How can I activate all the ports to get to the WAN
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Sorry I'm a nube but something as simple as getting all the ports to go to the internet shouldn't be so hard please nothing I have found on bridging or vlans has helped. Just can't figure out why
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Based on the wealth of details you have provided about your network, I'd say you have a configuration problem.
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LOL Guess I should describe my network.
One router x86 4GB ram on an intel atom processor 64bit with pfsense to three Ubnt m900 900mhz antennas and two more wireless bridge nodes (AP + ST on m900s) hosting 100+ devices M2M so low bandwidth just a lot of them.
Really I'm just trying to figure out how to get all the ports on the same LAN then fire-walled to the WAN so I can use all the ports available on the router which has 4.Truthfully I just need the horse power of the x86 64 bit processor and the 4GB of ram to route the number of devices I have reliably and pfsense seems to be the most stable I could find. Just a little frustrating as I am not a software engineer or really all that familiar with BSD.
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Im guessing your firewall ports are not switch ports? If so, 1 interface = 1 subnet.
you need a actual switch or something you could connect to one of your firewall ports. -
Very smart, knowledgeable people should use a WAN port and a (one) LAN port.
Easy to setup and maintain.
Then they buy a "less then 10 $" switch with several ports (no setup, nothing to maintain, forever) and you're done.Noob's should do the same, although they could try to bridge all 4 interfaces and thus they will get exposed to all kind of configuration troubles that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Worse, they stay noob's because they insist of make simple things rather complicated. All this so they save a couple of $.
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Well stated Gertjan - but would like to clarify one small part..
Your not limited to the 1 (one) lan side port with vlans.. If you have multiple ports you can use them for multiple lan side networks.. As long as you have a switch you can connect your multiple ports from the router as different networks tagged or untagged.
Router ports or interfaces are very valuable on a router - trying to bridge them to put in the same layer 2 network is waste of time, effort to end up with a more complex setup and less performance.. You might only do such a thing when you want to connect interface types… Say you had a fiber connection on your router and you wanted this fiber connection to be in the same L2 network and as normal copper ethernet network.
Or if you wanted to split the same L2 network but be able to firewall beside your split ends..
There are for sure uses of bridging interfaces on your router - but unless your doing something that is a bit more complex and requires such a setup... It going to be a much better idea to get just a vlan capable switch when you need more "ports" leverage your routers interfaces as switch ports via bridging them not a good idea almost ever.
If you need a few ports in the same network and you want them to be on your router box - get say the sg-3100, it has a 4 switch ports that you can use a switch in the same network or break them out as individual vlans, etc.
But you can for sure get a 8 port get switch that is smart and easy to configure for like $30... If you want multiple interfaces on the same network - your way better off getting a switch then trying to bridge your very useful router interfaces.. It would be better to let those interfaces just sit unused for future use then try and leverage them as switch ports. If your ocd and don't like these router ports left open - then use them in a lagg to your shiny new switch ;) Be it your using 1 network or multiple vlans.
