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    Cannot access computer over lan

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    19 Posts 4 Posters 5.9k Views
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      "couldn't ping" is unhelpful.  ;)
      What error was given when you tried to ping the server?

      There could be several causes here.
      You clients can't ping the server because they have no route to it. This could be a bad gateway, bad subnet mask, some static route issue.
      The client can ping but they receive no reply. Perhaps the server doesn't have a route back to the clients.
      Given that the server can ping the clients and receive a reply it seems very likely that the server just isn't responding for some reason. Local firewall as Jon suggested would be my first check but you've looked for that.

      Are you pinging by IP or network name?
      Some IPv6/v4 issue? Seems unlikely. What OS is your server?

      Steve

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      • J
        jackbean
        last edited by

        Unfortunately or (fortunately) the server is responding from pings from all lan clients now so i cant tell you exactly what the error was. It was either request timeout or destination host unreachable, im sorry if thats not very helpful but i cant remember. I was pinging the IP. The os of my server is windows 7, maybe some wouldn't call windows 7 a server OS but it works fine for my purposes. I only use ipv4 on my lan btw. The thing that is odd now is that some things are working with the server and some arent. Such as vnc, i am able to connect with my mac and pc but not my iphone. I haven't tested that on any other computers yet. Also my DLNA server is no longer accessible from my fire tv. Yet i was able to access the dlna server from my iphone. It seems to be selective for some reason but nothing besides the router has changed. The gateway and subnet mask stayed the same during this switch.

        Also I changed the dns server of the mac and using dig tested dns query times and they seem to be as quick as before. But on my laptop they can be a hit or miss which is confusing.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Stale ARP cache somewhere?

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            Again what does this have to do with pfsense.. Your devices are connected to a dumb switch via AP - which has nothing to do with pfsense.  Pfsense in how I am understanding your network is gateway to internet only.  All devices talking to each other have nothing to do with pfsense.

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Exactly. What has changed here? Well the since you've got a new DHCP server it's entirely possible that all the clients using DHCP have got new addresses. If your server has some cache that is still referencing the old IPs then that might explain it. Without meaning to sound insulting; 'have you tried turning it off and on again'?  :P

              Also unless you have explicitly disabled IPv6 in pfSense it will be using it to some extent. Many OSs default to using IPv6 if it's available at all. Possible your old router had no IPv6 capability so that's also a change.

              Steve

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              • J
                jackbean
                last edited by

                Ipv6 is disabled in pfsense. My router isnt really old its a wndr3700 ddwrt router. I guess it has nothing to do with pfsense but it seems logical that there is an issue with it somewhere because it worked before pfsense replace my ddwrt router. And yes lol i have tried restarting it.

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                • M
                  marvosa
                  last edited by

                  OP, I think the main issue here is…given your setup (Modem -> PFsense -> Lan) and what you're trying to do... I think we all agree that the issue is not PFsense related.  That being said, there are still some of us who are willing to help troubleshoot out of curiosity and others who are not.  The one's who are willing to help require more intimate details about your network.  e.g:

                  • add IP's to your network map, so we can get a better sense of what's going on and where things are connected

                  • post your LAN IP scheme

                  • post your DHCP scope options

                  • post the IP, mask, gateway and DNS of the machine's your having issues with

                  In short, there is a certain subset of people who are happy to help, but we would all just be making assumptions and speculating without more details.

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                  • J
                    jackbean
                    last edited by

                    ok i understand.
                    gateway IP is 192.168.1.1, server is 192.168.1.8, and dhcp clients get ips between 192.168.1.100-200.
                    Server ip=192.168.1.8, mask=255.255.255.0, dns=127.0.0.1(runs bind dns server).
                    Let me know if anyone needs more info.

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                    • johnpozJ
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                      last edited by

                      Ok so from a client..  Ping 192.168.1.8, now look in your arp cache.

                      C:>ping 192.168.1.8

                      Pinging 192.168.1.8 with 32 bytes of data:
                      Reply from 192.168.1.8: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
                      Reply from 192.168.1.8: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

                      Ping statistics for 192.168.1.8:
                          Packets: Sent = 2, Received = 2, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
                      Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
                          Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms
                      Control-C
                      ^C
                      C:>arp -a

                      Interface: 192.168.1.100 –- 0xc
                        Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
                        192.168.1.7          00-0c-29-dd-02-ba    dynamic
                        192.168.1.8          00-0c-29-55-4f-95    dynamic
                        192.168.1.40          00-1f-29-54-17-14    dynamic
                        192.168.1.219        00-0c-29-67-0d-fb    dynamic
                        192.168.1.253        00-0c-29-1e-18-ae    dynamic
                        224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16    static
                        224.0.0.251          01-00-5e-00-00-fb    static
                        239.255.255.250      01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa    static
                        255.255.255.255      ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff    static

                      Do you get mac - is it correct.. Check on the server.  ipconfig /all will show you mac or ifconfig on linux.

                      Is this client wired or wireless..  If wireless - connect it to the same switch that server is connected too.  Does it work now?

                      You do understand the windows firewall will block ping out of the box..  Especially if public setting for the network.  If you change the gateway of windows machine - it will see it as new network, so if your profile was home/private before and you change out your old router with new router.  Windows could now see that as public network and all firewall rules change, etc..

                      If you see the mac address and does not answer ping - then its 99% sure its software firewall running on 192.168.1.8 – and if you can ping 192.168.1.100 from .8 I would say 99.99% firewall issue on .8

                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                      • J
                        jackbean
                        last edited by

                        I am not having issues with ping anymore and my windows firewall is disabled and the network is set as a private network in windows. The issues i am having now is that certain services on the server do not work or are slow now. Maybe its because of how the network is setup. Because its like this
                        Modem - Pfsense - Switch

                        Devices connected to the switch are the server, wired lan clients, and the AP. This might be the bottleneck. I could connect the server directly to the AP because it is basically a switch now as well and it has 4 gigabit lan ports. I dont really see how this could be slowing it down but maybe it is? But its really not just the slow down, things just are not working correctly.
                        Might uninstall windows and switch to a Linux flavored OS.

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                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                          last edited by

                          What things are not working or what is slow?  What is your switch?  Maybe you have a duplex mismatch? from the switch to the AP?  Are things slow when 2 devices connected to the switch?  Is the switch 100 or gig?

                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                          • J
                            jackbean
                            last edited by

                            Dns lookups are slow to the server. Vnc is not working only on my iphone for some reason. It works on my ipad and laptop. SMB seems to be the same speed although smb over Ethernet is incredibly fast, faster than before actually. I am getting like 110 MB/sec which is almost the full gigabit connection. Also plex doesnt work at all on my wireless clients.

                            My switch is some d-link unmanged gigabit switch. A duplex mismatch from the AP to the switch could make some sense. Not sure how to check the duplex on ddwrt though.

                            Maybe i could try plugging the ddwrt router into a port on the pfsense box and making it another lan port so it can communicate to the server and see if speeds are better.

                            I think it defitinley has something to do with the wireless AP causing these issues. Maybe i could try turning on STP or something on it?

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                            • J
                              jackbean
                              last edited by

                              Well I guess I'm gonna buy another access point or revert to the stock firmware on my current router and see if things change because I am still having issues.

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