What am I doing wrong (pfSense behind edge router)
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That network is clearly asymmetrical - you can NOT put hosts on a transit network without issues, unless your going to host route or nat.. I have gone over this so many times its becoming sad!!!
I got tied up in meetings all day at work so unable to draw up how it would be done correctly... And now going to watch some TV with the wife, just got home... But will for sure draw up how you would do this correctly with out being asymmetrical..
Again you have to follow the traffic when devices are talking to each other from the different segments and where their default gateway is to see the asymmetrical flow.. If your just talking traffic to and from the outside internet then its not a problem.. The problem is when you have devices talking to each other over such a setup.
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@johnpoz I appreciate your help.
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So here is why its asymmetrical
Here is how you fix that - with a transit network.
If you want to put hosts on a transit network, then you need a route on every host saying hey to get to the downstream network go to X vs your default gateway. Or you have to nat at the downstream network.
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@johnpoz I really appreciate the diagram.
I think I understand you, but I don't think I have the hardware to accomplish it. I have two Cisco routers, and each only has 2 ports. I also have the edge router, a Netgear R7800, which has one WAN port and then 4 switch ports.
The edge router in your diagram has at least 3 ports. I don't think I have any device capable of routing in more than 2 directions.
So I guess I either need to buy another router or figure out how to NAT what I have.
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do it with vlans then.
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@duhduhdee said in What am I doing wrong (pfSense behind edge router):
So I guess I either need to buy another router or figure out how to NAT what I have.
Or you could get a cheap managed switch (avoid TP-Link) and use VLANs.
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Yeah he already has a cisco switch there that clearly can do vlans... So he should be good to go as long as his edge router can do vlans...
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Unless I'm misreading this the connection seeing issues is from 10.64.0.3 to external IPs, which should not be asymmetric.
Yes you would certainly have asymmetry problems connecting from, say, 10.64.0.3 to 10.2.0.4. Assuming the Cisco is not NATing, which I assume it isn't since there appears to be a static route to 10.64.0.0/11 on pfSense.
None of that blocked traffic you've shown looks like the result of asymmetry either. It would all be TCP flagged if so.
Steve
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Yeah, I'm reading in the manual about the edge router's VLAN options. It talks about "Setting up a bridge for a VLAN Tag group". Which I guess bridge = trunk, in netgear's terminology?
If that works, that would be ideal. If all else fails I'll take the laptop pfSense is running on, connect it to the modem, make it the edge router, put the netgear router in AP mode, get rid of the other routers and subnets and just let the cisco switch separate everything by VLAN.
Maybe my wife won't mind if I try to arrange things around the laptop in a pleasing fashion.
Thanks everyone.
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To external IPs it shouldn't be a problem with asymmetrical true... But the overall design is flawed... Even if he has no need to talk to other devices at this time... The design is not correct to ever allow internal hosts to talk to each other at some future point in time.
Hosts should never be on a transit. If you have something that forces you do to it, then you have to host routing or natting.. Neither of which are desired things to have to do.
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I look forward to pics of your decorative laptop arrangement.
