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    Enable internet access from LAN

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • M
      maale
      last edited by stephenw10

      Hi, I am new to pfsense and sorry for my basic questions.
      This is a school lab environment on a VMware with 2 interfaces, LAN interface (wired connected), and WAN interface, my pfsense is installed on free BSD and only connected through the WAN interface with an external IP is 104.x.x.x, I can work on my firewall from one of my machines in my LAN network, I can only access the internet through my school proxy 199.x.x.x: xxxx (on a specific port)
      I have also set a bind DNS 192.168.1.1 inside pfsense which was first was working good and was able to resolve all my LAN records, I can ping from any machine in my LAN only internal addresses
      I have configured pfsense as follows:
      WAN interface as follows;
      69436567-42ea-4c81-b1cc-6469cf699b5f-image.png
      LAN interface as follows and DHCP is enabled through LAN
      83babab4-611e-490c-9291-ca8df15b88cc-image.png
      My LAN network contains
      192.168.1.5 (have set static IPV4, default gateway is 192.168.1.1, DNS is 192.168.1.1, 199.100.16.100)
      192.168.1.122 ( have set static IPV4, default gateway is 192.168.1.1, DNS is 192.168.1.1, 199.x.x.x))
      I have also configured my LAN vm machines to use the school proxy. And I have set NAT port forward rules as follows and outbound is disabled:
      adeac021-42ae-495f-aa70-65ee525125b4-image.png
      My problems are:

      1. I cannot connect to the internet from my LAN or ping any external IP.
      2. My pfsense bind DNS has stopped to resolve my LAN machines.
        could you let me know what is wrong, here is my LAN rules:
        155b9336-fd9c-465f-8e27-4a89902e5d73-image.png
        Here is my WAN rules:
        d079bf74-3fd7-4109-9dbb-564887a5fe6b-image.png

      thanks

      Admin Edit from your other thread:

      Now I can ping the WAN default gateway from the internal machines, but still cannot ping addresses like 8.8.8.8.
      Any help or idea would be appreciated.

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Hmm, there are many questions here!

        Why are you using Bind and not the default Unbound?
        You should start off using that and movce to Bind only once that is working.

        What are those port forwards for?
        They just forward traffic to the LAN IP. If you need to enable access to those on the WAN just add firewall rules on the WAN to allow it.

        You don't have any pass rules for UDP on LAN and DNS is primarily UDP port 53. Change your 'allow DNS' rule to TCP/UDP. Retest.

        Steve

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        • M
          maale @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10
          Thanks for your help
          Now I am using the pfsense DNS resolver and have used host overrides to add my internal machines who have static IPs, it works well, by using nslookup it resolves correctly 192.168.1.5 to www.example.com.
          I have an internal web and email servers which I want to be them accessed from the external WAN. That is why I have added NAT rules>port forward >from any any to the internal IPs of the web server(HTTP and HTTPS) and also email ports on the email server, but I still cannot reach those internal servers from outside. Could you please let me know what can be the problem?

          Another question please, from an internal machine I can access other internal machine from the browser with its IP, but when I try to access it with its hostname e.g;http://www.example.com it gives me: Unable to retrieve the URL
          d3221b73-f714-471d-916e-62fbc6a9200d-image.png
          But when I use nslookup :www.example.com(internal web server) it gives me the correct IP , and also I can ping that web server with its hostname.

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by johnpoz

            You show .av there as your tld - that is not valid... Where do you expect that to resolve.. Your local would be fine, but that will never resolve publicly... its not a public TLD..

            You get a servfail.. So you have something misconfigured on where your doing the too.. Are you doing query to unbound and you have a host override setup for that? Is that your local domain?

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

            M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • M
              maale @johnpoz
              last edited by

              @johnpoz
              Yes this TLD is locally, and yes I have a host override for that because it has a static IP.
              so if I want to reach a machine with its hostname locally, how can I do that?
              And how to reach that machine from the WAN?
              This is a lab environment where each student has his own subnet.

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by johnpoz

                @maale said in Enable internet access from LAN:

                And how to reach that machine from the WAN?

                You would never be able to resolve that from the WAN... It's not a public tld.. You mean some other local network that is just the wan of pfsense?

                As to locally - just query your local dns and it would resaolve - if you actually set it up correctly.. That you get servfail tells me you didn't..

                Here I will pretend my host is www.domain.av and its IP address 10.11.12.13 --- I create a host override with that..

                resolve.jpg

                If you want to access something from the internet - you would need to use a public resolvable name that points to your wan IP, and then port forward to whatever service you want to access on this server.

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

                M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • M
                  maale @johnpoz
                  last edited by

                  @johnpoz
                  Thanks for the clarification.
                  Yes I mean some other local networks that is just the wan of pfsense. My WAN interface IP is 104.x.x.x( subnet 104.x.x.x/24, and my lan interface IP is 192.168.1.1, and LAN router is 192.168.1.1 so I have set an inside web sever with IP 192.168.1.5 and its hostname is www.domain.av. How can I make this server accessible from the other local networks?
                  And how to set the my local DNS correctly ? already I have set host names for each server in the /etc/hosts file

                  thanks in advance

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                  • johnpozJ
                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                    last edited by johnpoz

                    @maale said in Enable internet access from LAN:

                    My WAN interface IP is 104.x.x.x( subnet 104.x.x.x/24

                    That is public space.. Where do these device point for dns? Again they would need to resolve your pfsense WAN IP via some fqdn.. Be it resolve in the dns they point to or publicly resolvable - or ok in their host file.

                    Now you would have to do a port forward..

                    Why do you have devices on public space that are local, but then have pfsense using rfc1918? You didn't just pull 104 out of thin air and start using it on your local network?

                    An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                    If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                    Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                    SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                    • M
                      maale
                      last edited by

                      This is a school lab

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                        last edited by

                        So pfsense wan IP is 104.x.x.y, for you to get to whatever is behind it when your also on the 104 network or anywhere on the wan side then you need to resolve whatever.domain.tld to this 104..x.x.y address... Be that public dns, be that some local dns you point to that resolves that for you, or host file on your machine.

                        Once you resolve that fqdn to that IP... Then setup port forward on pfsense.

                        https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/forwarding-ports-with-pfsense.html

                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

                        M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • M
                          maale @johnpoz
                          last edited by

                          @johnpoz
                          "then you need to resolve whatever.domain.tld to this 104..x.x.y address... Be that public dns, be that some local dns you point to that resolves that for you,"

                          So I have added host overrides to my local DNS resolver, does that can work?
                          2f6be96d-628b-41bd-9b73-23cbbd0b036b-image.png

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                          • johnpozJ
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            And are you using the resolver - do your boxes on 104 even have access to pfsense wan IP on dns?

                            Show me your query.. You did a dig, a host you used nslookup - what.. Did you open udp/tcp on your wan for your clients on 104 to be able to query this 104.x.x.y address for dns?

                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by stephenw10

                              The port forwards, like the firewall rules, are parsed from the top down.

                              You have a rule that forwards port 443 to the LAN IP address (192.168.1.1) above the rule for 192.168.1.5 so nothing can ever hit that.

                              Please show us a current port-forward list if you have made changes since.

                              Steve

                              M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • M
                                maale @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10
                                ok, This a query using dig while using the DNS resolver of pfsense

                                a8b53193-f087-4bfe-90df-0bfb5847009f-image.png
                                And this is WAN rules, and NAT

                                7e9d3e79-bef6-4179-b194-9b1f8eeaefbe-image.png
                                380050c4-7bb7-4bee-92c4-cb38ed8cb179-image.png ,
                                Those internal machines are virtual machines that I have built them behind the pfsense. Do I need also to build the external machines for the external IPs?
                                for the web and the email server?. I have built an external vm with and IP:104.x.x.z from this machine I can ping the pfsenseWAN address.

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                                • johnpozJ
                                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                  last edited by

                                  And how exactly is this 104 box doing a query to 192.168.1.1... Their default gateway is pfsene wan IP...

                                  You show zero hits on any of your wan rules..

                                  How about you draw up how you have this put together... Cause I don't see how devices on a 104 school network would be pointing to pfsense wan as their gateway.. Or how they would query a rfc1918 address for dns.

                                  If anything would be a asymmetrical mess..

                                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Ok, the port forward rules and linked firewall rules look good though.

                                    Where are you testing it from? What IP? I assume that 104.x.x.x IP is the schools external public IP, not the pfSense WAN?

                                    Test from something on the pfSense WAN subnet to the pfSense WAN IP address directly and it should work.

                                    Steve

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                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                      last edited by

                                      According to him the 104.x.x.x/24 is his pfsense wan.. And yeah its his school network..

                                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Ah, yes. Ok then test from that subnet to the IP directly, with those rules it should connect.

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                                        • M
                                          maale
                                          last edited by

                                          Thanks

                                          Still doesnot work, I tested it from an external builted vm machine with IP 104.x.x.15 with gate way =104.x.x.254, although I can ping the external mail server address:104.x.x.35 but cannot connect to it!!!
                                          8e4464c6-ed66-414e-b010-fc5db5532498-image.png
                                          2b0dae74-55d8-4122-859a-c97defdec55f-image.png

                                          could you please let me know what can be the problem?

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                                          • johnpozJ
                                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                            last edited by johnpoz

                                            There is all kinds of things that could be the the problem.. That just means your pinging something 104.x.x.35... Why would you think that would be your mail server if its behind pfsense, is that pfsense wan IP.

                                            Which I doubt - since from you rules on your wan your not allowing to ping its wan ip.. Or any icmp even, so highly much doubt that is even psfense.. And sure isn't something behind it, etc. etc..

                                            If you want help - I suggest you get with your teacher.. I'm not here to teach a class in basic networking, so you can get an A..

                                            To troubleshoot port forwarding.
                                            https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/nat/port-forward-troubleshooting.html

                                            But again, from what you posted I highly doubt that .35 is even pfsense wan IP... Since you do not allow that on your wan interface - so you wouldn't get an answer if you pinged it..

                                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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