Problem with accessing host OS from WAN

simpat1zq

Hi, I have my home network setup as shown in the network diagram attached.

So basically, one physical NIC is dedicated to the Guest Pfsense for the WAN. The bridged LAN interface is shared with the PC. This is working just fine except for one little problem:

Whenever I try to RDP into the VMWare host from the WAN, the connection only stays connected for somewhere between 1-15 seconds, and then the screen just stalls. I can connect again after about 30 seconds, but again for only 1-15 seconds.

I can access the desktop just fine from the WAN. I can also access the web server that is on the VMWare box just fine too.

I'm at work right now, and when I get home, I am going to try giving the PFSense guest it's dedicated NIC, and the Server its own NIC(total of 3 NIC's in the server), but I was wondering if anyone else has any ideas as to why this would be happening.

Thanks.

Edit: Just found another symptom of this issue: If I RDP into the Desktop, and from there RDP into the VMWare Server, my internet connection chokes for about 30 seconds. It looks like this is what was happening when I was accessing the server directly as well.

HomeNetwork.jpg_thumb

simpat1zq

OK, I installed the other NIC(Now a total of 3) so that the Server isn't sharing a NIC with the PFSense Guest LAN. This NIC has a static IP, and the PFSense LAN NIC is dedicated to PFSense(I have disabled all protocols on this NIC except for VMWare Bridging).

I can now RDP to the Desktop, and then to the Server just fine.

Here's another strange thing I just notice. I thought that it might have something to do with the MTU settings, so I set out to try that. And I run the following command:

ping -f IP_OF_ISP_GATEWAY -l xxxx

Here's what happens for different values of xxxx:

xxxx <= 1464 (Pings fine)
1465<= xxxx <= 1472 (Request Timed Out)
xxxx >= 1473 (Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.)

ANy ideas as to why this could be?

simpat1zq

Hi guys, I had a motherboard failure, so I had to do a complete reinstall of both the host Windows OS, and the pfsense VM. I didn't have the config from the old system, so this is an install of pfsense with just using the basic features, no packages, and only 2 firewall/nat rules(One for RDP and one for Web). I'm not even using the VMWare tools.

However, I am still having this problem. I can connect to the RDP session, but it just won't stay connected. Is there anyone that has a similar setup(PFSense VM on a Windows host) that can test this out to see if you get the same problem.

Thanks

simpat1zq

Not sure if anyone is paying attention to this thread, but I just found something new. It looks like I only experience this problem when I connect to the RDP console session(using mstsc /console). If I start the terminal services client without the /console switch, it works just fine.

I still can't figure out why that is the case.