To Whom it may concern:
Firstly I apologize if I have posted this in the incorrect place, I have spent a few intimate days with google, and the admin page on my PfSense box to no avail. I have read many posts that have similar configurations to mine, but none of the solutions I found have solved my problem.
Until a week ago everything worked fantastically. Here is how everything was setup:
I have 2 physical servers running VMWare ExSi 6.0. Within the virtual environment I have 2 windows 7 x64 machines running as Plex servers. Each are set with static IP’s on my local network. In PfSense I had port forwarding rules set allowing each server to communicate to the outside world and all could be accessed remotely via web browser, tablet, xbox, PS4 etc.
My digital media is stored on a pair of NAS units who are automatically mapped to each of the windows 7 VM’s via group policy on my domain when each box logs into windows automatically upon boot.
Last week I changed something, I now have 2 modems instead of one, I have them configured in a load balance fail-over configuration in PfSense. Since doing this I can no longer get either of the Plex servers to connect.
What I have tried: I have tried creating port forward rules for both WAN1 and WAN2 both simultaneously and one at a time. I have created a floating rule in PfSense both attached to the gateway group and not, bound to both WAN1 and WAN2.
As I mentioned before, I have spent quite a bit of intimate time with google to no avail.
Please advise:
I’m no PfSense expert but I may be able to suggest things you haven’t tried yet.
You didn’t mention if any other services are working after the change are Plex the only ports forwarded in your setup?
In you pull the plug on the new wan (forcing it into fail-over on the old) will the system work then?
Are you trying to get the servers to connect back to the Plex mothership? Or just connecting directly to the servers via your external IP(s)?
In the PfSense logs can you see the packets hitting the wan interfaces, or coming up from the Plex servers through the lan? If so don’t the logs tell you the disposition of those packets?
John
I have looked through all the logs I can find in PfSense and I can’t tell whats happening based on the logs. I am not an expert with PfSense either. I have many other services with port forward rules set in PfSense and Plex is the only one giving me issues. box live, mstsc, PSNetwork, ssh, and my web servers are all working as intended through the firewall. I created rules that bound them to one wan interface or the other, this doesn’t work with Plex. I am trying to connect to the Plex mother-ship as you put it, so that services are available online. I can access Plex internally on my network. If I pull the plug on one WAN or the other it works perfectly.
You should use Wireshark to see where the packets are going.
I Installed Wireshark and ran it with a filter to capture port 32400. I honestly don’t know what I am looking at, but here are the results:
1 0.000000 10.83.0.199 10.83.0.44 TCP 493 32400 -> 64131 [PSH, ACK] Seq=1 Ack=1 Win=510 Len=439
0.199996 10.83.0.44 10.83.0.199 TCP 60 64131 -> 32400 [Ack] Seq=1 Ack=440 Win=253 Len-0
0.200034 10.83.0.199 10.83.0.44 TCP 492 32400 -> 64131 [PSH, ACK] Seq=440 Ack=1 Win=510 Len=438
0.399992 10.83.0.44 10.83.0.199 TCP 60 64131 -> 32400 [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=878 Win=251 Len=0
Frame 1: 493 bytes on wire (3944 bits), 493 bytes captured (3944 bits) on interface 0
Ethernet II, Src: Vmware_1a:db:98 (00:0c:29:1a:db:98), Dst: Dell_6e:68:d4 (74:86:7a:6e:68:d4)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 10.83.0.199, Dst: 10.83.0.44
Transmission Control Protocol, Src Port: 32400 (32400), Dst Port: 64131(34131), Seq: 1, Ack: 1, Len: 439
Data (439 bytes)
This looks like the server is trying to connect to my laptop? 10.83.0.44 is my laptops IP.
