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    Bridging two interfaces WAN(vRouter) & LAN(LAN Router) w/ OPT1(MGMT)

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • J Offline
      juesor @NollipfSense
      last edited by

      @nollipfsense

      Right now I want WAN and LAN to connect to each other over OPT2(Bridge).

      Anything that lives in WAN and anything that lives in LAN should be able to bridge through pf and get to the other side.

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      • J Offline
        juesor @juesor
        last edited by

        Here is a quick drawing.

        Untitled-1.png

        MGMT connects between pfsense and 3850 on a different vl810

        J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • J Offline
          juesor @juesor
          last edited by

          Part of me is thinking that due to the mgmt interface and its gateway pf isn't bridging the interfaces.

          But I cannot find any reason for this to not be working.

          NollipfSenseN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • NollipfSenseN Offline
            NollipfSense @juesor
            last edited by

            @juesor Have you looked at this: https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/bridges/index.html

            From the above reference: "Also, in order for these functions to work, the IP address on the bridge must be the address used by clients as their gateway. These issues are discussed more in-depth in Bridging interoperability."

            You seems close, keep working at it.

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            • J Offline
              juesor @NollipfSense
              last edited by

              @nollipfsense

              From that documentation, my setup is going to be a transparent firewall and it says i don't need to IP anything which is where we started.

              Internal/external bridges connect a LAN to a WAN resulting in what is commonly called a “transparent firewall”.

              Internal/External Bridges
              An Internal/External type bridge, also known as a “transparent firewall”, is used to insert a firewall between two segments without altering the other devices. Most commonly this is used to bridge a WAN to an internal network so that the WAN subnet may be used “inside” the firewall, or internally between local segments as an in-line filter. Another common use is for devices behind the firewall to obtain IP addresses via DHCP from an upstream server on the WAN.

              In a transparent firewall configuration, the firewall does not receive the traffic directly or act as a gateway, it merely inspects the traffic as it passes through the firewall.

              Note

              Devices on the internal side of this bridge must continue to use the upstream gateway as their own gateway. Do not set any IP address on the firewall as a gateway for devices on a transparent bridge.

              NollipfSenseN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • NollipfSenseN Offline
                NollipfSense @juesor
                last edited by NollipfSense

                @juesor In my research, I came across this image which claim to need three NIC as yours, except your is virtual.

                Screen Shot 2021-05-11 at 4.38.29 PM.png

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                • J Offline
                  juesor @NollipfSense
                  last edited by juesor

                  @nollipfsense

                  Isn't that exactly what my setup shows?

                  Did that website explain anything more.

                  NollipfSenseN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • NollipfSenseN Offline
                    NollipfSense @juesor
                    last edited by

                    @juesor Yes, here is the PDF: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~clas0415/assets/Setting-up-pfSense-as-a-Stateful-Bridging-Firewall-with-commodity-hardware.pdf

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                    • J Offline
                      juesor @NollipfSense
                      last edited by

                      @nollipfsense

                      Still no go.

                      Followed that pdf guide to the T and I also changed the bridge from WAN & LAN to WAN & OPT.

                      I'm wondering if anyone else has ever seen it when the bridge would basically not work.

                      When I packet capture on the interface facing the 3850.

                      13:58:30.484256 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.50 tell 172.26.0.49, length 46
                      13:58:30.484445 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.50 tell 172.26.0.49, length 46
                      13:58:35.490849 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.50 tell 172.26.0.49, length 46
                      13:58:35.491015 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.50 tell 172.26.0.49, length 46

                      Great pings from the VLAN interface are looking for who has 172.26.0.50

                      Let's try that in reverse from VYOS trying to ping the 3850.

                      14:49:43.800853 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 1, length 64
                      14:49:44.830652 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 2, length 64
                      14:49:45.854536 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 3, length 64
                      14:49:46.878667 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 4, length 64
                      14:49:47.902641 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 5, length 64
                      14:49:48.894546 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:49:48.927016 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 6, length 64
                      14:49:49.918516 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:49:49.950569 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 7, length 64
                      14:49:50.942582 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:49:50.974568 IP 172.26.0.50 > 172.26.0.49: ICMP echo request, id 26267, seq 8, length 64

                      Ok so the ICMP from VYOS is being seen.

                      Let's do the same but pinging from VYOS and capture on the 3850 interface.

                      14:51:08.286935 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:08.286959 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:09.310991 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:09.311011 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:10.335411 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:10.335433 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:11.358975 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:11.358984 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:12.383035 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46
                      14:51:12.383045 ARP, Request who-has 172.26.0.49 tell 172.26.0.50, length 46

                      I don't see the ICMP but for some reason, that looks like it is working?

                      Ok getting into VYOS I can run a tcpdump

                      vyos@vyos:~$ monitor traffic interface eth2
                      tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or --v for full protocol decode
                      listening on eth2, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 262144 bytes

                      ok sweet the tcpdump is running let's see if we see anything when pinging 172.26.0.50 from the 3850.

                      #ping 172.26.0.50
                      Type escape sequence to abort.
                      Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.26.0.50, timeout is 2 seconds:
                      .....
                      Success rate is 0 percent (0/5)

                      Crap.

                      Nothing in VYOS showing packets are received and failing

                      Now let's keep running the packet capture on VYOS and capture on the pfsense. starting at the to_3850 and then to_vyos.

                      CRAP!!!

                      The to_3850 shows NOTHING

                      The to_VYOS shows NOTHING

                      What is going on here?¿?¿

                      ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ? Offline
                        A Former User @juesor
                        last edited by

                        @juesor

                        First of all, you must examine your Layer2 Topology and ensure you won't create any Layer2 Loop with this Setup. If all Uplinks of the ESXi are connected to the same Layer2 Segment proceed with cautions. Spanning-Tree won't save you here, cause STP-BPDUs are filtered on the ESXi per default.

                        You need to allow Forged transmits and Promiscuous Mode on the used Port Groups for the bridged interfaces. This is a necessary configuration on the Virtualization Platform to make this setup work. After Changing these settings you have to either reboot the firewall or disconnect and reconnect the interfaces to allocated a new virtual port with the updated settings.

                        Better to configure MAC-Learning for these Port-Groups. This Option is available on Distributed Switch since version 6.6.0 through API Calls.

                        J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • J Offline
                          juesor @Guest
                          last edited by

                          @artes

                          Thanks. I set promiscuous mode on the vlan's within ESXi.

                          It still isn't working.

                          So i stood up a new lab.

                          3 vlans in esxi

                          910
                          911
                          912

                          4 vm's

                          c65a44ec-c846-4e03-a4df-870ade35cc8e-image.png

                          v1 and v2 are windows 10 machines to simulate traffic over the bridge
                          w1 is the admin lan connection
                          And pf is in the middle

                          For 1 brief second, I get a good ping during a reboot of the pfsense server.

                          d29bf058-5afa-4d55-be4f-067cf524af94-image.png

                          Now it makes me think that there is something filtering this traffic in pfsense but without anything in the logs and only arp requests found in a packet capture.

                          What could i look for to figure this out?

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                          • NollipfSenseN Offline
                            NollipfSense @juesor
                            last edited by

                            @juesor Found this very recent link from Broadcom I want to share, maybe it can help: https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/symantec-security-software/web-and-network-security/proxysg/6-7/Overview_ISG_SGW_VA/ISG_SWG_VA_before_you_begin/ISG_SWG_VA_create_a_virtual_switch.html

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                            • J Offline
                              juesor @NollipfSense
                              last edited by

                              @nollipfsense

                              That's just outlining vSwitchs in ESXi.

                              I'm curious about the 1 good ping during the reboot. It's almost as if the firewall was down and came up and then started blocking the flow.

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                              • NollipfSenseN Offline
                                NollipfSense @juesor
                                last edited by

                                @juesor I shared because of this statement:

                                Screen Shot 2021-05-17 at 4.40.30 PM.png

                                However, if you have one good ping, you'll need to find what's blocking ... note I said a firewall rule in my first response.

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                                • J Offline
                                  juesor @NollipfSense
                                  last edited by

                                  @nollipfsense

                                  That doesn't explain that when I do "pfctl -d" pings still fail.

                                  I wouldn't expect bridging the interfaces had anything to do with the firewall service.

                                  And the fact that the FW log doesn't show any block's.

                                  And the fact that packet capture only shows ARP from both sides but not ICMP received.

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                                  • NollipfSenseN Offline
                                    NollipfSense @juesor
                                    last edited by

                                    @juesor said in Bridging two interfaces WAN(vRouter) & LAN(LAN Router) w/ OPT1(MGMT):

                                    And the fact that packet capture only shows ARP from both sides but not ICMP received.

                                    I believe by default the firewall doesn't accept ICMP on WAN. So, one would need to add a rule Action : Pass , Interface : WAN , Protocol : ICMP , Source Type : Any, and Destination : WAN address. Although you're only using pfSense as a bridge, you still need to pass traffic from WAN to the bridge. So, that's why you'll have one good ping at the NIC but as soon as it reach the firewall, it gets shutdown.

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                                    • J Offline
                                      juesor @NollipfSense
                                      last edited by

                                      @nollipfsense

                                      But there is no address on the wan interface so WAN address throws an !

                                      4d1cd227-0f6e-4b62-8864-4a132fb456e6-image.png

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                                      • NollipfSenseN Offline
                                        NollipfSense @juesor
                                        last edited by NollipfSense

                                        @juesor said in Bridging two interfaces WAN(vRouter) & LAN(LAN Router) w/ OPT1(MGMT):

                                        @nollipfsense

                                        But there is no address on the wan interface so WAN address throws an !

                                        4d1cd227-0f6e-4b62-8864-4a132fb456e6-image.png

                                        Did all resources you have looked at as guide had WAN with an IP address? I'll visit the spiceworks and Lawrence sources again to confirm. Okay, from the spicework source note WAN has an IP.

                                        Screen Shot 2021-05-18 at 10.51.51 AM.png

                                        Also notice from the Lawrence video, WAN has IP ... it's just the bridge (transparent) that doesn't have an IP.

                                        Screen Shot 2021-05-18 at 11.04.46 AM.png

                                        pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
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                                        • J Offline
                                          juesor @NollipfSense
                                          last edited by

                                          @nollipfsense

                                          Yea thats for bridging and using WAN as the gateway for traffic.

                                          In my case i'm just using pf to filter traffic between two locations.

                                          The whole transparent bridge i shouldn't need to IP anything in pfsense outside of my mgmt interface.

                                          I moved the two VM's to a separate vlan 913 and they can ping each other.

                                          Which shows connectivity. Now i'll move them back to the separate vlans 910 & 911 which are part of the bridge 910 = OPT1(vmx2) and 911 = WAN(vmx0)

                                          5be372ae-60cf-4e08-a55a-001400246446-image.png
                                          fcca4df4-c254-4550-bc62-34ac23e5de8c-image.png
                                          94ac028f-91c0-404a-8a93-ecb737c9275e-image.png

                                          109b66c2-8dfe-4051-adec-954cb47f00d0-image.png
                                          293c2d98-6877-4d99-b58b-aca2cda1634e-image.png

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                                          • J Offline
                                            juesor @juesor
                                            last edited by

                                            @juesor

                                            d1ce5fea-9219-450b-90b3-5ef36608bfd7-image.png

                                            Ok so when i moved it back you can see that 2 pings worked 2 failed.

                                            PF shouldn't be this willy nilly about things.

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