Internal network in public network
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If I wanted to set up an internal network inside a public network with pfSense, would I be able to plug into public hotel internet and use that as my WAN connection? Would this give me my own private network? Would anything else have to be considered like double NAT?
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would I be able to plug into public hotel internet and use that as my WAN connection?
Maybe. Is it a regular link or does it lead to some kind of portal page?
Would this give me my own private network?
Yes.
Would anything else have to be considered like double NAT?
What are you trying to do?
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Basically I will be living out of a hotel for a month and a bit and would like to set up my network like I have it at home with switches and servers. The reason I brought up NAT, is I assume the hotel will be NAT'd and then if I setup my own internal network with subnets and everything it will have NAT as well, will this be an issue or will I just be able to set it up just as if I was getting my connection directly from the ISP?
The hotel is on University grounds and I doubt they will have any portal active. I didn't consider that, but if they do have about a portal active, is there anything I can do about it or will that throw a wrench into my plans?
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double nat is normally only an issue when trying to do unsolicited inbound (port forwards).. For normal internet outbound traffic it shouldn't be a problem. While its not ideal.. It by no means is any sort of show stopper.
As long as your internal network does not overlap your wan network it should just work out of the box. Lets say pfsense gets 192.168.1.0/24 on its wan - make sure you use something different on your lan - 192.168.2.0/24 for example.
That being said many hotels do have a portal to auth to get access, that only lasts like 24 hours. Atleast any hotel I have been in.. So you might have to reauth ever day to the portal - normally giving your lastname and hotel room..
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As long as your internal network does not overlap your wan network it should just work out of the box. Lets say pfsense gets 192.168.1.0/24 on its wan - make sure you use something different on your lan - 192.168.2.0/24 for example.
I ran into that issue several years ago. My home network or VPN would sometimes conflict with the hotel network. To fix that, I moved my home network & VPN to the 172.16.x.y range. While I have often seen networks in the 192.168. or 10. ranges, I have never seen the 172.16 addresses used elsewhere.
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OK, great! Sounds like it might work! Thanks.
