PFSense Connection Issues

[#1]

Hi All, Ive just moved back to plusnet FTTC (openreach have told me that I should have FTTP available in a couple of months) from VM

My plusnet Hub2 connects to the internet without any problems in router mode

However my My home network runs on PFSense I dug out my old HG612 modem and configured my PFSense WAN port for PPPoE entered my plusnet username and password as far as I understand I don't need to enter or change anything else

PFSense dashboard shows the WAN port as up with an IP starting 195:  and the gateway shows an IP starting 172: but the PFSense Dashboard shows gateway as Loss 100% Offline packet loss. I have tried setting my Hub2 into Bridge mode and that produces the same error.

I hope someone out there can point me in the right direction

I still have VM BB until the 13th March  but I don't want to have to reconfigure my network to work with the Hub2 in router mode

[#2]

@ALancashireLad 

Have you left VLAN blank this is important. VLAN is handled by the modem on FTTC, not required for FTTP

Have you added @plusdsl.net to your username, e.g.  fred@plusdsl.net?

[#3]

I run the Hub2 in modem mode for FttC with PFsense having previously used the OpenReach HG612, the config is the same for both, I attach a screenshot of my WAN connection config, most fields are blank, the IPV6 can be ignored with PlusNet. Funny enough I'm going the other way as FttP isn't happening anytime soon here and I want to keep a home phone.

[#4]

Hi Thanks for the help much appreciated unfortunately  it hasn't helped

I don't have any VLANS on the WAN port

I have tried entering incorrect username and password and the WAN connection just shows as down so I know I have entered the details are correctly

I have tried pinging the plusnet gateway 172.16.10.107 on my VM account and it just times out no response

Could you try pinging this gateway and if you get no reply your gateway if different because it could be setup to ignore pings

[#5]

Thanks had mine setup exactly like yours apart from the MTU number but it made no differance

Cheers

[#6]

@ALancashireLad 

The gateway starting 195.166.nnn.nnn for my connection does not respond to pings

Many other devices within the plusnet network do not either.

What are you trying to achieve with the ping test?

[#7]

I'm trying to work out why my PFSense router cant access the internet with Plusnet. PFSense has worked fine with Virgin Media

PFSense is connecting to Plusnet as its getting IP and Gateway addresses but PFSense reports the gateway as down 100% packet loss. Everything works fine via the Hub 2 I picking up the same IP address as the PFSense router

All I've done is change the WAN settings from DHCP to PPPoE and entered my user name and password which I know is correct because If I enter it incorrectly the WAN port shows as down I also entered an MTU value of 1492

I did suspect that Plusnet might not allow their servers to respond to pings for security

Feel like I'm going round in circles I must have missed something but I haven't a clue what it is.

Might have to bite the bullet and do a fresh install of PFSense see if that makes any difference, but as normal I forgot to make a backup of the config.

[#8]

@ALancashireLad  you've probably got Gateway Monitoring enabled.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/routing/gateway-configure.html

[#9]

A fresh rebuild and restore from a backup is not always as good as it sounds as any erroneous settings would be restored.

Have you used any of the Diagnostics tools, I note amongst many  ping, dns lookup, traceroute and command prompt which might be handy

[#10]

---

@ALancashireLad wrote:

... ... PFSense Dashboard shows gateway as Loss 100% Offline packet loss. ... ...

I use Plusnet DNS server  212.159.6.9  as my ping monitor endpoint

My pfSense Dashboard looks like this -

with   Status > Services > dpinger > 'Related settings'

looking like this -

and the   WAN Gateway  configured like this -

[#11]

@Anonymous you seem to have set a different ( not gateway ) ip to monitor. From memory , isn't that one of the dns servers ?

[#12 · Accepted solution]

I can't remember why exactly I chose those settings, as my pfSense WAN config hasn't been changed since around 2012.

However I have just tried pinging the gateway 195.166.130.251  and get no reply,

whereas  pinging  Plusnet DNS server  212.159.6.9  does respond.

[#13]

@ALancashireLad 

PFSense is connecting to Plusnet as its getting IP and Gateway addresses but PFSense reports the gateway as down 100% packet loss.

I assume you're see something like this?

This does not mean your internet connection is down, just the device being monitored does not respond to ping.

Following @Anonymous instructions you can add a device IP which responds to ping, he using a plusnet DNS IP, I am using 

pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.164] a device which off plusnet network. 

If you click on settings for Gateways you can change the displayed IP, I have chosen both.

HTH

Note:- My pfSense is running as a guest virtual box system.

[#14]

Thanks to everybody who responded to my request for help

It was indeed because PFSense automatically sets the Gateway IP as the monitor which is fine if the gateway is set to respond I guess. Added the plusnet DNS server as monitor and everything fine now.

Again many thanks

[#15]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I can't remember why exactly I chose those settings, as my pfSense WAN config hasn't been changed since around 2012.

However I have just tried pinging the gateway 195.166.130.251  and get no reply,

whereas  pinging  Plusnet DNS server  212.159.6.9  does respond.

---

Having thought about this a bit more, I originally chose  'ntp.plus.net'  as my ping endpoint,  as I figured that the Plusnet NTP time server 'should' have a fastest response and lowest jitter of any of the Plusnet servers.

Back more than a decade ago, I'm sure that the address my connection pinged when accessing 'ntp.plus.net'  was  212.159.6.9,  so I chose that because (I think) at the time pfSense only accepted a numeric IP address rather than the name 'ntp.plus.net'.

Looking today at  'ntp.plus.net',  the server has changed and is now some device on the BT network -

> nslookup ntp.plus.net

Non-authoritative answer:
ntp.plus.net	canonical name = ntp.vision.bt.com.
ntp.vision.bt.com	canonical name = ntp.r53-gslb.vision.bt.com.
Name:	ntp.r53-gslb.vision.bt.com
Address: 213.123.16.85

which probably explains why my pfSense NTP server no longer chooses 'ntp.plus.net' for it's NTP "Active Peer" to synchronise with,  as the 'Plusnet NTP' server is possibly no longer local to my connection endpoint in Telehouse London, and I have other NTP server pools specified which have less jitter - so pfSense chooses the best candidate from those.