Installing and learning new stuff
I learnt a few more things with this install, I had never had a need to bridge my NB1300plus4 didn't really even know why it was necessary never had a need before now. If you happen to have a NB1300 this is the link to the Netcomm knowledge base article and it also has a video tute.
Bridging the NB1300
That was the first thing I learnt, the second thing was that when you bridge a modem you need an interface to configure things as essentially the modem can't be configured now, well thats how it seemed to me as the home page of 192.168.1.1 was now taken over by pfSense that had me scratching my head, then it dawned on me that pfSense had a page in it's config web interface to enter the details for a PPOE connection DOH!!!
Ok yeah you experts will laugh I dare say, but this is all new to me lol. After a bit of rooting around or is that routing around and much reading I finally had pfSense up and running. I spent a couple of hours becoming familiar with the interface which of course I accessed through my desktop via 192.168.1.1 and a lot more reading of pfSense forums and articles.
Don't let this put you off I have Multiple Sclerosis and the old grey matter aint as grey as it used to be, resulting in cognitive problems so if I can do it I swear anyone can.
I do have a bit of a giggle to myself about how damn silly or just not realising the most simple of things at times lol. If you asked me to do it all again I would have to go back and re read some of the tutorials and FAQs, not much truly sinks in these days.
VoIP and traffic shaping
Now this is really the main reason I installed pfSense for the traffic shaping features it has within, it sets it apart from Monowall as such.
This is where I go back to the hardware NICs (network interface cards). I had a couple of SMC 10/100 nics and thought beauty perfect and free, all went well or so it seemed, there was nothing wrong with the SMCs, well only if you didn't want traffic shaping DOH!@
You see in my quest to get familiarized with the interface, I left the traffic shaping till the end, when I got around to it and clicked on the link to configure it, the page said that the crads didn't support altQ. altQ this is the packet filter, please read the pfSense website for more info on that it is out of the scope of this brief article.
Needless to say I had to do more research on NICs lol, it seems that Intel NICs are the best overall for pfSense for ALTQ to work.
Luckily I have a mate who just happened to have 2 based on the Intel pro series, one was a 10/100 NIC the other a 1000 NIC. I installed these and voila the no go message didn't come up again. I did hold my breath when I clicked the link to configure traffic shaping.
Traffic shaping config is rather straight forward, it takes you through the steps for a successful outcome. I think I may still have to tweak it a bit as I learn more though I can call out whilst running Azureus on the MythTV media box. You can watch the traffic shaping graphs and see the packets change slow doen on P2P and increase on Voip.
I will need to learn more as I say but for now it's adequate and works. I am still in awe of pfSense, well done to the developers ;o)
The next pages will have some screenshots of the web interface of pfSense and the settings I am using.
Bridging the NB1300
That was the first thing I learnt, the second thing was that when you bridge a modem you need an interface to configure things as essentially the modem can't be configured now, well thats how it seemed to me as the home page of 192.168.1.1 was now taken over by pfSense that had me scratching my head, then it dawned on me that pfSense had a page in it's config web interface to enter the details for a PPOE connection DOH!!!
Ok yeah you experts will laugh I dare say, but this is all new to me lol. After a bit of rooting around or is that routing around and much reading I finally had pfSense up and running. I spent a couple of hours becoming familiar with the interface which of course I accessed through my desktop via 192.168.1.1 and a lot more reading of pfSense forums and articles.
Don't let this put you off I have Multiple Sclerosis and the old grey matter aint as grey as it used to be, resulting in cognitive problems so if I can do it I swear anyone can.
I do have a bit of a giggle to myself about how damn silly or just not realising the most simple of things at times lol. If you asked me to do it all again I would have to go back and re read some of the tutorials and FAQs, not much truly sinks in these days.
VoIP and traffic shaping
Now this is really the main reason I installed pfSense for the traffic shaping features it has within, it sets it apart from Monowall as such.
This is where I go back to the hardware NICs (network interface cards). I had a couple of SMC 10/100 nics and thought beauty perfect and free, all went well or so it seemed, there was nothing wrong with the SMCs, well only if you didn't want traffic shaping DOH!@
You see in my quest to get familiarized with the interface, I left the traffic shaping till the end, when I got around to it and clicked on the link to configure it, the page said that the crads didn't support altQ. altQ this is the packet filter, please read the pfSense website for more info on that it is out of the scope of this brief article.
Needless to say I had to do more research on NICs lol, it seems that Intel NICs are the best overall for pfSense for ALTQ to work.
Luckily I have a mate who just happened to have 2 based on the Intel pro series, one was a 10/100 NIC the other a 1000 NIC. I installed these and voila the no go message didn't come up again. I did hold my breath when I clicked the link to configure traffic shaping.
Traffic shaping config is rather straight forward, it takes you through the steps for a successful outcome. I think I may still have to tweak it a bit as I learn more though I can call out whilst running Azureus on the MythTV media box. You can watch the traffic shaping graphs and see the packets change slow doen on P2P and increase on Voip.
I will need to learn more as I say but for now it's adequate and works. I am still in awe of pfSense, well done to the developers ;o)
The next pages will have some screenshots of the web interface of pfSense and the settings I am using.
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