cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations

[JKnott]

@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

1.) The serial port option to connect the appliance to a device (which it seems is not used to often, i think at least in home lab setups) Is that cable that will connect to and old computer with a serial input, does it just run the web browser gui? just another way to connect to it like with an Ethernet cable?

The only way to run a browser over a serial cable is if PPP is run over it. This sort of thing is covered in the CCNA about things like frame relay or T1 lines, where you have to use PPP.

[Gertjan]

@cyberstudentnewbie

1. On head-less devices like this one there is no VGA or hdmi port. there isn't even a graphocs chips inside such a device. It's a router after all, not some desktop device.
   So : no screen

Now, what happens when, for some reason, the NIC drivers refuse to load ? That means : none of your NICs work.
Know you know why every seriious router firewall (switch, low bud Amzon camera, coffee machine, the computer in your car, etc etc etc have more or less secret serial interface (of comparable interface).
TO get in in case of 'emergcy'.
I call the serial access on my 4100 the "God mode access" : if that serial port doesn't work, the system is dead at a BIOS level, or higher (lower).
You never need this access, but the day you need, you need it badly.

Btw : the cable is often a serial to sub cable, so any recent device/PC with an USB port can be used.

@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

In my original post, i was instructed to create another sub-net on OPT1 and route my ubiquity to it by setting the gateway on the ubiquity
secondary router. does that second LAN i create on OPT1

Did you activate a second physical "LAN" port - called OPT when you initially created it ? Or did you create a OPT VLAN using the LAN ?
Lol, tell us how you've set it up and we'll tell you how you've set it up ^^

Btw : remember the old story about how the earth etc was created in 7 days ? As a guide line, stick to that story.
VLAN, etc were created on day "181" ...... so do what needs to be done at day 8 9 etc (don't skip them) When you reach day "181", you will know what VLAN are and how to deal with them.

@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

to really maximize the software capabilities?

None of the two.
1100 or 2100 together with the word "maxima" : I see two occasions here : very low power consumption, as these devices are very low power arm processor based. And also a maximum in 'simple setup' as you can't do much with them.
They will route an entire household just fine, though.

For all the other "maxima" : this one. And don't take the "16 Gbytes disk space version". The moment you start that package that need huge resources, you run out of disk space ... (1 Gbytes is "nothing" these days).

[stephenw10]

And to be clear that requires a ppp server at the pfSense end which is not configured.

To use the serial console in pfSense you need to use a actual serial connection and then use a serial terminal program in the host to connect across it.

So for most users that means using a USB serial adapter of some sort since not too many people have a laptop with a real serial port these days!

Some appliances, like the ones we sell, have a USB serial console where the USB/serial interface is on-board. That means you can connect to it with a standard USB cable.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/hardware/connect-to-console.html#connecting-to-a-serial-console

Steve

[cyberstudentnewbie]

oh ok good to know...
1.)only as a last resort totally makes sense for the serial cable question.

2.)as for the setup on for the LAN's
cable Modem provides public ip address to pfsense on WAN
LAN interface in set to 192.168.40.15/24
OPT1 interface is set to 192.168.50.20/32
LAN goes into a switch for 3 workstations receiving addresses from pfsense 192.168.40.20, 192.168.40.21, 192.168.40.22

Now i know OPT1 192.168.50.20/32 is a sub-net cause of the /32 right?
if i just use a another regular switch on OPT1 Sub-net by default is the OPT1 sub-net a separate isolated network?
The goal is to have two isolated networks that cannot communicate with each other and am confused on the difference between subnetting and VLANS other than VLANS happen at the switch (layer 2) level.

i learned VLANS accomplish segmenting networks... just confused if having a separate subnet (like the /32 sub-net), does it also isolate the networks. I have read a ton on it but cannot grasp the difference just yet in terms a 5 year old can understand.

3.) okay so i can afford the appliance just yet ;(

If number 2 is still confusing ill post up pictures of the configuration for you guys. And thanks for the help on the basics...

My firewall class starts in 2 weeks for the summer semester but im taking the COMPTIA NETWORK+ again, (almost passed first time out) next week and want all the info i can get now..

[johnpoz]

@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

just confused if having a separate subnet (like the /32 sub-net)

/32 isn't really a subnet, /32 is 1 IP address.

Lets say you have

192.168.0.0/25 = 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.0.127

and

192.168.0.128/25 = 192.168.0.128 - 192.168.0.255

Those would be different networks, but doesn't mean they are isolated at layer 2.. Which is what you would use vlans for, to actually isolate the 2 networks on different layer 2 networks.

The mask just tells you what IPs are in the layer 3 network. Setting an interface to anything/32 would not really be viable for an interface that wants to talk to anything, because that really isn't network, its a specific single IP.. Those would only really be valuable as a loopback address. Or a firewall rule, not really as mask for an IP that is on an interface that wants to talk to something else.

[Gertjan]

@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

OPT1 interface is set to 192.168.50.20/32

A /32 isn't possible.
As that would mean that that IP "192.168.50.20" is the only IP usable on that "OPT1" network.

Sneak peak how LAN is set up : 192.168.1.1/24 - you see that 24 ? That means IP 1 to 254 are usable.
256 is 2^8 or /24

Also, with a /32 you can't activate the DHCP server on OPT1, as there is only 1 IP in that "192.168.50.20" network .... and you've already used it.
So when you connect a device to that OPT NIC : it wont reply on any DHCP request. As it has none to offer .... (and the DHCP isn't working anyway on that interface ...)

And, please : don't do that : "192.168.50.20".
Use "192.168.50.1" of the pfSEnse OPT1 IP, or "192.168.50.254" if you have to.
For every other IP, be ready to receive the ......"don't do that - many have tried - they all ...."
Well, we never saw them again.

[johnpoz]

@Gertjan said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

Use "192.168.50.1" of the pfSEnse OPT1 IP, or "192.168.50.254" if you have to.

While I agree with you from a common practice point of view, using the first or last IP in a network is common practice as the gateway IP. But there is nothing saying you have to do that. I use for example .253 for all my pfsense IPs.

Mostly because devices tend to default to .1 or .254 as their IP when setting up.. And if I connected a new device to any of my networks I didn't want them by accident stepping on my routers IP. I don't run any common networks 192.168.0 or 192.168.1 or 10.0.0 for example - but not using .1 or .254 is habit from when used those common networks.

But agree, someone new to networking, common to use the .1 or the .254 as your routers IP in the network when using /24 networks.

[stephenw10]

@Gertjan said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

Sneak peak how LAN is set up : 192.168.1.1/24 - you see that 24 ? That means IP 1 to 254 are usable.
256 is 2^8 or /24

Yes the /24 means 24bits out of the 32bit address are fixed. Leaving 8 bits that can be defined for addresses in the subnet. And, yes 2^8 means 256 addresses.
But here you can't use 0, that's the network address, and you can't use 255, that's the broadcast address.

[JonathanLee]

/24 is the cider version over using the 255 octets for your subnet mask 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 or just 192.168.1.1/24

You have your host address your network, and a broadcast address. this occurs on the private ip class. You have different class addresses also like class a, b, c, for the private addresses. check out subnet calculator. I had to do all this stuff by hand when it was taught at the College. You have to learn how to subnet by hand but the calculator can help you get a start on it.

[johnpoz]

@JonathanLee said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

You have different class addresses also like class a, b, c

This hasn't been used in 30 years.. Why they still come up is beyond me.. I learned class because well cidr wasn't even a thing yet when I got into networking. But why it still comes up is just nuts..

[stephenw10]

Good to know it existed. At some point you're bound to find some ancient documentation referring to it.

[JKnott]

@JonathanLee said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

You have different class addresses also like class a, b, c, for the private addresses

Address classes have been obsolete for about 30 years, replaced by CIDR.

[JKnott]

@stephenw10 said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

Good to know it existed.

And it's also good to know, many years ago, computers were built with vacuum tubes. However, that's totally irrelevant to today's computing. If you want even more "good", we can't forget that before classful addresses, every address was what became known as class A, that is 8 bit network address and 24 bits for the host.

[johnpoz]

We use to use candles and whale oil lamps for light as well ;)

[JonathanLee]

@johnpoz well I feel old now… it still feels like cutting edge technology. I mean 10baseT was the hottest thing since sliced bread a couple years ago… token ring… BNC connectors. Don’t forgot HUBs, I mean what’s a switch we rock massive collision domains here haha.

I was servicing a random site’s network equipment a couple years ago and they still had equipment racked in for an ancient IBM network design topology. It was no longer used and unplugged. But it had epic huge lock in plugs. I had never seen it before. Pre dated BNC stuff. Pre Ethernet. It was wicked cool.

The IBM Multistation Access Unit

[johnpoz]

@JonathanLee said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

I mean 10baseT was the hottest thing since sliced bread a couple years ago

It was a bit longer than a couple of years.. But yeah as you get older, 20 years seem like just last week ;)

Doesn't seem like that long ago was installing tcp/ip on the old windows 3.11 machines via a bunch of floppies..

[JonathanLee]

What we need is to build a firewall on Xenix it has a tcp stack hahaha, use that new April 4th release of pfSense.

[JKnott]

@JonathanLee said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:

Pre dated BNC stuff. Pre Ethernet. It was wicked cool.

Actually, Ethernet predated token ring. That MAU is used for token ring. I don't think BNC connectors were ever used for it, just Ethernet and ARCNET.

I used to work for IBM Canada in the late 90s and there were racks full of those MAUs. When I was back on contract a few years later, token ring was nowhere to be found and everything was Ethernet.

[JonathanLee]

@JKnott it was like they erased history of that network equipment, they don’t talk about MAU at all in any publication for higher education. I wanted to share it as it was an amazing find and rabbit hole to learn what it was for me. I remember token ring in elementary school. But never MAU technology. They had a token ring network for an apple computer lab with bnc cables 10baset stuff all wired in a circle with t connectors it was so cool to see it and work with.

[Gertjan]

@JonathanLee

A while back, last year already, I found these : How To Start An ISP (like it's 1993)

All the big brands, operating systems, all the equipment, most of them I 'heard' about, but never actually saw it.
All I remember is that I had a Robotics Sporter 56K modem (that actually only synced up to 33.6).
Now you can see what was on the other side.