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Entries in PFSense (2)

Thursday
Jul092009

Werid pfSense Fault

DateThursday, July 9, 2009 at 2:13PM

In my recent play time with the pfSense captive portal I came across a strange fault. Basically when the HTTPS (SSL) option for login is enabled on the captive portal it uses the HTTPS server name that is set in the config to check against the Common Name on the SSL certificate so it doesn't produces a name mismatch error.

In my testing I changed the HTTPS server name a few times then back to the original that was on the certificate. After having done this and connecting to the captive portal I would get a generic DNS can't connect error... not good. I had just added a new restrictive rule set to the captive portal interface and I thought that was dropping packets.

I remembered about the Diagnostics: Packet Capture tool that is included in the UI (which is really cool btw). This tool helped me debug the problem by capturing the failed connection attempt to a capture file which I then downloaded and loaded it into Wireshark for analysis.

For some strange reason the original system name (pfsense.local, not the same as the hostname) that worked before, now would not resolve the name. I didn't have time to mess about with it further so I just added the name to the Services: DNS forwarder as shown above.

That solved my problem, an ugly hack workaround but I don't care. I may look into it further if I get the time and if anyone knows about this let me know.

 
AuthorGraham | CommentPost a Comment | | | Print ArticlePrint Article
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Tuesday
Mar312009

Graham's ALIX 2D3 Firewall Project

DateTuesday, March 31, 2009 at 11:20AM

I wanted a network device that I could get inside and mess about with it. I used a customised version of FreeBSD (my favourite unix) called PFSense. I used PFSense because I'm a networking guy and I wanted access to powerful network services like Captive Portal, Load Balancing, VPN and a strong network separation device. See the PFSense feature list for more.

These are the products that I used:

ALIX 2D3 System Board - LX800 / 256MB RAM / 3 LAN / mini-PCI / USB + CASE
Installed with PFSense.

Pros

  • Low power usage.
  • No operating noise.
  • Small boxed size.
  • Very stable (99 days uptime at time of writing).
  • Can be upgraded with wireless via mini-PCI.

Cons

Click to read more ...

AuthorGraham | CommentPost a Comment | | | Print ArticlePrint Article
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