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    [SOLVED] Policy-Based Routing Not Consistently Going Out the Specified Gateway

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved OpenVPN
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    • DerelictD
      Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
      last edited by

      You people who want to take a complicated setup like policy routing multiple openvpn connections then blame the software when it doesn't work yet obviously have no real grasp on what really needs to happen to make it work simply floor me.

      In order for tagging and matching along the NO_WAN_EGRESS vein to work, EVERY packet that should go over the VPN must be tagged.

      That is going to be a crap shoot without enabling "don't pull routes."

      You are going to have to know exactly how to structure your rules in either case.

      Two choices:

      Enable "don't pull routes" and policy route VPN traffic

      Don't enable "don't pull routes" and policy route clear internet traffic.

      With multiple VPN providers, not enabling "don't pull routes" is going to be very complicated because they will both want to enable the 0/1 and 128/1 rules.

      Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
      A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
      DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
      Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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      • luckman212L
        luckman212 LAYER 8
        last edited by

        Anything in your OpenVPN logs?

        My brain started working again & I remembered that you are trying to put your default LAN behind the OpenVPN tunnel and just make an exception for the Tablet.  That's the reverse of what I do (I have an alias for devices that I want "hidden" and everything else just uses default routing).  So in your case you should probably set the default route of your pfSense is set to the VPN gateway, otherwise your DNS traffic will leak – or, you can set DHCP to hand out an upstream DNS server to LAN clients e.g. 8.8.8.8, etc.

        As to why you are getting inconsistent results, I am at a bit of a loss. Maybe this needs a fresh set of eyes. Anyone else got any ideas?

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        • F
          Finger79
          last edited by

          @Derelict:

          You people who want to take a complicated setup like policy routing multiple openvpn connections then blame the software when it doesn't work yet obviously have no real grasp on what really needs to happen to make it work simply floor me.

          In order for tagging and matching along the NO_WAN_EGRESS vein to work, EVERY packet that should go over the VPN must be tagged.

          That is going to be a crap shoot without enabling "don't pull routes."

          I think you're misunderstanding.  The policy-based filtering floating rule works perfectly (matches the previously tagged packets).  That's not what this thread is about.

          @Derelict:

          In order for tagging and matching along the NO_WAN_EGRESS vein to work, EVERY packet that should go over the VPN must be tagged.

          Yep, no issues here.  Tagging is working as expected.

          @Derelict:

          You people who want to take a complicated setup like policy routing multiple openvpn connections

          The VPN connections are in one gateway group.  The policy-route is set to send all traffic out the VPN gateway.  That's working perfectly.

          The only thing that's not consistently working is the policy-route for one device on the LAN to go out the normal WAN gateway.

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          • DerelictD
            Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
            last edited by

            OK where is that rule in relation to all your other rules? You have yet to show that.

            I was more commenting on the nonsense like this:

            No, not DNS leaking, all traffic leaking such as through 80/443.  Even though I have a "NO_WAN_EGRESS" policy-based filtering setup, it doesn't seem to work when I don't pull routes from the VPN provider.  (Very not cool!)

            It works perfectly when configured correctly.

            Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
            A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
            DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
            Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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            • F
              Finger79
              last edited by

              @Derelict:

              OK where is that rule in relation to all your other rules? You have yet to show that.

              I was more commenting on the nonsense like this:

              No, not DNS leaking, all traffic leaking such as through 80/443.  Even though I have a "NO_WAN_EGRESS" policy-based filtering setup, it doesn't seem to work when I don't pull routes from the VPN provider.  (Very not cool!)

              It works perfectly when configured correctly.

              Screenshots of that posted earlier.  The "Allow Web Traffic" rule sets the policy-based filtering tag "NO_WAN_EGRESS" and also sets the policy-based routing gateway to the VPN_Gateway.

              The only time that traffic leaked out the naked WAN was when I told both client VPN connections to not pull routes.  Then I got inconsistent results:  some traffic went out the VPN, and other traffic went out the WAN.  It was random.

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              • F
                Finger79
                last edited by

                @luckman212:

                So in your case you should probably set the default route of your pfSense is set to the VPN gateway, otherwise your DNS traffic will leak – or, you can set DHCP to hand out an upstream DNS server to LAN clients e.g. 8.8.8.8, etc.

                DNS seems to work perfectly.  Unbound sends all traffic through the VPN tunnels and never out the naked WAN.  (That interface is unchecked.)

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                • DerelictD
                  Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                  last edited by

                  You are all over the place. that rule routes traffic to PIA for, presumably, destinations 80 and 443.

                  All other traffic will go out the default gateway (or the OpenVPN connection that happens to have been able to set the 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0/1 rules, which as you found in the other thread, will be the first OpenVPN connection without "don't pull routes" set that connects. The other one will receive errors when trying to set those routes.)

                  You are indicating there is a problem with some other host that is unable to go out WAN. Where is that rule in relation to all the other rules?

                  Not blocking out things that really don't matter might help people help you.

                  Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                  A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                  DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                  Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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                  • F
                    Finger79
                    last edited by

                    @Derelict:

                    You are indicating there is a problem with some other host that is unable to go out WAN.

                    Negative.  It's not unable to go out WAN.  It just doesn't do it consistently.

                    @Derelict:

                    Where is that rule in relation to all the other rules?

                    Answered earlier:
                    @Finger79:

                    Here's some of the LAN rules (farther down the rule list) for most of the traffic.  For example, the "Allow Web Traffic" rule sends all 80/443 traffic out the VPN gateway.

                    The .103 tablet exception rule matches first.  It just doesn't consistently send traffic out the WAN.  Sometimes it does, other times it doesn't.  But the rule always fires.

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                    • DerelictD
                      Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                      last edited by

                      Is WANGW flapping?

                      System > Logs, Gateways

                      Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                      A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                      DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                      Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • F
                        Finger79
                        last edited by

                        @Derelict:

                        Is WANGW flapping?

                        System > Logs, Gateways

                        I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the Gateway logs.

                        I had to turn off WANGW gateway monitoring (meaning it's always considered "Up").  The dpinger pings may have pissed it off.  I'll turn it back on and see if that helps.

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                        • DerelictD
                          Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                          last edited by

                          Right. If that was happening when you were seeing "random" routing then the same principles that make "NO_WAN_EGRESS" necessary would apply equally to WANGW if it was flagged as down. In that case you would need "NO_VPN_EGRESS."

                          Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                          A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                          DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                          Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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                          • F
                            Finger79
                            last edited by

                            I get that. Fortunately, gateway flapping appears to not be the reason behind this.

                            When I do a fresh reboot of pfSense, the tablet traffic consistently goes out the WAN, as expected.  Some time later (or some event later), it decides to go out the VPN only, even though the rule still fires that specifies WANGW.  It's just ignoring the gateway in the rule but still logging the rule as having fired.  Weird.

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                            • DerelictD
                              Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                              last edited by

                              Doubtful. There is some other reason the traffic is not matching that policy routing rule - else it would be policy routed accordingly.

                              Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                              A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                              DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                              Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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                              • F
                                Finger79
                                last edited by

                                @Derelict:

                                Doubtful. There is some other reason the traffic is not matching that policy routing rule - else it would be policy routed accordingly.

                                Then why does the rule match in the Firewall Logs?

                                As you can see, the rule is very simple.  If the source is .103 IPv4, then policy route it through WANGW.

                                This works perfectly after a fresh reboot of pfSense.  Then like I said, after some time or some event, it no longer goes out the WANGW and goes out the VPN.  Something is overriding the routing portion of the firewall rule.

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                                • F
                                  Finger79
                                  last edited by

                                  Just did some more, all from Firefox on the tablet:

                                  Shows real WAN IP
                                  Google "What is my IP"
                                  iplocation.com
                                  whatismyip.net
                                  privateinternetaccess.com
                                  whatismyip.org
                                  ExpressVPN.com
                                  MXtoolbox.com
                                  ip-address.org
                                  iplocation.net
                                  findipinfo.com
                                  myipaddress.com

                                  Shows VPN IP
                                  TorGuard.net
                                  DuckDuckGo "What is my IP"
                                  whatismyipaddress.com
                                  BearsMyIP.com
                                  ipchicken.com
                                  ipaddress.pro

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                                  • luckman212L
                                    luckman212 LAYER 8
                                    last edited by

                                    @Finger79:

                                    Then why does the rule match in the Firewall Logs?

                                    As you can see, the rule is very simple.  If the source is .103 IPv4, then policy route it through WANGW.

                                    Do you have a kill switch rule below the policy route for .103 to block all traffic? You need this in case WANGW is down, because rules will be skipped if the GW is flapping, could explain your inconsistent results…

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                                    • DerelictD
                                      Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                                      last edited by

                                      When it stops working, run this:

                                      pfctl -vvsr | grep -A3 XX.XX.XX.103

                                      Here: I'll show you one of mine. I'm not afraid of leaking inside addresses:

                                      $ pfctl -vvsr | grep -A3 192.168.223.6

                                      @307(1493852191) pass in quick on igb1.223 route-to (ovpnc3 172.29.114.130) inet from 192.168.223.6 to <openvpn_lan:2>flags S/SA keep state label "USER_RULE: Route OpenVPN Addresses Through OpenVPN"
                                        [ Evaluations: 2386      Packets: 0        Bytes: 0          States: 0    ]
                                        [ Inserted: pid 21796 State Creations: 0    ]

                                      Anyway, that will show the EXACT rules in the active rule set that have anything to do with that address at that specific point in time.</openvpn_lan:2>

                                      Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                                      A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                                      DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                                      Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

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                                      • F
                                        Finger79
                                        last edited by

                                        @124(10000001) pass in log quick on igb1 inet from 192.168.100.103 to <negate_net   ="" works:0="">flags S/SA keep state label "NEGATE_ROUTE: Negate policy routing for de                                                                                                                              stination"
                                          [ Evaluations: 2572      Packets: 0        Bytes: 0          States: 0    ]
                                          [ Inserted: pid 54887 State Creations: 0    ]
                                        @125(1505701172) pass in log quick on igb1 route-to (igb0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx public IP) inet from                                                                                                                                192.168.100.103 to any flags S/SA keep state label "USER_RULE: Tablet Out Naked WAN"
                                          [ Evaluations: 865      Packets: 55591    Bytes: 19139183    States: 5    ]
                                          [ Inserted: pid 54887 State Creations: 807  ]
                                        @126(1458032398) block return in log quick on igb1 inet from any to <pfb_africa_   ="" v4:6176="">label "USER_RULE: pfb_Africa"</pfb_africa_ ></negate_net >

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                                        • DerelictD
                                          Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                                          last edited by

                                          Looks good to me unless negate_networks includes the wrong destinations, which is pretty unlikely.

                                          Or if there is a rule that matches that source address that won't be shown there.

                                          I'd be happy to look at /tmp/rules.debug if you want to PM it.

                                          Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                                          A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                                          DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                                          Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • F
                                            Finger79
                                            last edited by

                                            Somewhat redacted and edited:

                                            < /tmp/rules.debug removed >

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