Gateway Action meaning
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Going through the pages, there's an option for "Gateway Action" that says "No action will be taken on gateway events". I was wondering what the action is that is taken on the gateway if it goes down?
It looks like there's a bugreport to it but I'm unable to access the gitlab page.
https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/10643#change-49442
Thanks!
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@qwerty123 My generic understanding of it is: The WAN interface of pfSense is continuously pinging the device it is connected to (e.g. a modem, an ONT, etc...). If you open the advanced drop down you will see a bunch of settings that control this behavior. Essentially if the WAN interface does not get a response from the device it is connected to for a certain period of time it will treat the WAN interface as if "the gateway has gone down". When the WAN interface is down no external traffic can enter or leave the pfSense box. There are some additional settings under Settings > Advanced > Miscellaneous > Gateway Monitoring that are affected by the gateway "going down".
This become particularly important when there are multiple WANs. When WAN#1 fails it may be desired to automatically switch over the WAN#2. This makes it possible for pfSense to know when to stop using WAN#1 and instead use WAN#2.When Gateway Action is selected the WAN interface(s) do not check if it has a connection. This means the WAN interface is treated as though it is always up. In the example I used above with x2 WANs; if WAN#1 is never marked as down then, WAN#2 is never utilized, and external bound traffic will not be able to enter or leave until WAN#1 is back up again or until manual intervention.
For the majority of users, Gateway Action should stay un-selected. This will allow pfSense to automatically do its thing in the background.