsense as a router instead

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                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                        last edited by

                        No he clearly stated

                        "If you do not want NAT, then disable NAT and not the packet filter."

                        Which I agreed with.. If you don't turn off the packet filter than you need rules.. I just said it in slightly different way with emphasis that you would need any any rules if the filter is on if you want it to act like a router.

                        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 2.8, 24.11

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                        • KOMK
                          KOM
                          last edited by

                          You can have no WAN (or any other interface) rules when you turn the packet filter off.

                          This threw me off.  I know there are a lot of non-native English speakers here and sometimes the Euro flair can be read differently.  I read it to mean that you MUST remove the WAN rules if you are to disable the packet filter.

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                          • L
                            luna_s
                            last edited by

                            So from what I've learned

                            Enable Firewall

                            Disable Outbound NAT

                            Add Any Any Rules to each interface on the firewall e.g.

                            IPv4*  *      *      *      *      *    none

                            This should do all my routing to and from the smoothwall box

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                            • DerelictD
                              Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                              last edited by

                              This should do all my routing to and from the smoothwall box

                              Whatever a "smoothwall box" is it will have to have routes for all the networks behind pfSense with the pfSense IP address as the routes' next hop.

                              Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                              A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                              DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
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                              • L
                                luna_s
                                last edited by

                                The Smoothwall box is a transparent proxy / UTM, I work in a school and we need filtering enabled for students. Currently we rely on the Smoothwall box for routing between subnets (for wifi over vlans) for MDns, problem is we rely too much on it e.g

                                LAN  –-> SMOOTHWALL ---> WAN

                                We don't have any layer 3 switching as the budget is restrictive, only layer 2 that serves the VLANS so swapping out the SMOOTHWALL utm for another vendor is difficult as most other vendors don't have routing / radius / dhcp etc. built in

                                So I'm trying to utilise old hardware so the topology looks like this :-

                                PFSense Router -----> PROXY -----> PFSense firewall, so I can slot any vendors filtering hardware in place of the proxy

                                The only problem I've faced is getting Smoothwall talking back to active directory for authentication purposes, if I know the PFSense configuration is correct then I know any problems lies within Smoothwall.

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                                • L
                                  luna_s
                                  last edited by

                                  I made a new box and kept it as simple as possible

                                  Enable Firewall

                                  Disable Outbound NAT

                                  Add Any Any Rules to each interface on the firewall e.g.

                                  IPv4*  *      *      *      *      *    none

                                  But it's still not working, the traceroute from the wan to the LAN seems to bounce around the WAN ip and the gateway

                                  Here's an album of images
                                  http://imgur.com/a/1X55p

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                                  • johnpozJ
                                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                    last edited by

                                    dude smoothwall needs to know how to get to the networks behind pfsense - it has to have a route that talks to pfsense want to get to segments behind pfsense.

                                    This is normally done with a transit network so you don't run into asymmetrical routing.

                                    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 2.8, 24.11

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                                    • L
                                      luna_s
                                      last edited by

                                      Cheers, So is this a Smoothwall thing or a pfsense thing I need to look at ?

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                                      • johnpozJ
                                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                        last edited by

                                        pfsense knows by default how to route to any network connected to it that it has an interface in.  Your smoothwall doesn't know about the networks behind pfsense unless you tell it, or you are running some routing protocol between smoothwall and pfsense so they can share their routes.

                                        And if boxes behind pfsense are going to talk to devices on the wan side directly and not just the gateway for stuff outside smoothwall you can run into a asymmetrical route issue where pfsense oh I am directly connected to that network wills end the traffic direct to that IP..  That devices says hmm where is that IP, its not on my network - I need to send it to my gateway your smoothwall.  So that is asymmetrical and you have issues with stateful firewalls in that scenario.

                                        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 2.8, 24.11

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                                        • L
                                          luna_s
                                          last edited by

                                          So what's the fix ? I can add another NIC in the smoothwall box and bridge the interfaces but it kind've defeats what I'm trying to achieve - I'm trying to move away from bridging on smoothwall

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                                          • johnpozJ
                                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                            last edited by

                                            The fix is to have the correct routing..  Why would you need another nic you could just vlan.  And who said anything about bridging?

                                            If you want to use another nic for your transit network - sure, or could just be a vlan.  Will ips behind pfsense be accessing ips on the wan of pfsense, or will clients just be going to the smoothwall?  But smoothwall needs to know how to get back to networks behind pfsense.

                                            example - see attached.

                                            So you have devices on 192.168.1.0/24 that want to go to the internet, lets say domainx.com at 1.2.3.4, he sends that traffic to pfsense, pfsense I don't any networks that holds that IP.. So send to my gateway (smoothwall at 192.168.0.1)  Traffic comes back to smoothwall.. Smooth says I need to send this to 192.168.1.x – he needs to know that he needs to send that to 192.168.0.2

                                            So on your smoothwall you need routes
                                            192.168.1.0/24 192.168.0.2
                                            192.168.2.0/24 192.168.0.2

                                            This works fine as long as you don't have box on 192.168.1.x talking to 192.168.0.x  This is where you run into possible asymmetrical route problem.

                                            lets say 192.168.1.14 wants to talk to 192.168.0.28, he again sends it to pfsense on his segment.  Pfsense says oh I have that 192.168.0.0/24 network directly attached so will just put that traffic on the wire to 192.168.0.28..  192.168.0.28 says oh 192.168.1.14 wants to talk to me - that is not on my network so send it to smoothwall.  Smooth once you put in the routes says oh send that to 192.168.0.2, if pfsense is firewalling this would be out of state traffic depending..  Either way it is an asymmetrical and normally something you want to avoid.

                                            How you fix asymmetrical is with a transit network - see  2nd attachment, on the right side.

                                            One thing for sure is you need smoothwall having routes to those networks behind pfsense - unless pfsense was natting this traffic.  If pfsense was natting then you would only see traffic from pfsense interface in that 192.168.0.0/24 network.

                                            You will also need to make sure any rules be it firewall or proxy on your smoothwall allow for traffic from these 2 new networks 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24

                                            networksbehindpfsense.jpg
                                            networksbehindpfsense.jpg_thumb
                                            2nddrawing.png
                                            2nddrawing.png_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 2.8, 24.11

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