cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations
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That Mac network might have been AppleTalk. (Do Apple computers have Mac addresses?
)MTU is something that should be discussed, otherwise we'll be stuck with 1500 forever. 16 Mb token ring could go almost 18K bytes. I doubt most people even know why 1500 was picked for Ethernet. Back in those days, networks weren't reliable and collisions were expected. So it became a trade off between efficiency and retransmitting lost frames. It became locked in with early Ethernet NICs that were hardware limited and also when 802.3 was introduced and the Ethertype/Length field was used to determine whether it was an Ethernet II or 802.3 frame.
These days, with switches, collisions are history and networks are both much faster and more reliable, so the 1500 MTU has become a bottleneck. I have a cheap TP-Link switch that can handle 16K frames and 9K are often used in data centres, etc.. It's time to move on.
BTW, my first Ethernet experience was with DECNet over 10base5 "Thicknet" and I'm probably the only one here who has ever hand wired an Ethernet controller.
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@Gertjan said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:
All I remember is that I had a Robotics Sporter 56K modem (that actually only synced up to 33.6).
I have a Courier (collecting dust in my junque closet). It could deliver 56K down, provided the ISP was on a digital phone connection. Up was always 33.6K max.
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that makes sense... the /32 isnt possible and it makes it a single ip address,
here is an easy one..
What does it mean when the WAN interface is set to DHCP?
Does that mean that PFsense is acting as the dhcp server handing out Ip addresses?i put a pic up
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@Gertjan my wife walked in with this YouTube video running… “are you actually watching dialup?” Ummm yeah!
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@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:
What does it mean when the WAN interface is set to DHCP?
Does that mean that PFsense is acting as the dhcp server handing out Ip addresses?No, it means pfSense is the DHCP client, getting it's address from the ISP. However, it can also provide a DHCP server on the LAN side, to provide addresses to devices on the LAN.
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@Gertjan said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:
A while back, last year already, I found these : How To Start An ISP (like it's 1993)
Several years ago, I set up my own "ISP". I was running Red Hat Linux and configured to to accept calls via dial up modem. My ThinkPad had a modem back then and I was on a cable modem at home. However, I lost that modem, when I upgraded the WiFi from 802.11b to g, as the modem and WiFi shared the same card and the new card didn't have a modem.
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@JKnott
okay so what do i set the WAN to so that pfsense will be my DHCP server?
or do i not want to do that?
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That's not a setting on WAN. You would enable it on internal interfaces from Services > DHCP Server as required.
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/services/dhcp/ipv4.html
It's enabled on LAN by default.
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@stephenw10
okay so just leave it on WAN as DHCP and the go to services and enable them independently in the services section for each interface? -
Yes, exactly. Assuming you want the WAN to pull it's IP address via DHCP from some upstream server that is.
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@stephenw10
ahhh... so that setting on WAN gives me my public IP address from my ISP...
Then each one of my interfaces which i just enabled dhcp on, will hand out the ip addresses from the cooresponding address pools i have just configured....
Okay now im getting it..you guys are awesome!
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@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:
DHCP
See it like this :
@home, you have a program called 'a browser'. For example : Edge. Edge connects to a server (there are many server, you as a human, you have to chose a server).
This is what is called a client and server concept.
For "DHCP", it's somewhat identical.
The interface that you've declared as "WAN" is used by a DHCP program ( its process name is dhcpc from DHCP Client) and it sends out over the WAN interface - it actually broadcasts - a request : "Is there a DHCP server out there, as I want to a 'lease').
It's your ISP router, or some other router, more far away, that has a DHCP server, and this server will give your dhcpc process a DHCP lease => an IP, a DNS, a gateway, and network info.
Now, pfSense is happy, it obtained an IP on it LAN.Now, lets go one step back. Your pfSense LAN. Most devices, PC's phones, printers, doorbells, etc have a build in DHCP Client.
So it's the same story all over again.
But this time, it is the DHCP Server, that runs on your pfSense LAN (it listens all the time, ready to answer a request coming in from one of your LAN devices) that will hand over a lease to this device, and all other LAN devices.So, pfSense can use a DHCP client on it's WAN and a DCHP server on its LAN.
They do the same 'related' things. But are opposite in functionality.Btw : both aren't strictly needed.
You can set up your WAN with static "hard coded" IP settings (network, IP DNS, gateway).
Same thing on your LAN : stop the DHCP server, and "hard" hand code all your devices with static IP settings (IP, network, DNS, gateway).
This will work just fine. -
@cyberstudentnewbie said in cyberstudent with basic questions about interface configurations:
@JKnott
okay so what do i set the WAN to so that pfsense will be my DHCP server?
or do i not want to do that?It should already do that. Check Services / DHCP Server.
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No such thing as collision domains with token ring. No collisions!
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@JKnott in the 90s it was all about the HUB they would blink different colors for collisions.
Make sure to upvote
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It was all 10base2 for me. I only dreamt of a hub.
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That photo you posted a while back is for a token ring MAU. As I mentioned, there are no collisions on token ring. If you have lights that flash with collisions, you are on Ethernet.
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In my work, my first Ethernet experience was 10base5 DECNet, connecting VAX 11/780 computers. However my first LAN experience goes all the way back to early 1978 with a proprietary LAN connecting Collins computers in the Air Canada reservation system. That network used time division multiplexing (TDM) instead of frames or packets. There were 2 versions, the low speed ran at 2 Mb/s and the high speed 8 Mb. After that DECNet, my next Ethernet experience was hand wiring a couple of Ethernet controllers for Data General Eclipse computers. My first "network" at home was connecting 2 computers with a Laplink parallel port cable. Later on, I got a 10 Mb Ethernet hub. I also worked a bit with token ring, the first time I was at IBM.
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@JKnott COOL!!
