Existing Mac passthrough list is not working after restarting captive portal

[tommyverburgh]

Hi,

I work pfsense 2.2.4 on a school for more than 5 years.
We use the CP for authentication to our school network.
Once authenticated they are auto added to the pass-through MAC list. (as always)
After restart of the machine or restart of the captive portal the list of mac addresses are still there, but
everyone need to authenticate again as if they are not in the list. When they do, the get in the list 2 or more times. This is not a problem, but the problem is that after restarting the captive portal, users loose their connection and need to reauthenticate. But sometimes this takes a time.
So the most important question/problem is Why does de captive portal seems to 'forget' what's in the list and how can i help this.

greetz

[Gertjan]

Hi,

This is strange.
Normally, I  use the Local User Manager, and I give all my 'client' a login and a password. This works well, people get disconnected after a certain idle time, and get kicked out after the hard time out.
Just for testing, I checked "Enable Pass-through MAC automatic additions" (only that one - not the "Enable Pass-through MAC automatic addition with username")

I tried my Captive Portal, and I had to login using a suer name and pasword. So far, so good.
When I was logged in, I saw that a line like this (see image). My MAC was added to the MAC list.

I rebooted my pfSense box.

When it came up, my device (a SmartPhone) could still connect to the Internet. I consider this is normal: my MAC is on the list.

When I removed the MAC from the MAC list, I had to identify myself again.

I think this is exactly the behavior your are looking for.

So, I guess, start throwing images which show your setup, because something must be wrong with yours.

edit: I presume your question is not related to this https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/3932

[tommyverburgh]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. What you are describing is what i'm used to have the last few years. It works perfect. But at this moment. I seems like the pfsense forget the lines in de MAC passthrough list. The lines are still there, but the devices are presented a captive portal again after restarting the captive portal and they need to authenticate to get access to the internet again.
I wonder if it's possible to reinstall the captive portal service, maybe there's something wrong with the installation. I'm using the latest version on a brand new device made for pfsense.

greetz

[doktornotor]

@tommyverburgh:

I wonder if it's possible to reinstall the captive portal service, maybe there's something wrong with the installation. I'm using the latest version on a brand new device made for pfsense.

Sure. Reinstall latest pfSense update.