ATT Internet AIr

[ahole4sure]

Admitedly NOT a networking expert. I am long time user of pFsense and I try to fake knowing something about networking.
I recently was talked into getting 2 Internet Air devices from our ATT business rep (to use mainly as Failover Internet access for our 2 businness locations).

It seems that the software interface for the Internet Air is not so networking friendly -- can't even find a way to place Bridge Mode - but there is a way to make a DMZ.

I have connected the Internet Air to the WAN port on my pfsense using one of the LAN ports on the Internet Air. The WAN port is setup as DHCP and after configuration shows up on my pfsense Dashboard as connected but connected via private IP address 192.168.1.11 (my main LAN is 192.168.1.0 based, so I changed the Internet Air to a different subnet 192.168.1.0 soi it wouldn't interfere with my LAN).

Failover seems to "work" but after disconnecting my normal fiber WAN2 I have no "internet access".

I didn't want to provide more information than needed but what would you need to help me troubleshoot this?

[stephenw10]

Check DNS.

Test if you can ping by IP from clients or from pfSense itself in the failed state.

[ahole4sure]

@stephenw10
I was able to ping 8..8.8.8
but not google.com

I reached chase.com when I put in the ip address

That said I could figure out how to fix it after trying DNS changes I'll send pics of my DNS pages

That weird public IP in my DNS settings is from ATT and the Internet Air says that is their DNS server

[ahole4sure]

Couldn't figure out how ot edit post

I COULDN'T figure out how to fix the probable DNS issue -- so I kept floundering with other things - none of which worked

[stephenw10]

You have 'use local DNS' set anyway though so it will try to resolve directly unless you have Unbound in forwarding mode?

Are you policy routing traffic from the LAN clients via the gateway group?

Were you testing from LAN clients or from pfSense itself? Or both?

[ahole4sure]

@stephenw10

I don't think I am using forwarding
And I am not policy routing that I am aware of

My problem is I am one of those huge supporters of pfsense but go through issues and get things set with help of people like you -- then I don't touch things for 6 months. Sorry - but thanks for patience!

I did test from both and as I recall during my after midnight late night testing the results were the same from both pfsense and on a device on the LAN

Are thre any other settings or log files I can send to help better? I read log files until 2 am hoping to see something that helped

[flat4]

PROBABLY NOT GOOD IDEA TO EXPOSE THE GUI TO THE WWW

but its your call

[ahole4sure]

@ahole4sure

[ahole4sure]

@flat4 did I not gray/red out anything of importance ??? did I miss something important?

[stephenw10]

Check the DNS resolver settings, that can also be set in forwarding mode. It resolves directly by default though.

Try resolving something in the pfSense GUI in Diag > DNS Lookup.
Note what servers are responding in the failed WAN state.

[ahole4sure]

@stephenw10
I will check the failed state DNS resolution (from pfsense) later today when I am back on site

But here are screenshots of the DNS Resolver. Should I just disable DNS Resolver ?

[stephenw10]

No I would expect that to work. It is in resolving mode and set to use 'all' interfaces for outgoing queries. So it should switch to use the WAN when the system default gateway changes.

[ahole4sure]

@stephenw10
So do I not have the gateway for the Internet Air established correctly - ?

Would there be any benefit for deleting the "interface" (it used to be a Suddenlink cable modem , before I added the Frontier fiber internet as WAN2)? And then recreating the interface and starting all over ??
I'm at a loss ...

[stephenw10]

Unclear at this point. You need to run some DNS testing in the failed state to ind out what's actually failing.

[ahole4sure]

@stephenw10
Ok so I got on-site

Looks like I can ping and access routes from pfsense and on the LAN
but I can NOT resolve DNS from either pFsense or the LAN

It just hangs when trying to resolve a DNS

What can I post that will help to resolve this frustrating issue ??

THANKS

[ahole4sure]

This post is deleted!

[ahole4sure]

These were attempts to ping form pfsense while in failed state - one to numerical address the other to name

[stephenw10]

So try to resolve google.com in Diag > DNS Lookup where all the configured DNS servers are tested.

[ahole4sure]

@stephenw10

So I have tried as recommended - still nothing. It's like the system gets "stuck" when I try the DNS Lookup after fail state begins. And to make matters worse the more changes I make now, it appears that coming back out of the failed state requires reboot of the pFsense to get things working for my main WAN and internet source.
I am a loss now as to how to even troubleshoot

Gonna try to call ATT today - I wish I could get a way to put ATT modem in bridge mode. As maybe mentioned before, I have DMZ set to the dhcp (later set to static) address of 192.168.2.11 that the ATT gateway/modem gave my pFsense box - yet it still shows the local IP of 192.168.1.11 in pFsense dashboard. I was hoping that it would show public IP. Not sure that it has anyhting to do with the DNS issue though.

[stephenw10]

Hmm, is it possible it's blocking or intercepting DNS traffic?

Check the state table in Diag > States when the main WAN2 is down and you are trying to resolve something. You should see the udp port 53 connections using the WAN.

Did you try changing the kill state on gateway failure setting?