Gateway "issue" - File exists - multiple WAN

Rezin · Oct 2, 2011, 9:03 AM

Following on from Two PPPoE connections from the same ISP, as that thread is now locked.

The scenario is… two PPPoE connections with the same ISP, that can sometimes* be assigned the same gateway, which means pfSense can't use that gateway IP for whichever connection is brought up last.

= They seem to have a pool of at least two gateway IPs that they cycle through, probably depending on load, I guess.

The issue is that I can't specify a static gateway IP as the IPs that the ISP uses/assigns during connection doesn't fall within the subnet.

The gateway address <ip> does not lie within the chosen interface's subnet.

WAN1 IP address: 203.122.232.xxx
WAN1 gateway IP: 203.16.215.174

WAN2 IP address: 203.122.213.xxx
WAN2 gateway IP: 203.16.215.197

Other than letting the modems handle the connections, and then setting pfSense to use the modems' as gateways, what options are there? Are there any commands that can be issued (preferably automatically, whenever either of the PPPoE connections drops out) which will set a static gateway IP?

Thanks for any tips or advice.

Rezin · Oct 14, 2011, 12:03 AM

No tweaks that anyone can suggest?

marcelloc · Oct 14, 2011, 3:09 AM

Maybe not the best way but you can create two ppoe vm gateways with pfsense and then assigns this gateway in a loadbalance at main pfsense

–------ pfsense_ppoe1
Pfsense -----|
-------- pfsense_ppoe2

Rezin · Oct 14, 2011, 3:34 AM

Hi marcelloc. Thanks for the suggestion. I'd prefer to keep pfSense limited to the hardware that it's is using now (a HP MicroServer N36L), and not create a couple of VMs.

If I were to go that route, it'd probably be easier to just let the modems (Billion 7404VGP-M and DrayTek Vigor 120) handle being the gateway. At least that way another machine wouldn't have to be running for the gateway VMs.

jimp · Oct 14, 2011, 12:54 PM

If your two interfaces ever have the same gateway, it will fail, and you can't override a gateway for pppoe in that way.

You'll likely need to let one modem do NAT in that situation.

That said, you might find this post-2.0 commit interesting :-)
https://github.com/bsdperimeter/pfsense-tools/commit/7d06581fa8dd923c94f8e8cfce05dfabbac39a25

Rezin · Oct 14, 2011, 11:47 PM

@jimp:

That said, you might find this post-2.0 commit interesting :-)
https://github.com/bsdperimeter/pfsense-tools/commit/7d06581fa8dd923c94f8e8cfce05dfabbac39a25

Hi jimp. It does look interesting! 8)

Is there a way to get that change going already (in 2.0-RELEASE (i386)), or do I just need to wait until the next version of pfSense is released?

jimp · Oct 14, 2011, 11:49 PM

you'd have to recompile mpd with that patch and then copy the binaries onto the firewall (or wait for a 2.0.1 snapshot to show up…)

Rezin · Oct 14, 2011, 11:53 PM

Thanks. I'll look into it. :)

Rezin · Dec 14, 2011, 10:41 AM

Any idea when 2.0.1 will be available, seeing as its Roadmap lists 19 closed / 0 open? :)

jimp · Dec 14, 2011, 12:43 PM

Very soon, found a couple issues that had to be fixed yet that required a new round of images, which means a new round of testing. Hopefully this is the last batch.