Virtual Router / Remove Host Connectivity
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I've been searching far and wide for an answer, and I've come here as a last resort.. (i'm usualy a DIY'er) What I am trying to accomplish is virtualizing this pfsense install and OS, and allowing the host machine, along with other machines i own to connect to this new AP this VM created… now first and foremost, you're going to say, "once connectivity is lost on the host, it wont supply it to the VM, it will be like plugging in a power strip, then plugging it into itself thinking it will be free energy", which, you're right, however, i have two WiFi cards i can use, can i not use one for supply the WAN connection to the VM, then the other to supply the LAN/WiFi AP to the rest of the machines? anything i try ends up in a fail... please help me i am ripping my hair out.
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And the reason I want to do this is because we're using hotel internet, its complimentary, but I dont like having my devices on the same network as everyone else, I have had 12 people stream their video's and such to my smart TV
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Can I please get some help? this is really bothering me.
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You've provided almost no detail whatsoever about your configuration. What exactly have you done, and how does it fail?
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I've set up pfsense on virtualbox and vmware, with two adapters, i've tried nat's, vmware's custom virtual what ever they call it, and bridged and host only network adapters, in both virtual services, vmware-virtualbox, i've configured the ip for lan for 192.168.2.1, and the hotel's gateway being 192.168.1.1, i configured pfsense to use 192.168.2.1 for lan, if i use the hotel's gateway with bridged adapter, so wan being 192.168.1.1, for using the hotel's gateway, and my custom lan, it wont even show up in pfsense as an adapter, now i cant remember what i did this one time, but i got to log into the pfsense CP on the host machine, but when ever i try to go through the setup, it crashes and wont let me back in, says dns isn't available or site is down.. if you need more information ask, i don't really know where to start (new to networking, but id like to have my virtual router for my devices)
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I've looked at video's on how to set up different things like dd-wrt and pfsense on a virtual machine, but all their intentions are to use it as an internal network between vm's, which isn't what i'd like to do.
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With a config that hacky, I'm not surprised you're having problems. Have you confirmed that FreeBSD supports your wireless NICs? Do you also have a wired connection?
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im not sure freebsd supports them but they do show up in pfsense as adapters, and i have accessed the web configuration tool thingy on the host machine it just stops working when ever i try to edit anything using the wizard.
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Do you also have a wired connection? What are these wireless NICs connected to? One is your LAN AP. What is the WAN one connected to?
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I have no access to wired connection, they are both wifi adapters
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What is the WAN nic connected to?
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the WAN nic is connected to the hotel's wifi, obviously via wifi, what i hoped my plan would be was to use the wan nic, connected to hotel wifi, as the internet coming into the router, then use the second nic as to distribute the wifi to the other devices, and i think thats how i got the web configurator working before, but i cant remember, is there something we can use to get this resolved quicker? not saying this isn't ok, just would like some more security and get this thing working, been ripping my hair out..
(im new to networking, but would love to get into it as a career one day)
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OK, so you've got a WAN that gets an IP via DHCP from the hotel. I'm not great with wifi but with a regular NIC you would give it a static IP address in the private range eg 192.168.100.1/24 and no gateway. Enable a DHCP server and give it a range of usable addresses and that should be about it.
A lot of hotels use a voucher system with their guest wifi, and this involves going to a portal page and getting a voucher. I have no idea how you would handle that if that's the case.
How do you currently have your WAN and LAN configured in pfSense?
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There isn't, it just straight to internet.. and so let me get this straight, two nics on the vm, give my host pc a static ip, make a NAT nic on the vm as WAN, then make a bridged nic for LAN?
and currently there is no configuration, id like to start over so im not fussing with a mess.
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give my host pc a static ip
Give your pfSense LAN NIC a static IP. Your host computer will get a dynamic IP from the hotel.
make a NAT nic on the vm as WAN, then make a bridged nic for LAN?
Yes.
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the thing is, im not sure how to specify the virtual nic, to connect to the physical nic in my pc, i dont see the option to give it the physical nic.. also i've booted up pfsense with a NAT was wan, and a bridged as lan, given the lan a 192.168.2.100 ip, and it told me to go to that to configure it, i also set up wan with dhcp, and it gave it 192.168.159.129/24, both wan and lan are /24 bit
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i dont see the option to give it the physical nic
I don't have a multi-NIC rig so I don't know about that. Virtualbox allows you to select which NIC to map to. I assume VMware must have the same thing. Check your NIC config (I assume you added a second NIC to the VM?) and see if the vNIC properties let you choose your physical NIC.
it told me to go to that to configure it
That's right. You have to have a system on the LAN network to get access to the WebGUI. Try it from a wireless device that is not your PC. Make sure you have configured a DHCP server on LAN or your devices won't get an IP address.
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ok ill get lan set up with dhcp, and ill try it with my tablet, (it runs normal windows), thank you so much for you help if this works, i really appreciate it.
also, will i be able to connect my host pc, my main host pc to this new virtual router? (i can use a third USB wifi adapter if need be)
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btw in VMware, to ma a physical NIC to a vNIC, you need to use their Virtual Network Editor. I found this:
https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/it-ops/vm-workstation-advanced-networking
Look under the Custom Networking section.
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I've set up everything how you said, second physical nic assigned to virtual nic, via bridging, assigning dhcp to wan and lan, assigning bridged nic to lan, nat to wan, and i still can't seem to get to the web configurator, im not sure how to access the network to get to it.
How are you testing? You can't use your PC. You have to use a device that is connected to the AP.
