need help linking routers

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amrogers3

Gawd
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Nov 7, 2010
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Hello, I am trying to link a router (pfSense) and a dd-wrt flashed WRT54L . I followed the directions in the wiki:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Access_Point

However, I am unable to ping outside. If I connect ethernet cable from pfSense to laptop I can ping out and it works. If I put the WRT in between the router and the laptop it no longer works. I am sure I am missing a simple step but I can't figure it out.

My set up looks like this: AT&T uverse (DMZ mode)---pfsense---WRT54L

I could use some help troubleshooting my setup. Thanks in advance for the help.
 
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do you want to use the WRT54L as an access point and the pfSense as a firewall? If so make sure you are using a LAN port on your WRT54L and not the WAN port and turn off DHCP on the WRT54L if you are using pfSense as the DHCP server.
 
Check your IP addressing scheme. Make sure they are all using the same subnet like 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254 not one router using 192.168.1.1 as LAN and the other 192.168.0.1 and then configuring alternate gateways on the AP router.
Make sure only one router is dishing out IP address. If the DHCP servers are turned on both they will conflict.
Make sure the router's gateway (the one you are using as your access point) is configured to use the other (your primary that is connected to the internet)
 
also, is your WRT using NAT? if not, your pfsense needs a static route to your 'internal' network (whatever the laptop gets behind the WRT).
 
Jay_oasis said:
do you want to use the WRT54L as an access point and the pfSense as a firewall? If so make sure you are using a LAN port on your WRT54L and not the WAN port and turn off DHCP on the WRT54L if you are using pfSense as the DHCP server.
Click to expand...

Yes sir, that is exactly what I am trying to do. I used the LAN port. I also tried the WAN port after I enable "wan switchport" under setup.
 
Kaiga said:
Check your IP addressing scheme. Make sure they are all using the same subnet like 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254 not one router using 192.168.1.1 as LAN and the other 192.168.0.1 and then configuring alternate gateways on the AP router.
Make sure only one router is dishing out IP address. If the DHCP servers are turned on both they will conflict.
Click to expand...

Ok cool, I turned off DHCP on the DDWRT. I'm not sure how to change the default IP on the ddwrt router. I think it's set to correct IP/subnet though. I believe it's IP is 192.168.102.100. The pfsense interface is 192.168.102.1

Kaiga said:
Make sure the router's gateway (the one you are using as your access point) is configured to use the other (your primary that is connected to the internet)
Click to expand...

The pfsense router 's interface is 192.168.102.1. I set the ddwrt gateway and DNS to 192.168.102.1. Is that what you mean?
 
Kaiga said:
Check your IP addressing scheme. Make sure they are all using the same subnet like 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254 not one router using 192.168.1.1 as LAN and the other 192.168.0.1 and then configuring alternate gateways on the AP router.
Make sure only one router is dishing out IP address. If the DHCP servers are turned on both they will conflict.
Make sure the router's gateway (the one you are using as your access point) is configured to use the other (your primary that is connected to the internet)
Click to expand...

you need to do this stuff

1 give your ap a static ip (in the correct range)

2 turn off dhcp on the router (linksys)
 
berky said:
also, is your WRT using NAT? if not, your pfsense needs a static route to your 'internal' network (whatever the laptop gets behind the WRT).
Click to expand...

Hey berky, I disabled the router capability under the setup page. Are you sure about the static route? The IPs behind the ddwrt will change. I am going to use it as a wireless access point so IPs will change frequently.
 
amrogers3 said:
Hey berky, I disabled the router capability under the setup page. Are you sure about the static route? The IPs behind the ddwrt will change. I am going to use it as a wireless access point so IPs will change frequently.
Click to expand...

the static route is not needed in the setup you are using.


as long as you are not using the WAN interface on the wireless router/AP, you should be fine.
 
I didn't see whether this was connecting the 2 using wires or WDS.

Remember, if using WDS then you cannot use the dual-band functionality, and both routers must be on the same Channel. (1, 6 or 11) for B/G...
 
Ok, NAT, DHCP, and WAN is disabled. The wrt54gl hAs static IP adress of 192.168.102.100. The pfsense interface has an IP of 192.168.102.1. I have the wrt54gl LAN interface connected via wire to the pfSense. The uverse wireless is also disabled.

I can ping the wwdrt interface, however I can't access the pfsense interface. Uverse(DMZ mode)---pfsense---WRT54L

Still no love with pinging out. I read something about loopback broken on the most recent build of ddwrt but I don't know enough about the software/networking to know if this applies to my setup. I'm out of my league on this one.
 
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sounds like the WRT needs to be in "router" mode and not "gateway" mode.

Also, you'll need a route on the pfsense, pointing back to the WRT for whatever network you're using behind the WRT.

IT's likely that on egress, you can hit the box, but the pfsense doesn't know where you're coming from since the WRT by default is going to NAT anything outbound.
 
Eminence_Front said:
sounds like the WRT needs to be in "router" mode and not "gateway" mode.

Also, you'll need a route on the pfsense, pointing back to the WRT for whatever network you're using behind the WRT.

IT's likely that on egress, you can hit the box, but the pfsense doesn't know where you're coming from since the WRT by default is going to NAT anything outbound.
Click to expand...

EF, wrt54 is in 'router' mode. Shouldn't I be able to ping pfSense interface without setting up port forwarding on pfSense box?

I currently can't reach pfSense interface.
 
OK, update.

Found the problem. I have 4 VLANS set up. VLAN1, VLAN2, VLAN3, VLAN4. Apparently the VLAN I was using on the pfSense box had an incorrect MAC address assigned to it.

On the setup page, there were not any MAC addresses 'manually' assigned to any of the interfaces. When I went to "status" and then "interfaces" and found a different MAC address assigned to the interface I had the WRT linked up to.

All of the VLANs should have had the 'LAN' mac address assigned to them. Not sure how the one VLAN was using had a different MAC.

Anyway problem solved. Thanks for all the replies!
 
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