Trouble with getting the server to respond

jhilgeman

I've got my router set up on an internal network with 2 NICs - one for WAN (192.168.11.53) and one for LAN (192.168.1.1). I have enabled DHCP for the LAN and have it connected to a switch with a couple of other machines running, but those machines send out DHCP requests and don't seem to get anything back. I see the traffic on the switch but it's like the router is just ignoring it. I even disabled the firewall on the router with pfctl -d but still nothing. I also cannot ping anything from the router shell.

I've looked at the interface setup and it SEEMS right. The WAN gets an IP from my DHCP server (192.168.11.53) and the WAN interface gateway is set to the IP of my network's router (192.168.11.1), and the LAN interface gateway is set to itself (192.186.1.1), and I don't have any static routes set up.

I'm still a n00b here - trying to read documentation, but I think I'm missing something basic. Any help?

wallabybob

What build of pfSense are you running? (Some previous version of pfSense required firewall rules allowing DHCP traffic even if DHCP server was enabled. I don't know if this is still true.)

What are the physical names of the interfaces? (What is the ouput of the pfSense shell command```

/etc/rc.banner


What is in the pfSense DHCP log? (In the web GUI go to _Status_ -> _System Logs_ and click on the _DHCP_ tab give the pfSense shell command```
# clog /var/log/dhcpd.log
```). You should at least see the DHCP server startup and DHCP requests logged.

@jhilgeman:

> I also cannot ping anything from the router shell.

Please provide the output of the ping command. "cannot ping" is almost always much less informative than the actual text output by the ping command.

jhilgeman

Running the snapshot from 8/21/12, since the stable builds don't recognize my NIC (Realtek 8161/8111 on a Foxconn motherboard):

pfSense 2.1-BETA0-pfSense (amd64)

WAN (wan) -> ue0 -> 192.168.11.53 (sometimes this goes blank and I have to redo the "Set interface IP address" to force it to talk to the external network and get its 192.168.11.53 again)
LAN (lan) -> re0 -> 192.186.1.1

In /var/log/dhcpd.log, I see the normal startup info, and hten on the last few lines:

Listening on BPF/re0/<mac>/192.168.1.0/24
Sending on BPF/re0/<mac>/192.168.1.0/24
Sending on Socket/fallback/fallback-net

Nothing else.

When I ping, I -was- getting something about sendto: No host found" or something like that, I think, but when I do it now, I'm getting:

sendto: No buffer space available

I get the feeling this is because the snapshot isn't stable, but I don't know how else to get my NIC to work. The stable snapshot doesn't seem to allow me to take the steps to recompile the kernel, which seems to be what the necessary actions are, according to the forum threads I had read.</mac></mac>

wallabybob

I suspect you don't have a good physical connection between the switch and pfSense LAN interface - perhaps a broken cable or one end is not completely plugged into the socket. Please post the output of the pfSense shell command```

ifconfig re0


@jhilgeman:

> In /var/log/dhcpd.log, I see the normal startup info, and hten on the last few lines:
> 
> Listening on BPF/re0/<mac>/192.168.1.0/24
> Sending on BPF/re0/<mac>/192.168.1.0/24
> Sending on Socket/fallback/fallback-net
> 
> Nothing else.</mac></mac>

The DHCP server is not seeing DHCP requests from the client.

@jhilgeman:

> When I ping, I -was- getting something about sendto: No host found" or something like that, I think, but when I do it now, I'm getting:
> 
> sendto: No buffer space available

PERHAPS the LAN interface transmit buffers are full with ARP requests waiting for the interface to report it has seen carrier from a switch or another NIC.

It could also be the re driver doesn't correctly work with your particular NIC which is apparently a fairly new variant.