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

romainp · Sep 23, 2011, 1:50 PM

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 · Sep 28, 2011, 1:37 PM

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...