PFSense WAN Connection to Wireless Hotspot
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I'm sure this has already been answered, it's just I can't find a topic.
I'm looking at connecting my PFSense home-made router to a Verizon Jetpack 4G Hotspot. The PFSense does have a wifi card on it. What I don't know is how to set this up. PFSense can find the WiFi card. It shows the list of modes as Infrastructure (BSS), Ad-hoc (IBSS), and Access Point. I believe I would want infrastructure. However, the next question would be how do I assign PFSense the SSID and WiFi password to use to connect to the mobile hotspot.
The Verizon Jetpack can tether via USB. However, I couldn't figure out how to get that to work either.
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I'm sure this has already been answered, it's just I can't find a topic.
I'm looking at connecting my PFSense home-made router to a Verizon Jetpack 4G Hotspot. The PFSense does have a wifi card on it. What I don't know is how to set this up. PFSense can find the WiFi card. It shows the list of modes as Infrastructure (BSS), Ad-hoc (IBSS), and Access Point. I believe I would want infrastructure. However, the next question would be how do I assign PFSense the SSID and WiFi password to use to connect to the mobile hotspot.
The Verizon Jetpack can tether via USB. However, I couldn't figure out how to get that to work either.
pfSense works fine using a wifi hotspot on the WAN, but you've only done half the configuration.
Once you have configured the WiFi adapter as BSS under the wireless, go back to the interface Assignments and change the WAN interface to use your wifi adapter (from the drop down list), and save. After you have done this, edit the WAN adapter and you will now see all the wifi configuration fields for SSID, password, etc.
pfSense currently doesn't support USB tethering directly. But one possible method is using a external device such as Raspbery Pi, configured as a WiFi to LAN bridge, then plug this into the WAN ethernet of pfSense. This seems fairly easy but Verizon does some things to block using standard USB tethering configurations, so I can say I have not been able to get this to work through my Verizon device.
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instead of setting up WAN over wifi, would it be a better option to install a 4G card in the router and use that for the WAN? perhaps use the cellular package to manage it? (im still a pfsense newbie so :-)
It could be argued that then there would be only one wifi to connect to (the router wifi and not the hotspot)
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Potentially that may be better. The best option is to use an external 3G/4G modem that provides Ethernet such as the Netgear LBxxxx devices.
pfSense may support USB tethering from the Jetpack, it depends how it appears when connected. However it will have issues if that interface is assigned and then disconnected.
Steve
