VPN up Gateway up - No Internet

vMAC · Jan 30, 2021, 10:39 PM

I have been running my pfSense router for over two years with my WAN as the primary and selective routing of specific devices (via IP address) out the VPN connection that I have established. I only do this for a couple devices and use it maybe once a month. I don't know when it started happening, that it doesn't work, but between November and this week it no longer works.

Any devices that are added so that they route out the VPN will no longer get internet access. The logs don't show any rejects for packets. The gateway is up, the outbound NAT appears to still be there an without issue. Any ideas what may be happening?

The only change that I believe I have made in this time is to add a traffic shaper to help with the issues I was having with my WiFi Calling.

Apsis-IM · Jan 30, 2021, 11:20 PM

@vmac good evening!

Are you tagging the VPN traffic and using a floating rule to kill access to WAN?

I ask because I do just that and I accidentally tagged traffic that I shouldn't have and prevented them from accessing several of my gateways with my floating rule.

If this doesn't apply, I'm sorry I couldn't have been more help; I'm rather new to all of this. Check all of your Firewall rules and make sure all of the appropriate Outband NAT is enabled.

v/r,
JG

vMAC · Jan 30, 2021, 11:34 PM

@apsis-im
Yes VPN traffic is being tagged NO_WAN_EGRESS and there is a floating rule that stops it from going out the WAN, but that is the way it has always been setup. It should exist the VPN Gateway instead of the WAN gateway. So there are no changes there.

Here is the Outbound NAT, again this hasn't changed.

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 12:09 AM

@vmac right on... I thought it was worth a mention... I literally did it to myself an hour before I came to read the boards. I deleted one of the LAN to TUN firewall rules that I actually needed and mistakenly built it from one of the existing rules that had the tagging and ended up blocking unintended traffic.

NAT's there the LAN>WAN / LAN>VPN rules are as they should be; it "should" work.

Let's try to establish a known good. When these devices you're adding now aren't added to your LAN>VPN Rule are those devices able to get out? I'm assuming they are.

If this is the case I'd say it's worth taking a look at your LAN>VPN Rule (or all that's applicable o those IPs) They may have an unintended setting OR those IPs match another rule that applies before the pass rule you're expecting the IPs to use.

v/r,

JG

Edit:
You did mention the known good; sorry. just stepping through it in my head... again, I'm not that savvy.

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 12:16 AM

Sticky Connections: Do you have that on? It was suggested in a guide for multi-wan/VPN setups. It didn't function as I expected; it prevents devices from using the new available states as they became available (until the states expire they're stuck using the old/down/blocked stuff). I would have to reset states or reboot the firewall to get the traffic to flow after I made changes.

it's:

system > advanced > misc > load balancing

v/r,

JG

vMAC · Jan 31, 2021, 1:49 AM

@apsis-im said in VPN up Gateway up - No Internet:

@vmac right on... I thought it was worth a mention... I literally did it to myself an hour before I came to read the boards. I deleted one of the LAN to TUN firewall rules that I actually needed and mistakenly built it from one of the existing rules that had the tagging and ended up blocking unintended traffic.

NAT's there the LAN>WAN / LAN>VPN rules are as they should be; it "should" work.

Let's try to establish a known good. When these devices you're adding now aren't added to your LAN>VPN Rule are those devices able to get out? I'm assuming they are.

If this is the case I'd say it's worth taking a look at your LAN>VPN Rule (or all that's applicable o those IPs) They may have an unintended setting OR those IPs match another rule that applies before the pass rule you're expecting the IPs to use.

v/r,

JG

Edit:
You did mention the known good; sorry. just stepping through it in my head... again, I'm not that savvy.

So they way I have this setup is that I created an Alias "VPN_Devices". When I want to add a device to go out of the VPN I add it's IP address to the Alias. When I do that it will reload the filter. After that is done I can then verify it is going out the VPN by doing a quick bounce to what is my ip. The devices work perfectly fine prior to me adding them to this alias. Once I add them to the alias the Internet immediately drops. Don't know if that answered your question though. It looks like this:

Also to you other post, no I don't have Load Balancing checked.

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 2:00 AM

@vmac my configuration is similar (naming aside), just with a couple more tunnels and aliases to bypass/utilize the different tunnels ...

There are fewer rules than I imagined. So, with only one rule to contend with and no sticky connections we can move on...

Does your DNS lookup/Resolver/Forwarder continue to function for the VPN traffic when those devices are added to your alias? That would hamstring the test scenario you described.

does whatsmyIP simply not load? I'm going to try and recreate what you're seeing...

edit:

I'm at a loss, lol! Are we certain that the vpn_devices firewall rule is set to pass and pointed at a gateway that exists/is up? I deleted a gateway to rename it earlier today and the LAN>VPN rules that used it were set to "default"; that hosed me for a while.

vMAC · Jan 31, 2021, 2:07 AM

@apsis-im

It should. I have the DNS resolver working on all interfaces.

yes it doesn't load when I try it. Nor can I ping any IP (ex. 8.8.8.8)

I don't know what firewall rule other than the above would be necessary. The gateway that should pass it is showing up and green. Nevermind the 3rd gateway which shows down but works fine smh...

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 2:52 AM

@vmac said in VPN up Gateway up - No Internet:

I don't know what firewall rule other than the above would be necessary. The gateway that should pass it is showing up and green. Nevermind the 3rd gateway which shows down but works fine smh...

None should be... I'm just biased by my configuration and I wanted to make it clear that that's why I had even expected more.

This is weird... your rule has states and you're not getting rejects in the logs.

I was unsuccessful in breaking my configuration in a way applicable to your situation. Someone's having a similar problem on another new post. They're not using NordVPN (wireguard), but they suspect the VPN isn't up as all the statuses indicate. They tore their configuration down to the barebones to test and still can't pass traffic.

this discussion is here if you want to follow:

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/160378/wg-not-routing-or-sending-traffic

What does the traffic shaper do? Would it play a role?

edit:

Wait; there are no states... Hmmm... gonna google stuff, lol

and his issue is not similar in anyway... wireguard isn't an openvpn service...

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 2:40 AM

@vmac said in VPN up Gateway up - No Internet:

This does show the gateway up...

Have we verified that this is the gateway VPN _Devices rule is set to?

edit:

Duh you have... sorry.

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 2:45 AM

Do you have alternate servers you can try? maybe there's an issue with the one your client is connected to?

vMAC · Jan 31, 2021, 3:19 AM

@Apsis-IM
Yes tried multiple.

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 4:06 AM

@vmac is your traffic shaper configured? Perhaps considerations for your tunnel need appropriate configurations.

v/r
JG

vMAC · Jan 31, 2021, 8:10 AM

@apsis-im
I removed the shaper on both the WAN and NORDVPN and it still is blocking.
I'm at a loss too, was hoping someone had some insight on what i might need to try.

Apsis-IM · Jan 31, 2021, 1:14 PM

@vmac seems we both took L's last night... I failed miserably at my little project for 10 hours straight. There's a lot of action on these boards... Someone may come through and grace this thread with some knowledge.

Apsis-IM · Feb 4, 2021, 2:16 AM

@vmac may try seeing how this plays out?

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/160257/lan-connection-drops-when-openvpn-client-connected/4

There are several apparently informed individuals helping this person out. The problem seems similar to yours.

vMAC · Feb 4, 2021, 2:16 AM

@johnpoz @viragomann
Can either of you help here?

viragomann · Feb 4, 2021, 1:55 PM

@vmac
I don't know, how you've configured the DNS on the affected machines, but since your LAN rules don't allow DNS requests to internal servers, they can only access external ones, but must be configured to do so or you do some forwarding to an external server.
So check if you can resolve hostnames on a computer which belongs to the VPN_devices alias.

vMAC · Feb 11, 2021, 1:57 AM

@viragomann I'm confused what you are stating here.
Here is a copy of my current LAN rules. Doesn't the last rule allow access from any device on my LAN vLAN to any device?

Are you stating that I need to add another rule to allow DNS traffic?

viragomann · Feb 11, 2021, 9:06 AM

@vmac
Yes, it does. But this rule will never be applied, since that one above matches to any traffic and directs it to the vpn gateway.

Rules are processed from the top downwards. If one matches it is applied and other rules are ignored.

Still don’t know, how you do DNS resolution. But assumed it“s done by pfSense, add a pass rule to the top of the rule set for TCP/UDP, dest. „This Firewall“, port DNS. So this ruhe only is applied for DNS access to pfSense, all other traffic is still directed to the vpn.