Router only, no internet on OPT1

luna_s

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

johnpoz

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.

KOM

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.

luna_s

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

Derelict

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.

luna_s

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.

luna_s

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

johnpoz

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.

luna_s

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

johnpoz

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.

luna_s

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

johnpoz

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_thumb

2nddrawing.png_thumb

luna_s

Thank you :) Things are clearer now - what I've done in the end and got it working was to add another nic to smoothwall gave it an IP on the lan range and pointed dynamic DNS to the DC - I now have authentication working

Thanks again for your patience - can be quite frustrating to fix these things at times

johnpoz

" add another nic to smoothwall gave it an IP on the lan range"

You did what? You connected your smooth wall directly to the lan of pfsense?

luna_s

No,

Something like this, the Smoothwall is only connected to the DC with DNS (the extra NIC is on the same range), no routing or zone bridging which means now I can attach any other vendors filtering solution much more easily.

johnpoz

So your DC has 2 interfaces as well and you have a wired connecting your smoothwall and your DC, and your dc is also connect to your pfsense lan?

"only connected to the DC with DNS"

Why would you need an extra nic for joining smoothwall to your AD or pointing to it for dns resolution?

luna_s

No, the NIC is joined to the domain via the domain switches, DNS is resolved on the smoothwall box using dynamic DNS,
This is the only way I've got Smoothwall to talk to the DC

johnpoz

dynamic dns does not resolve anything - dynamic dns registers a name in a domain.

You clearly got a mess there.. why do you have smoothwall between 2 pfsense setups.. Is smoothwall doing nat, and pfsense in front of it also doing nat?

No idea what a domain switch is?? Is that another segment? Why do you have so many devices that can be firewalls? If you like smoothwall why not just use it? And add the interfaces you require to have a leg in each segment or vlan it out, etc.

Can you draw out your network with networks and your layer 2 switches.. I am taking it you have more than 1 switch.. A switch your calling a domain switch, and then another switch you have connected to pfsense lan and opt1 – is this the same switch, do you have it doing vlans? You should run more than 1 network over the same physical wire.

luna_s

Okay,

What we have now is a network with layer 2 switches with vlans for wifi with a gateway of 192.168.5.253 which is the IP of the smoothwall UTMb
The smoothwall UTM does intervlan routing with zone bridging as well as radius and DHCP. We also use a raspberry pi to route MDns traffic

We plan on swapping out the Smoothwall for maybe a Lightspeed rocket or a IBoss filtering system (these are both inline) neither of these boxes can do routing nor radius etc.

Options are to replace Smoothwall with a layer 3 switch which goes to the lightspeed / Iboss then to a pfsense firewall. However we cannot afford a layer 3 switch so I came up with the genius idea of using a pfsense as a router - maybe this was a bad idea - might just be better off getting a HP 1920-8G

I'm having to try all this side by side on a live system as we have no hardware for a lab - making it harder than it should be

johnpoz

layer 3 switches don't have to be 1000's of dollars. But you still would have the same routing problem.. Upstream routers always have to know how to get to downstream networks.. You can manually do it or run a routing protocol.

How many ports do you need on this L3 switch? You can get a cisco sg300 10 port for example that will do L3 for less then 200$, what hardware you running pfsense on currently?

If your pfsense was to replace your smoothwall, why is the smoothwall still in the network?