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    How to configure pfSense as a router for two internal LAN subnets?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • M Offline
      mewsense
      last edited by

      Here are the settings for machine 10.0.0.3. I do have Private Internet Access VPN client installed but it's not running. I also have the Hyper-V service on this machine but not currently using it. It is joined to domain duck.loc where machine 10.0.1.1 is the domain controller so quite important it can connect to it! :)

      The default gateway is my Netgate device to go to the internet (10.0.0.1)

      Here's the tracert

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      • johnpozJ Offline
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
        last edited by

        And look at the gateway… its 10.0.0.1 not 10.0.0.4 which is what you have pfsense lan IP set to..

        How do you expect to get to the 10.0.1 network on pfsense if you point it towards your internet router?

        Let me refer back to my first post ;) "did you set gateway on the machines correctly"

        If your going to want to use a different gateway to get to the 10.0.1 network then you will need to put a host route on that machine that says hey you want to get to 10.0.1.0/24 use 10.0.0.4

        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 25.07 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07

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        • M Offline
          mewsense
          last edited by

          A-ha!! :)

          I added the second gateway into my machine and I can now ping 10.0.1.4 from 10.0.0.3. Feel like we're making some progress!

          However, I can't ping 10.0.1.1 from 10.0.0.3…

          What is odd is that I can ping the 10.0.1.1 machine from the LAN interface on pfSense:

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          • chpalmerC Offline
            chpalmer
            last edited by

            You converted your WAN to LAB interface?

            You have to disable all outbound NAT.

            Triggering snowflakes one by one..
            Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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            • johnpozJ Offline
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
              last edited by

              NO that is NOT the correct way to do it!!!  Create a route to use not a default gateway - arrrgghhh..

              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 25.07 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07

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              • M Offline
                mewsense
                last edited by

                @chpalmer:

                You converted your WAN to LAB interface?

                You have to disable all outbound NAT.

                No I converted LAN to LAB interface and converted WAN to LAN interface. Here are my NAT outbound rules:

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                • M Offline
                  mewsense
                  last edited by

                  @johnpoz:

                  NO that is NOT the correct way to do it!!!  Create a route to use not a default gateway - arrrgghhh..

                  OK, ok! :)

                  I've done this now and all good from 10.0.0.3 to 10.0.1.1!

                  I can also now ping from 10.0.1.1 to 10.0.0.3!!

                  I do however, have one small issue. I can't ping the netgate router (10.0.0.1) from my LAB network. Any ideas on why?

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                  • M Offline
                    mewsense
                    last edited by

                    Hi everyone, thanks for reading, I still have an issue where no servers on the LAB domain can access the internet. I can't ping the LAN interface of my Netgate WAN router from the LAB network, but I can ping it from the LAN network. Any ideas?

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                    • chpalmerC Offline
                      chpalmer
                      last edited by

                      Draw a picture of how you have this set up and talk about your ultimate goals.

                      Triggering snowflakes one by one..
                      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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                      • M Offline
                        mewsense
                        last edited by

                        @chpalmer:

                        Draw a picture of how you have this set up and talk about your ultimate goals.

                        OK. :)

                        Here's the network diagram.

                        I want pfSense on beryllium to allow traffic both ways between LAN and LAB networks unhindered. It seems that machines in LAB network can't reach some machines in LAN, but machines in LAN can reach all machines in LAB. Here are the results from a machine on each network.

                        On cowslip.duck.loc
                        Cannot ping 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.8 (timed out)
                        Can ping 10.0.0.10, 10.0.0.4, 10.0.0.3, 10.0.0.9, 10.0.1.1, 10.0.1.4

                        On lithium.duck.loc
                        Can ping everywhere fine

                        Here are the firewall rules on beryllium.localdomain

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                        • M Offline
                          mewsense
                          last edited by

                          All working now, I needed a static route to the LAB network on the SG-1000 router. Thanks for looking everyone!!

                          F 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • johnpozJ Offline
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            "I needed a static route to the LAB network on the SG-1000 router."

                            If your network is how you drew it you have asymmetrical setup.. If you want to use use your sg1000 router to get to the internet it should be on a transit network to your downstream router.. You shouldn't be using 10.0.0 as your transit or your going to have to put host routes on all boxes on that network..

                            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 25.07 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07

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                            • M Offline
                              mewsense
                              last edited by

                              Hmmm…

                              My SG-1000 only has two interfaces, so how would this work in practise? Would I have to create a VLAN for the transit network?

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                              • K Offline
                                kpa
                                last edited by

                                Using VLANs for that is fine but you must have a VLAN capable switch that can demux the tagged trunk traffic to selected switch ports.

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                                • F Offline
                                  Flowi001 @mewsense
                                  last edited by

                                  @mewsense said in How to configure pfSense as a router for two internal LAN subnets?:

                                  All working now, I needed a static route to the LAB network on the SG-1000 router. Thanks for looking everyone!!

                                  May you please do elaborate on this solution?

                                  Thank you

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                                  • stephenw10S Offline
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by stephenw10

                                    If you have a downstream (internal) router with other subnets behind it pfSense needs static route to those so it knows where to route traffic.

                                    https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/routing/static.html#example-static-route

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