Maximum IP adresses issued on LAN, and I can not get internet access.
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Good day to all. I am a first time user of this software. I am stumped….. This is my first time setting up pfsense.
Background:
I am to use pfsense for a large high rise apartment building (185 units) free wireless network, located in Ocean City New Jersey. I have installed 3 wireless access points to a switch, to trial a few floors, and plan the server placement in between the 200 MB internet connection supplied by comcast and a switch. Each wireless access point will be connected to the switch.
I will using it initially for a click through splash page and for issuing ip addressees to devices connecting to the network. After it is up and running, I will implement the firewall, and authentication with pfsenses user directory.
My first question
Is there an ip addressing scheme to get the dhcp server to issue more than 254 ip addresses? A few 1000 plus would be great. During the summer months there can be up to 1000 people residing in the building.
My current problem
I can access the web configurator, but can not get internet access for the test sup prior to placement in the network.
I successfully installed pfsense on a computer with 2 NIC cards, and can access it through a switch to web configuration utility, but get no internet access to the computer connected to it as a client.
Here is my settings:
WAN DHCP 10.0.3.9/24 (issued by another current router on the extisitng lan)
LAN 192.168.0.1/16I am running the DHCP server on the LAN interface above, with ip addressing scheme from 192.168.0.10 thru 192.168.0.254. My gateway and DNS is set to 192.168.0.1.
I did not set up any firewall rules, and no authentication, or security. Just enabled the captive portal for the test set up.
I rebooted and restarted everything multiple times, but I still can not access the internet through pfsense.
If your near ocean city I'll buy you some beers, if you can help me with this.
Thanx
Ron
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Use 2 interfaces with each having a /24
Use 3 if you need a management interface.
This is easy and cheap.
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"Is there an ip addressing scheme to get the dhcp server to issue more than 254 ip addresses? "
Um sorry but why are you setting up this system?? You don't even know basic network masking? If you need 1000 IPs then use a /22 – but you already put /16 on pfsense lan - so why do you have your dhcp scope so limited?
Can pfsense ping the internet? From the web gui go to diag. ping - can you ping your gateway. What IP address does pfsense have on its wan interface?
You think 1K uses are going to be happy with the wifi you get with 3 AP?? I really think you need to some that does this sort of stuff for a living to set it up for you.
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"Is there an ip addressing scheme to get the dhcp server to issue more than 254 ip addresses? "
Um sorry but why are you setting up this system?? You don't even know basic network masking? If you need 1000 IPs then use a /22 – but you already put /16 on pfsense lan - so why do you have your dhcp scope so limited?
Thank you, I change the configuration, I understand. I am semi IP retarted. Greatly apreeciated.
Can pfsense ping the internet?
No I can ping the 192.168.0.1
From the web gui go to diag. ping - can you ping your gateway. What IP address does pfsense have on its wan interface?
10.0.3.9
You think 1K uses are going to be happy with the wifi you get with 3 AP?? I really think you need to some that does this sort of stuff for a living to set it up for you.
The 3 dual band 2/5 G APs installed are for a testing to cover 28 units only, over 2 floors. We are planning on deploying one per approximate 10 apartments. It will be a free network for the condo association.
Yes, someone else could set this up very quickly, I am open to paying someone.
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Set up an additional ones besides the LAN and WAN with a setting of 24?
Use 2 interfaces with each having a /24
Use 3 if you need a management interface.
This is easy and cheap.
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Sorry I still do not get why are you using so small DHCP range (subset of /24) when you already have /16 in use on your LAN.
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Sorry I still do not get why are you using so small DHCP range (subset of /24) when you already have /16 in use on your LAN.
I am connected to lan port on wireless router, as a test setup. I am not directly connected to the cable modem, where the box will be finally installed. I am assuming since I set up the WAN side with DHCP. when I do the final install between the cable modem and switch. it will detect the new IP from the cable modem.
Is the /24 issued by the router i am connected to ?
That is my current assumption.
I changed my LAN to /22.
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Sigh. I give up. Making your LAN smaller will NOT help to solve lack of available IPs caused by assigning a yet even smaller subset of the available LAN range to the DHCP server. Kindly Google for some subnet calculator.
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Sigh. I give up. Making your LAN smaller will NOT help to solve lack of available IPs caused by assigning a yet even smaller subset of the available LAN range to the DHCP server. Kindly Google for some subnet calculator.
Ok .
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So pfsense gets 10.0.3.9 on its wan, what is its gateway - can it ping that? So your behind a nat already,so double nat.
Until pfsense itself can get to the internet, no clients will ever be able to get to the internet.
What do you have in front of pfsense?
As to the mask stuff.. So your lan with /16 gives you 65k addresses to work with 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.255.254, you could your make your dhcp scope had out all of those or any portion of those you want to hand out.
That mask is to big if you ask me, if you need 1000 users then I would make the mask on the lan /22 - or I would make multiple segments vs putting all those users in 1 segment. Please don't take this the wrong way - but if your having issues with this basic stuff, I am curious why are you trying to set this up. Wifi network for 1000 users would normally require way more than 3 AP, unless you only expected a very small portion of that user base to ever be on at the same time.
Lets say you you had = split between 3 AP, that is 333 users on each AP all sharing the bandwidth. What APs did you put in? Hope some very high end enterprise grade - or do you have some soho routers your trying to use as AP? Even the highest end AP wouldn't do very good with 300 clients on them ;)
I would suggest you hire company/consultant that deals with wifi installs of this nature to best help you make the users happy, etc.
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So pfsense gets 10.0.3.9 on its wan, what is its gateway - can it ping that? So your behind a nat already,so double nat.
YES
Until pfsense itself can get to the internet, no clients will ever be able to get to the internet.
What do you have in front of pfsense?
As to the mask stuff.. So your lan with /16 gives you 65k addresses to work with 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.255.254, you could your make your dhcp scope had out all of those or any portion of those you want to hand out.
That mask is to big if you ask me, if you need 1000 users then I would make the mask on the lan /22 - or I would make multiple segments vs putting all those users in 1 segment. Please don't take this the wrong way - but if your having issues with this basic stuff, I am curious why are you trying to set this up. Wifi network for 1000 users would normally require way more than 3 AP, unless you only expected a very small portion of that user base to ever be on at the same time.
We are installing 18, 3 is a test. There are a 1000 people in the building for the summer months, almost empty off season. I just want not to run out of IPs, I have no idea howe many devices. tablets computers and phones. 10 per unit maybe.
Lets say you you had = split between 3 AP, that is 333 users on each AP all sharing the bandwidth. What APs did you put in? Hope some very high end enterprise grade - or do you have some soho routers your trying to use as AP? Even the highest end AP wouldn't do very good with 300 clients on them ;)
The 18 APs will service no more than 60 users each and we will add more later when adoption ramps up.
I would suggest you hire company/consultant that deals with wifi installs of this nature to best help you make the users happy, etc.
Anyone interested ? I do not want to F it up.
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I put netgear nighthawk wireless routers r7000 ac1900 for the test some with tomato firmware and netgear, and will be running them as APs. They are limited to 32 connections per channel running netgears firmware.
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"The 18 APs will service no more than 60 users each and we will add more later when adoption ramps up. "
"I put netgear nighthawk wireless routers r7000 ac1900 for the test "So these home routers AC1900, r7000 are just tests.. What AP are you going to use in production? You can not be serious that you would roll out home routers as AP in such a setup??
60 users each is a LOT if you expect any sort of actual performance.
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Sorry I still do not get why are you using so small DHCP range (subset of /24) when you already have /16 in use on your LAN.
I'm not sure if you understand /24 /16 /8 etc prefixes, so I will post this.
https://www.ripe.net/images/cidr_working42.jpg
The reason I said use 2 /24s or maybe even 3 if you have the interfaces for it is because thats simple and easy and most consumer equipment defaults to using /24s anyway.
You can get lots of IPs on a single interface by making your prefix size larger (which means using smaller namubers - /16 is bigger than /24)
For instance, using a /23 on your LAN would get you 512 addresses.
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What's the budget for the project?
What do you have in place for switching and PoE?
Are you running new cables to the optimal locations (usually in ceilings) or are you just putting them wherever there is already a run? If the latter, where are they typically located?
Are you going to try to rely on meshing in any locations?
What's the general building construction? How many floors?
How did you arrive at the 18 AP number? Seems WAY too low at 10.3 apartment units per AP.
What kind of performance is expected?
Growth over 5-7 years (think about increases in associated devices)?
Any other requirements (captive portal, multiple BSSIDs, etc)?
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The reason I said use 2 /24s or maybe even 3 if you have the interfaces for it is because thats simple and easy and most consumer equipment defaults to using /24s anyway.
Using multiple subnets on the same SSID is tricky. I don't believe there is any requirement to renew DHCP when roaming from AP to AP.
With wired you can do whatever you want. Wireless, not so much.
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Then that leaves changing prefix size. Its just that anyone who could set that up easily wouldn't have asked the question to begin with.
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^ exactly those are all basic questions on setting up something like this.
Plus many more, many! Budget for a rollout of this sort of thing is going to be in the 10's of Ks most likely. There is a huge difference between setting up a wifi ap in your house or smb vs something like this with 1000 users in a high rise anything. Are you attempting to just cover common areas in the building or the apt themselves.
Are the apt owners running their own wifi? Do they have wired internet now? That could cause huge issues with wifi noise. To think such a project could be done by someone that does not even understand basic netmasks.. No offense but you are so far over head..
Only thing I can say positive is you picked pfsense ;)
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Thank you all ! I got it running….. moved the server in between the cable modem and the switch.
I would buy everyone here a few beers for your help. You all have brought from me from semi retarded IP class, to handicapped level !
Sorry I still do not get why are you using so small DHCP range (subset of /24) when you already have /16 in use on your LAN.
I'm not sure if you understand /24 /16 /8 etc prefixes, so I will post this.
https://www.ripe.net/images/cidr_working42.jpg
The reason I said use 2 /24s or maybe even 3 if you have the interfaces for it is because thats simple and easy and most consumer equipment defaults to using /24s anyway.
You can get lots of IPs on a single interface by making your prefix size larger (which means using smaller namubers - /16 is bigger than /24)
For instance, using a /23 on your LAN would get you 512 addresses.
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Thank you , now I understand that Ethernet interfaces gives more IPs.
Use 2 interfaces with each having a /24
Use 3 if you need a management interface.
This is easy and cheap.
