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    Firewall Rule Seems to Get Ignored

    Firewalling
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    • H
      Harvy66
      last edited by

      • Firewall rules working as expected for nearly a year
      • Install Squid
      • Firewall rules no longer working as expected; rule troubleshooting not effective

      Your expectations failed you because your understanding was flawed. Many people seem to have issues recognizing when they don't understand a problem and are shocked when things stop working as expected. If there's one thing important skill I've learned in life it's knowing when I don't know something and filling that hole. Now's as good time as ever to start practicing that. Don't be a cargo-cult IT person, fix the issue with reasoning and understanding, not because someone told you some step-by-step instructions. Takes longer, but it's worth it in the long run.

      But don't feel bad. Pseudo-research (Many of the top minds in teaching and programming doing informal experiments over the past 30+ years with students to reduce the 80%+ failure rate that never goes away) into teaching people how to program is showing that 90%+ of people cannot create proper mental models.

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      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
        last edited by

        "enabling it would prevent the VPN client from forcing all traffic through it and bypassing default Gateway/Route settings?"

        No enabling it prevents the vpn client from adding a default route to pfsense that would force ALL traffic out the vpn be it you set it to do that or now.  If your going to do policy based routing where you want some traffic to go out the vpn, and some traffic to not go out the vpn then you need to make sure you do not pull routes from the vpn connection.

        I am with Harvy66 on his assessment of common problem in understanding the problem when you don't fully understand how it works.  If you unclear to how a system works, how can you be expected to troubleshoot it when it doesn't work how you think its suppose to..

        As to not knowing the setting was there..  How is that exactly?  Did you not setup the vpn client connection?  Did you not go through all the options presented to you in the gui to make sure you understand what they do so you could make a decision on if you need it or not?

        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 2.7.2, 24.11

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        • KOMK
          KOM
          last edited by

          While that sounds great in theory, it doesn't work as well in practice.  I wear 50 hats where I am, and I'm expected to pick up new technology and be able to use it on a weekly basis.  I'm responsible for a ton of different things.  I fully admit that I am not an expert in all of them (or any of them), nor would I consider myself even advanced in some of them, but I do the best I can and sometimes make mistakes.  pfSense encompasses a LOT of different technologies.  I doubt if even most of the ESF staff are experts in every aspect.  Personally, I'm weak in IPSEC, PKI and IPv6 just to start but I still managed to get OpenVPN up & running pretty quickly.

          I guess all I'm trying to say is don't be too hard on those who do not necessarily possess the required amount of knowledge to do a specific task.

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            "required amount of knowledge to do a specific task."

            Agreed nobody can be expert in all of them..  This is when you reach out, do more research… RTFM..

            Is there some contest I am not aware of where if you find a bug in pfsense you get some sort of prize?  It seems like can not go a few hours without some post asking if whatever thing they have a question about is a bug..

            This thread for example - something doesn't work how he expected it, he does not seem to have a handle how it works in general.  Made assumptions about routes not being grabbed while not even going over the connection he setup options.  But right away jumps to "Could this be a bug?"

            Is pfsense giving away a bounty on every bug discovered? ;)

            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 2.7.2, 24.11

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            • KOMK
              KOM
              last edited by

              It seems like can not go a few hours without some post asking if whatever thing they have a question about is a bug.

              That's just human nature with us tech-types.  Everyone assumes they're not an idiot, and when something doesn't work then it's due to a fault in the thing and not our lack of understanding.

              I tend to be the opposite and when something doesn't work, I naturally assume I have screwed it up.  Perhaps there's a component of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in there as well.

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              • L
                lurkingbf
                last edited by

                Wow, what a tremendous amount of bloated self-importance in this forum. Haha…

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                • L
                  lurkingbf
                  last edited by

                  @KOM:

                  It seems like can not go a few hours without some post asking if whatever thing they have a question about is a bug.

                  That's just human nature with us tech-types.  Everyone assumes they're not an idiot, and when something doesn't work then it's due to a fault in the thing and not our lack of understanding.

                  I tend to be the opposite and when something doesn't work, I naturally assume I have screwed it up.  Perhaps there's a component of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in there as well.

                  Dunning-Kruger Effect, eh? Well, as a nationally-ranked Chess Master, I'm going to have to admit that I know exactly what that looks like. But I certainly don't think it's an appropriate appellation for me here. I'm a pfSense newb and not an IT professional. Why else would I be here?

                  I once played poker with a guy who was a teacher. In a semi-drunken stupor, he blurted out: "If you don't know the answer, don't ask the question!" A teacher! LOL…

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                  • L
                    lurkingbf
                    last edited by

                    This is interesting:

                    https://youtu.be/8D83tJ_riBc

                    But even more interesting is the one and only comment on this video:

                    "It's not so much that squid is overriding the firewall, it's that the transparent proxy rule is just higher up on the list…  Since you have transparent proxy turned on, it created a rule in the firewall to grab all port 80 traffic.  That rule gets triggered before ever even getting to your Slashdot rule in the firewall.  That may have been your whole point just thought the detail was important.  I think this will show you the hidden firewall rules that don't show in the gui."  https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/How_can_I_see_the_full_PF_ruleset

                    Now THAT was educational!

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                    • L
                      lurkingbf
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz:

                      But right away jumps to "Could this be a bug?"

                      How about this:

                      "Installation of the Squid proxy service MAY result in existing firewall rules behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with previous experience."

                      I trust that appeases your hyper-sensitive sense of nomenclature propriety?  :o

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                      • KOMK
                        KOM
                        last edited by

                        When I mentioned DKE to John, I was speaking of the general case and not about you in particular.  I'm sorry if you took offense as it wasn't intended.  We often go off on a tangent in a thread when the main topic of discussion has been addressed.  It is a common thing here that newer users typically assign blame to pfSense for something they don't understand.

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