First time install help

[VirtualDaniel]

Hey guys. Noob alert!  :(

I’m trying to setup pfsense at work but trying to get it running before I put everyone on it.

Let met first give you an idea of the office setup.

We have a bonded ADSL solution, its 2 x 4Mbps lines bonded into 1 via a cisco ADSL modem. That modem is in turn connected to a 24port HP gigabit switch which is in turn connected to another 24HP switch.

My manager has another ADSL modem used also connected to the network for DHCP. (Don’t ask, I’ve tried to get my manager to use the bonding modem for DHCP or our Domain Controller but he won’t give in.)

My idea is to put a pfSense box in between the ADSL bonding modem and the first HP Switch.

Obviously I don’t want to kick every one off the internet as a lot of them use RDP and receive emails. I’ve taken the box I want to use and installed an additional NIC. One (WAN) I have connected to the HP switch and then I have connected a space PC to the other (LAN).

When I installed pfsense, it sets the default IP to 192.168.1.1 which I can connect to from the spare PC. However, when I change the IP to our network IP range 173.159.3.0/24, I can’t connect to it. I seem to have internet access and I can ping outside if I use option 7 (Ping Host.)

What am I doing wrong?

[phil.davis]

During testing like this, your real office subnet addresses are on the WAN side of your test pfSense. You can't use the same subnet on the LAN side of the test pfSense - that is very confusing for it!
Use a different subnet for testing.
In the "final solution" you probably want either:
a) Put your ADSL into bridge mode (if possible) and connect pfSense WAN to it - so it passes the ADSL public IP through to pfSense, where you can put your PPPoE or whatever ISP login details. or;
b) Change the ADSL LAN side to some new address/subnet, connect it to pfSense WAN, setting pfSense WAN in that new subnet (or let pfSense WAN get DHCP from your ADSL device or…) - now you have a little subnet between ADSL and pfSense.

In both options plug your real LAN (HP switch..) into pfSense LAN.

At some point, connect the boss' ADSL thing to another port of pfSense and make it a 2nd WAN for failover, loadbalncing...

[stephenw10]

Interesting setup. The two DSL lines are bonded in the Cisco modem? I wonder what sort of bridge mode might be possible with such a setup. pfSense supports ML-PPP, which I imagine is what the Cisco box is doing, but you'd need two bridged modems to use it. Anyway that's further down the line. If you set it up initially as you suggested you should be good.

I'm failing to see what possible reason there would be to running an ADSL modem/router just to provide DHCP.  ???

Steve