Building my own router.
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If the board has two onboard NICs you can use them for WAN and LAN. You only need an addition NIC if you need more interfaces or if, for some reason, either of those NICs is not supported by pfSense.
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Thank you Stephen.
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@stephenw10 @stephenw10 @provels
Hey guys, I have everything and pfsense is set up. I can't get into my address. I have WAN but No LAN ip address. The first ethernet is Intel and the second is Atheros. I assume that I need to get a NIC card for this? Am I missing something?
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stephenw10 Netgate Administratorlast edited by stephenw10 Jun 26, 2024, 7:57 PM Jun 26, 2024, 6:24 PM
You mean you don't see the NIC available at all? Or it just doesn't have an IP address?
If you run
pciconf -lvat the command line what does it show up as? -
Hey Stephen, so same thing. I only see my WAN IP address. No LAN. When I set it up, there was em0 and ac1? I was thinking that if it works that I can run a CAT cable on the 2nd ethernet port on my motherboard and then through a Linksys unmanaged switch and then connect all my other Ethernet cables for my hardware. It looks like it doesn't support. Am I doing something wrong, or should I try something else?
In case I need to a buy a NIC card, what do you recommend and will these NIC cards from ebay work?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/176359531225
https://www.ebay.com/itm/144068616517
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@Master-Henry said in Building my own router.:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/176359531225
This one will not work, it's not a standard PCIe card. Looks like something custom for a specific server.
@Master-Henry said in Building my own router.:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/144068616517
This one would work, but that is a VERY old card. I'd keep looking for something that at least starts with an I. Like the I22x, or something. Anything where the chipset starts with 82xxx is super old. It's what I currently run, but it's a VERY old appliance I'm using.
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Both those should work fine.
But the Atheros NIC will probably work. What does it look like in the
pciconf -lvoutput? It will be there and show the PCI IDs even if no driver is attached. -
@Master-Henry said in Building my own router.:
When I set it up, there was em0 and ac1?
also, ac1 doesn't sound right. Maybe alc0?
https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?apropos=1&manpath=freebsd-release-ports&query=Atheros
Should be something here, might be a simple typo on your initial setup.
The pciconf -lv output steve is asking for will definitely help him steer you in the right direction.
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@Master-Henry It occurs to me that you're trying to do this on the console screen of this machine and text might be flying off the screen faster than your can read. Try this.
pciconf -lv | less
This will let you scroll through the output until you find the bit you want. Press q when finished to get back to the command prompt.
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Hey Guys, so em0 is Intel I217-V LPT and alc0 is Atheros Ar8161 PCIe Gigabit. So Atheros works but not Intel. I switched both the Onboard ethernet ports to use WAN. Only Atheros is recognizing link. Intel keeps saying DOWN. Maybe I got a busted port?
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Great so both NICs are detected and have drivers attached.
How are you testing?
Try running:
ifconfig em0That will report the link state and settings.
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Stephen,
WAN -> em0 -> ipaddress
I have a ethernet cable connected to my PC and still nothing. Nothing LAN.
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Ok so the LAN is not assigned?
First thing to do is assign alc0 as LAN from the console menu, option 1.
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So I assigned LAN as alc0 and went ahead and assign IP address for LAN. Same IP address but I can't log into pfsense?
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What IP address and subnet did you use? It must be different to whatever you have on the WAN otherwise there would be a conflict.
Does it show a link on alc0?
What does this show:
ifconfig alc0 -
Both LAN and WAN has the same ip address.
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Ok well that is a conflict and is invalid.
The WAN and LAN must have different subnets and hence different IP addresses.
For example:
WAN (wan) -> ix3 -> v4/DHCP4: 172.21.16.85/24 LAN (lan) -> igc0 -> v4: 192.168.92.1/24 -
@Master-Henry Are you trying to setup the pfsense behind your current router so you can have internet while you're setting this up initially?
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Hey guys, so every time you ask me to check. I unplug both my WAN and PC ethernet port cable from my router and plug in both back and forth with the pfsense router. So right now, if you ask me to plug it back in again. I am going to have my internet cable WAN plugged in, the 2nd cable plug into my switch and I will have my PC plug into my 2nd port of my switch.
As of now, I only have an IP address of WAN.
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What do you actually see on the console?