Forward broadcast packets in pf? Or some recommandation on wireless setup

romainp

Hi,
For a simple printer setup, I am stuck with some strange network issue and I need your help to give me some advises on this.

First, my setup:
ath0: wireless on 192.170.3.x/26
em0 : lan on 192.170.1.x/26

My lan is on a vlan, no specific rules between the wireless and the lan.

Here is the story:

I bought a canon pixma mg6120 printer and I have planned to use it wireless.
I have installed the drivers on a laptop on the lan and discovered that the driver installation use the bjnp canon printer port to communicate with the printer using some 'bonjour, stuff. It seems that it send a broadcast packet on 255.255.255.255 on port 8661 to discover the printer and then use 8662-8664 to talk to it (for the printer and scanner use).
Of course it fails because the network is not on the same network.
I have found no way to force the ip of the printer on the laptop side. if the setup discover the printer then it's cool, if not then.. reinstall…

I have then tested avahi to see if it can help.
After disabling the bogon network rules on the wifi interface, the printer is seen on the lan using a bonjour browser. But, the driver setup still can't find it and even using the bonjour printer setup from apple, I can't use it.
So, avahi can't help me here.

So I have to choice from what I understand:

try to proxy the broadcast messages
modify the wireless setup (I guess bridging the wireless and the lan)

I really don't know if there is a way to proxy broadcast messages using some rules, I saw somewhere that so tools can do it but I have not tested it yet

Other option is to bridge the wireless and the lan. But if I do that, I loose the ability to restrict wireless using mac and dhcp unless I do that for all laptop, desktop on my network (ok, there are no so much devices but, well, it's a feature that is useful for managing the wireless)

So I need some advises here:

is the bridging option the best in term of management and security?
is there a way/tool to proxy broadcast messages?
other option that could help me to setup this wireless printer?

Any comments will be greatly appreciated

jlepthien

If the traffic is using Bonjour you can install the avahi package. That will forward this kind of traffic…I am using this for my Apple Remote iTunes connection for example...works like a charm...