M270 help please

New2This

Im in the same boat as everyone here i guess but, im new to all of it.
I have a second hand M270 im trying to setup for my home lab. Ive installed pfsense ce 2.7.0 on it but like everyone else the interfaces are disabled by default ive read. Does it cost to upgrade to Plus? And how is a upgrade possible if the interfaces disabled?

Please excuse my ignorance.

JonathanLee

@New2This I think there is a fee for plus. I use an official Netgate appliance it comes with plus. The CE version should work fine lots of members use it.

For Interfaces, you have to create interface instances for WAN, LAN, or OPT none just start up and run, they all need layer 3 IP address schemas, and access control lists still. Even on PfSense plus they are disabled until the user configured them.

Use that Wizard it will get you going in the right direction fast.

Update: as quoted from the other post @stephenw10 said ... "But it will only run in Plus. None of the switch stuff is in CE. It's still not really perfect there. The required loader hints are lost at upgrade currently."

Thus to access the internal switch use it needs Plus. Pay that fee you will also get ZFS boot environments too. For my SG2100 it uses a internal switch software named Marvel like the comics books.

New2This

@JonathanLee Thank you Jonathan for the information.

So, are you saying that after i setup IP's for the WAN and LAN i should be able to access them? I have a laptop with Putty installed and im connected over a console cable. I can see the menu and it does show
IP's setup for my LAN (i just set the LAN for now). But, i do not get a link light when i plug in a network cable.

On the menu if i select opt 8 (shell). is there a command that shows me the interface link status?

And im still confused on how to add Plus into CE if the interfaces arent up.

If someone could give me step by step commands and instructions i would really appreciate it.

stephenw10

All the Ethernet ports on the M270 are connected via the internal switch which means it can only connect out when running Plus so the switch can be enabled and configured.

The options there are either install it on some other hardware and move the drive across or add a NIC, like a USB device, that works in CE in order to upgrade.
However in both those cases the NDI the M270 will eventually have is not the one present when it upgrades which is an issue.

Steve

New2This

I bought a usb to ethernet adapter (two actually) set it to a simple static IP like 192.168.1. 40/24. Pfsense couldn't ping my connected laptop (192.168.1.41/24) and my laptop couldn't ping pfsense. Verified cables were good, both devices could ping THEMSELVES, even switched usb to ethernet adapters and verified mac addresses were seen using arp -a. But, still no pings.

So, from the menu i did a reset. And reconfigured pfsense to be the DHCP server and use the usb to ethernet adapter interface. BINGO, i can ping back and forth. I can also access the gui!

Over first hurdle, now find out how to upgrade to Plus.

Thank you for your help guys/gals.