NAT (Port Forwarding) and web failover

skipper · Feb 28, 2012, 1:45 PM

Hi all,
I am new to pfSense and to this forum as well, so forgive me if I am posting it in wrong place.
I am using 2.0-RELEASE (amd64)
This is my network

I am trying to set up a failover for the web.
I have 2 problems.

I have created the NAT port forwarding but it doesn't work. If I create a NAT rule to access directly the web server then it works, but it doesn't work for the virtual server.
The virtual server for the failover is accessible from the VPN but not from internet.
The web-slave is not accessible when I am connected to the VPN of pfSense1 but the load balancer status shows it online. The traffic is not being blocked by any FW.
Any idea what am I doing wrong/what do i miss to make this work?

Thnx in advance.

marcelloc · Feb 27, 2012, 10:54 AM

Remove nat rules for http as you have configured the load balance for these servers.

skipper · Feb 27, 2012, 11:07 AM

Hi marcelloc,
virtual server: 192.168.100.100
web:192.168.125.101
web-slave:192.168.129.101
I have a nat rule, source:wan address https, destination:192.168.100.100
if i remove that how will it work?

cpk · Feb 27, 2012, 2:46 PM

skipper,

I think that load balancing by definition has to use NAT, so creating a NAT rule manually would conflict with the automatically created settings used by load balancing.

marcelloc · Feb 27, 2012, 3:01 PM

@skipper:

if i remove that how will it work?

The virtual server will listen on wan interface ip.

If you create a nat, the you will have two services "listening" on the same port/ip

Create the virtual server and then create a wan rule to allow traffic to it with no nat.

skipper · Feb 27, 2012, 3:10 PM

i disabled the NAT rule and created 2 rules on the wan interface, first one destination wan address and the second one destination virtual server so i have not blocked package on the FW but still it doesn't work.
from my vpn connection i can access the virtual server but not from internet so i am a bit confused :S
do i need to setup something more?

marcelloc · Feb 27, 2012, 3:15 PM

Did you changed pfsense gui port and disabled WebGUI redirect to avoid conflict with your http redirect?

Is 192.168.100.100 your wan address?

podilarius · Feb 27, 2012, 3:18 PM

In your network, is the site-to-site a VPN or a point to point connection? They seem to be in different networks, so you are going to have to make sure that your routing and NAT reflect this.

skipper · Feb 27, 2012, 3:27 PM

i am accessing pfsense via http and the virtual server is listening to https so i think no conflict there (System: Advanced: Admin Access, protocol http).
how do i disable WebGUI redirection?
192.168.100.100 this is virtual's server ip, my wan address has an internet ip.

skipper · Feb 27, 2012, 3:30 PM

it's a vpn site-to-site. there is routing between the 2 networks so the web and web-slave can see each other. do i need an additional routing rule?

marcelloc · Feb 27, 2012, 4:42 PM

@skipper:

i am accessing pfsense via http and the virtual server is listening to https so i think no conflict there (System: Advanced: Admin Access, protocol http).
how do i disable WebGUI redirection?
192.168.100.100 this is virtual's server ip, my wan address has an internet ip.

Create another virtual server with wan ip and it will work.

skipper · Feb 27, 2012, 9:54 PM

hey marcelloc thnx a lot, it's working!!
i cannot access the web-slave from internet but i can access it from web's network.
do i have to create some nat or routing about that?

marcelloc · Feb 27, 2012, 10:39 PM

What status you have on loadbalance for the web-slave?

status -> loadbalancer

skipper · Feb 27, 2012, 10:50 PM

the status is enable and accessible (green 100%) that's why i don't understand.

skipper · Feb 28, 2012, 3:30 PM

i found out that when an https request is going to web-slave through the vpn, then the web-slave is trying to send the package through the wan interface and not back to vpn. can i somehow force this traffic to pass through the vpn connection?

marcelloc · Feb 28, 2012, 3:39 PM

@skipper:

i found out that when an https request is going to web-slave through the vpn, then the web-slave is trying to send the package through the wan interface and not back to vpn. can i somehow force this traffic to pass through the vpn connection?

You will need an outbound nat to "masquerade" client internet ip. This way the server can return the package through vpn instead of forwarding it to it's wan

skipper · Feb 28, 2012, 3:49 PM

thnx for your help marcelloc!!
how must the outbound nat look?
these are the vpn IPs
pfsense1 ip : 10.4.0.1
pfsense2 ip : 10.4.0.2

marcelloc · Feb 28, 2012, 4:26 PM

It's on firewall -> nat -> outbound

skipper · Feb 28, 2012, 4:40 PM

i created an outbound nat but the traffic is still going to the wan interface and not back to vpn
here is my outbound nat rule

Interface webslavelan
Source 192.168.129.0/24
Source Port 443
Destination 10.4.0.0/30
Destination Port *
NAT Address *
NAT Port 443
Static Port NO

marcelloc · Feb 28, 2012, 4:46 PM

@skipper:

i created an outbound nat but the traffic is still going to the wan interface and not back to vpn
here is my outbound nat rule

Interface webslavelan
Source 192.168.129.0/24
Source Port 443
Destination 10.4.0.0/30
Destination Port *
NAT Address *
NAT Port 443
Static Port NO

change source to any.
does webslavelan is the outgoing interface to reach 10.4.0.0/30?