Losing WAN access on external IP address change
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Hi,
I have been fighting with this issue for some time until realized what's happening but I have no idea how to fix it...
I have dual WAN connectivity. Primary connection is DSL/cable modem (Arris TG2492) and it operates correctly with no issues at all. I have a dynamic public IP there (modem operates in bridge mode with no NAT, WiFi disalbed) etc.).
The second standby link/interface in gateway group is LTE/cellular modem.
This is Huawei B529 that has Ethernet port, it is conifgured to work in bridge mode. I have no public IP assigned so standby WAN interface in pSense is getting my cellular external IP which is CG-NAT class IP address.Randomly, every couple of days, sometimes weeks, this standby WAN gateway goes down though, 0% ping response.
Interface status stays up, arp -a shows cellular modem's MAC as expired/incomplete.To fix it I have to do one of the below:
- reboot pfSense
- disable/enable this standby WAN interface in pfSense GUI (Interfaces -> interface name)
- release/renew DHCP lease on this standby WAN interface (Status -> Interfaces)
After some investigation I noticed that this happens every time my CG-NAT IP on cellular modem changes. If I just did one of the things above when the standby link is OK, pfSense would receive the same CG-NAT IP address. But when standby gateway goes down and I do one of the things above, I'm getting new CG-NAT IP. So this loss of conectivity is linked to CG-NAT IP change.
Long story shory, either Huawei modem is doing something incorrectly (it does not announce the need to request new IP address) or pfSense cannot handle it properly.
The primary WAN link, when my public dynamic IP changes, has no issues with that. It just gets new IP as it should.My idea was to reset (shut/no shut) pfSense's standby WAN interface when gateway stops responding to pings but I have no idea how to do it...
Could you help ?
Thanks