Rename Devices?

shooks · Sep 3, 2018, 10:51 PM

I'm new to pfsense and am switching over from my trusty Asus RT-AC68. One of the features I like about Asuswrt-Merlin is that you can rename devices in the GUI to make it easy to keep track of your devices (rather than using the sometimes cryptic hostnames). Basically, you're giving a device a nickname in the GUI that's easy for you to remember.

Does pfsense offer anything like this?

JKnott · Sep 4, 2018, 12:54 AM

Do you mean changing names such as WAN or LAN to something else? If so, yes. Click on Interfaces > Assignments. You can then click on the names and change them.

shooks · Sep 4, 2018, 1:42 AM

Sorry, should have been more clear. I mean changing the way clients on the network show up in the GUI. For example, many IOT devices have cryptic hostnames that don't really help you understand which device/client is which. In Asuswrt-Merlin, I can track down their MAC addresses and rename them to something that's easy to understand at a glance (i.e. change "Android 4.2-5.1" to "Wink Relay").

Gertjan · Sep 4, 2018, 5:20 AM

Noop.
The names shown are the names obtained when they identified themselves using DHCP.

occamsrazor · Sep 4, 2018, 6:41 AM

@shooks said in Rename Devices?:

Sorry, should have been more clear. I mean changing the way clients on the network show up in the GUI. For example, many IOT devices have cryptic hostnames that don't really help you understand which device/client is which. In Asuswrt-Merlin, I can track down their MAC addresses and rename them to something that's easy to understand at a glance (i.e. change "Android 4.2-5.1" to "Wink Relay").

Not sure where exactly in the GUI you are seeing/looking for the names, but you can set the names in the DHCP server, assuming you are using Static DHCP. In each device when you go to "DHCP Static Mappings for this Interface" and then edit the device, you can set:

Client Identifier
IP Address
Hostname (Name of the host, without domain part)
Description (A description may be entered here for administrative reference (not parsed).)

I think Client identifier is what you are looking for, but I could be wrong.

shooks · Sep 4, 2018, 2:42 PM

Thanks for the responses. I see that I can set a client identifier and/or description when assigning static mapping and that is the kind thing I was looking for. Ideally, I'd be able to do that with any client/MAC address (not just static mappings). It's really convenient for understanding what is active on the network at a glance and I don't want to assign static mappings for everything.

Thanks again!