Using pfSense on a single NIC

jdoe120192

Hi there, this is my very first post, so I apologize if I made any hiccups.

I'm trying to set up a wireless captive portal. From what I've read, this requires two NICs – one for the WAN, and the other for the LAN (where the wireless AP will be connected). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing that the route will be something like: WAN > pfSense > LAN. Unfortunately, I only have one NIC on the computer (it's a laptop), so I can't do that.

I've tried connecting the WAN side and the pfSense machine to the same router (a Linksys WRT54G2 running DD-WRT), and I've tried following the suggestions in these posts:

Unfortunately, I am having a hard time finding a way to route all traffic (on the WLAN) through the pfSense machine. I would appreciate it if any of you can help me with this.

Thanks for reading, and I'm looking forward to your replies.

yarick123

pfSense needs as minimum two network interfaces to do something useful. As far as I remember, pfSense cannot be configured if there is only one.

You could use VLANs to make more logical network interfaces from a physical one. In this case VLANs must be supported by your primary router. If not - I do not see any possibility to do what you want on the existing hardware, sorry.

P.S. I suppose, you do not use any switch between the primary router and pfSense.

moikerz

This is called "router on a stick", and you will need to utilize VLANs and a switch capable of tagging (aka a smart / web / managed switch). Lots of examples online if you search for that term for what you want to do :)