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    [SOLVED] Policy-Based Routing Not Consistently Going Out the Specified Gateway

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved OpenVPN
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    • F
      Finger79
      last edited by

      No, not DNS leaking, all traffic leaking such as through 80/443.  Even though I have a "NO_WAN_EGRESS" policy-based filtering setup, it doesn't seem to work when I don't pull routes from the VPN provider.  (Very not cool!)

      I'm getting inconsistent results right now on my laptop on various "What is my IP?" sites.

      1)  Real WAN IP address (undesirable)
      2)  VPN connection 1 (expected)
      3)  VPN connection 2 (expected)

      My DNS does not appear to be leaking at all, which is good.  All DNS through unbound goes out through the VPN, as configured.

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      • luckman212L
        luckman212 LAYER 8
        last edited by

        Ah ok sorry I saw "leaking" and jumped to conclusion you were talking about DNS since that is usually what people refer to when talking about leaks.

        Did you try the pfctl commands from a few posts ago? And you double checked your outbound NAT rules?

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        • F
          Finger79
          last edited by

          I reverted back to having both OpenVPN client connections pulling routes.  Having them not pull routes was 100 times more undesirable since it exposed my entire LAN through the normal gateway and the VPN gateway randomly.

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          • F
            Finger79
            last edited by

            @luckman212:

            Ah ok sorry I saw "leaking" and jumped to conclusion you were talking about DNS since that is usually what people refer to when talking about leaks.

            Did you try the pfctl commands from a few posts ago? And you double checked your outbound NAT rules?

            Not sure what to look for in the outbound NAT rules.
            LAN to WAN
            LAN to VPN1
            LAN to VPN2

            I don't have a NAT rule just for the .103 exception… should be included in the above 3 rules.

            I did the pfctl command and got inconsistent results.  Sometimes it would go out the VPN and other times it would go out the WAN.

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            • DerelictD
              Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
              last edited by

              You people who want to take a complicated setup like policy routing multiple openvpn connections then blame the software when it doesn't work yet obviously have no real grasp on what really needs to happen to make it work simply floor me.

              In order for tagging and matching along the NO_WAN_EGRESS vein to work, EVERY packet that should go over the VPN must be tagged.

              That is going to be a crap shoot without enabling "don't pull routes."

              You are going to have to know exactly how to structure your rules in either case.

              Two choices:

              Enable "don't pull routes" and policy route VPN traffic

              Don't enable "don't pull routes" and policy route clear internet traffic.

              With multiple VPN providers, not enabling "don't pull routes" is going to be very complicated because they will both want to enable the 0/1 and 128/1 rules.

              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!
              Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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              • luckman212L
                luckman212 LAYER 8
                last edited by

                Anything in your OpenVPN logs?

                My brain started working again & I remembered that you are trying to put your default LAN behind the OpenVPN tunnel and just make an exception for the Tablet.  That's the reverse of what I do (I have an alias for devices that I want "hidden" and everything else just uses default routing).  So in your case you should probably set the default route of your pfSense is set to the VPN gateway, otherwise your DNS traffic will leak – or, you can set DHCP to hand out an upstream DNS server to LAN clients e.g. 8.8.8.8, etc.

                As to why you are getting inconsistent results, I am at a bit of a loss. Maybe this needs a fresh set of eyes. Anyone else got any ideas?

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                • F
                  Finger79
                  last edited by

                  @Derelict:

                  You people who want to take a complicated setup like policy routing multiple openvpn connections then blame the software when it doesn't work yet obviously have no real grasp on what really needs to happen to make it work simply floor me.

                  In order for tagging and matching along the NO_WAN_EGRESS vein to work, EVERY packet that should go over the VPN must be tagged.

                  That is going to be a crap shoot without enabling "don't pull routes."

                  I think you're misunderstanding.  The policy-based filtering floating rule works perfectly (matches the previously tagged packets).  That's not what this thread is about.

                  @Derelict:

                  In order for tagging and matching along the NO_WAN_EGRESS vein to work, EVERY packet that should go over the VPN must be tagged.

                  Yep, no issues here.  Tagging is working as expected.

                  @Derelict:

                  You people who want to take a complicated setup like policy routing multiple openvpn connections

                  The VPN connections are in one gateway group.  The policy-route is set to send all traffic out the VPN gateway.  That's working perfectly.

                  The only thing that's not consistently working is the policy-route for one device on the LAN to go out the normal WAN gateway.

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                  • DerelictD
                    Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                    last edited by

                    OK where is that rule in relation to all your other rules? You have yet to show that.

                    I was more commenting on the nonsense like this:

                    No, not DNS leaking, all traffic leaking such as through 80/443.  Even though I have a "NO_WAN_EGRESS" policy-based filtering setup, it doesn't seem to work when I don't pull routes from the VPN provider.  (Very not cool!)

                    It works perfectly when configured correctly.

                    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!
                    Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • F
                      Finger79
                      last edited by

                      @Derelict:

                      OK where is that rule in relation to all your other rules? You have yet to show that.

                      I was more commenting on the nonsense like this:

                      No, not DNS leaking, all traffic leaking such as through 80/443.  Even though I have a "NO_WAN_EGRESS" policy-based filtering setup, it doesn't seem to work when I don't pull routes from the VPN provider.  (Very not cool!)

                      It works perfectly when configured correctly.

                      Screenshots of that posted earlier.  The "Allow Web Traffic" rule sets the policy-based filtering tag "NO_WAN_EGRESS" and also sets the policy-based routing gateway to the VPN_Gateway.

                      The only time that traffic leaked out the naked WAN was when I told both client VPN connections to not pull routes.  Then I got inconsistent results:  some traffic went out the VPN, and other traffic went out the WAN.  It was random.

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                      • F
                        Finger79
                        last edited by

                        @luckman212:

                        So in your case you should probably set the default route of your pfSense is set to the VPN gateway, otherwise your DNS traffic will leak – or, you can set DHCP to hand out an upstream DNS server to LAN clients e.g. 8.8.8.8, etc.

                        DNS seems to work perfectly.  Unbound sends all traffic through the VPN tunnels and never out the naked WAN.  (That interface is unchecked.)

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                        • DerelictD
                          Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                          last edited by

                          You are all over the place. that rule routes traffic to PIA for, presumably, destinations 80 and 443.

                          All other traffic will go out the default gateway (or the OpenVPN connection that happens to have been able to set the 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0/1 rules, which as you found in the other thread, will be the first OpenVPN connection without "don't pull routes" set that connects. The other one will receive errors when trying to set those routes.)

                          You are indicating there is a problem with some other host that is unable to go out WAN. Where is that rule in relation to all the other rules?

                          Not blocking out things that really don't matter might help people help you.

                          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!
                          Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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                          • F
                            Finger79
                            last edited by

                            @Derelict:

                            You are indicating there is a problem with some other host that is unable to go out WAN.

                            Negative.  It's not unable to go out WAN.  It just doesn't do it consistently.

                            @Derelict:

                            Where is that rule in relation to all the other rules?

                            Answered earlier:
                            @Finger79:

                            Here's some of the LAN rules (farther down the rule list) for most of the traffic.  For example, the "Allow Web Traffic" rule sends all 80/443 traffic out the VPN gateway.

                            The .103 tablet exception rule matches first.  It just doesn't consistently send traffic out the WAN.  Sometimes it does, other times it doesn't.  But the rule always fires.

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                            • DerelictD
                              Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                              last edited by

                              Is WANGW flapping?

                              System > Logs, Gateways

                              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!
                              Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • F
                                Finger79
                                last edited by

                                @Derelict:

                                Is WANGW flapping?

                                System > Logs, Gateways

                                I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the Gateway logs.

                                I had to turn off WANGW gateway monitoring (meaning it's always considered "Up").  The dpinger pings may have pissed it off.  I'll turn it back on and see if that helps.

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                                • DerelictD
                                  Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                                  last edited by

                                  Right. If that was happening when you were seeing "random" routing then the same principles that make "NO_WAN_EGRESS" necessary would apply equally to WANGW if it was flagged as down. In that case you would need "NO_VPN_EGRESS."

                                  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!
                                  Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • F
                                    Finger79
                                    last edited by

                                    I get that. Fortunately, gateway flapping appears to not be the reason behind this.

                                    When I do a fresh reboot of pfSense, the tablet traffic consistently goes out the WAN, as expected.  Some time later (or some event later), it decides to go out the VPN only, even though the rule still fires that specifies WANGW.  It's just ignoring the gateway in the rule but still logging the rule as having fired.  Weird.

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                                    • DerelictD
                                      Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                                      last edited by

                                      Doubtful. There is some other reason the traffic is not matching that policy routing rule - else it would be policy routed accordingly.

                                      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!
                                      Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • F
                                        Finger79
                                        last edited by

                                        @Derelict:

                                        Doubtful. There is some other reason the traffic is not matching that policy routing rule - else it would be policy routed accordingly.

                                        Then why does the rule match in the Firewall Logs?

                                        As you can see, the rule is very simple.  If the source is .103 IPv4, then policy route it through WANGW.

                                        This works perfectly after a fresh reboot of pfSense.  Then like I said, after some time or some event, it no longer goes out the WANGW and goes out the VPN.  Something is overriding the routing portion of the firewall rule.

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                                        • F
                                          Finger79
                                          last edited by

                                          Just did some more, all from Firefox on the tablet:

                                          Shows real WAN IP
                                          Google "What is my IP"
                                          iplocation.com
                                          whatismyip.net
                                          privateinternetaccess.com
                                          whatismyip.org
                                          ExpressVPN.com
                                          MXtoolbox.com
                                          ip-address.org
                                          iplocation.net
                                          findipinfo.com
                                          myipaddress.com

                                          Shows VPN IP
                                          TorGuard.net
                                          DuckDuckGo "What is my IP"
                                          whatismyipaddress.com
                                          BearsMyIP.com
                                          ipchicken.com
                                          ipaddress.pro

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                                          • luckman212L
                                            luckman212 LAYER 8
                                            last edited by

                                            @Finger79:

                                            Then why does the rule match in the Firewall Logs?

                                            As you can see, the rule is very simple.  If the source is .103 IPv4, then policy route it through WANGW.

                                            Do you have a kill switch rule below the policy route for .103 to block all traffic? You need this in case WANGW is down, because rules will be skipped if the GW is flapping, could explain your inconsistent results…

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