I get through the initial setup ok, I set red to static per our ISP, I chose to leave the DHCP to the Netgear router we use. I set green to 192.168.10.1, with my laptop set manually to 192.168.10.25 and plugged into the GREEN NIC I can access the WebUI and am online. How do I set the router? When I try to set the internet IP to 192.168.10.1 it asks for a default gateway, but it won’t let me use 10.1 as the default gateway. How should I proceed?, I was going to let the router do DHCP and set the IP scheme to the existing 192.168.1.1 scheme for simplicity, have I made a basic mistake? Thanks for any tips you can provide!
Welcome to IPFire!
I don’t quite understand, how your system is build up.
I guess from your description the config as follows
ISP <---> {RED: static IP} IPFire {GREEN: 192.168.10.1} <-Network 192.168.10.0/24-> {192.168.10.25}Laptop, {...}Router{...}
Is this right? Or is your Netgear connected between IPFire and your Laptop?
You have it mostly right, I had to put the laptop on static IP because the IPfire PC does not have DHCP enabled, I intend to let the router handle DHCP. So now I want to connect the router to the green NIC and let it assign IPs to client devices, my laptop was only temporarily going to use the static IP (and it was never between ipfire and the router, I am configuring the router directly connected to the laptop). When I go to set up the router it asks for internet IP, which I figured would be the address I assigned the green NIC, I set it, then it wants a default gateway, I cannot leave it blank or use 192.168.10.1, so what can I input as the default gateway? OR have I made a basic error and I need to configure the router differently, perhaps set the internet to 10.25 and the default gateway to 10.1?
If your Netgear router shall be the DHCP server in the local ( green ) network, only, it must get an address out of the green network ( 192.168.10.0/24 ) f.e. 192.168.10.20 as “internet address”.
This means your router isn’t routing, it is just a server in green. Its gateway is the IPFire device 192.168.10.1, as for any device in green.
But why do you not use the DHCP server in IPFire?
An architecture with IPFire as internet access device, DHCP server, name (DNS) server, … is much more straight-forward, IMO.
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I agree with @bbitsch . This setup seems unnecessarily complex, unless there is a specific reason that has not been mentioned. I use my IPFire appliance as a replacement for my router. Plus, you now have two devices you have to manage firmware updates for.
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Be carefull that your router and IPFire do not have the same gateway IP.
You can run setup and re address your green nic to 192.168.10.10
Then your IPFire gateway IP would be 192.168.10.10.
The problem is your router has its own gateway IP.
Most likely 192.168.10.1
Good luck
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Thanks, that got it working! I don’t really have a good reason to not use IPFIRE as the DHCP server, I guess I didn’t want to have to figure out how to put the Netgear in bridge mode…
I don’t know what your trying to accomplish with your Netgear router.
My suggestion would be to hook your IPFire to your ISP connection.
Use IPFire for DHCP and DNS.
Add use you Netgear router as a AP in the Blue zone.
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I chose red green network config, should I have chosen differently? It’s working like this, but I do notice it’s slower than it was before I deployed IPfire.
IIt’s not necessary to use a router behind IPFire.
If your router has access point mode, use it in that mode and let it retrieve your green IPFire address via DHCP, or use a static address and the green network gateway 192.168.10.xx.
You should provide more information about your configuration:
What hardware is IPFire running on?
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I repurposed a Dell Optiplex 790 with an i7 and 24GB RAM. Is it possible to change the config once it’s up and running, or do I need to reinstall if I want to add blue zone and let IPfire handle DHCP?
To add blue, you can modify the configuration in console or ssh mode with the setup command.
for dhcp use the web interface
Which network cards are you using for the red and green (and blue) networks?
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If IPFire is between the Switch and the ISP Router, I believe, in my understanding, that it is not possible to make a computer that is connected to the Switch be able to obtain an IP from the Router via DHCP, since IPFire DOES NOT WORK TRANSPARENTLY (as far as I know) and does NAT.
Example:
Bye.
Adding a firewall rule network like blue to an existing system only requires running the command setup at a terminal window.
As far as the netgear router, I would stick it in wireless access mode and stick it on blue, If you don’t have a free ethernet port, a usb to 1Gb adapter is not hard to get at a store. plug it in, run setup, assign it blue and a network address scheme different than the other colors.
The IPFire machine replaces the isp router with an advanced firewall and local dns server that has predefined firewall networking zones for the internal network. Green is the main Lan Blue is for wireless,TV, voip modem that is isolated from the network and orange is static addressed DMZ for servers ( I have my NAS, and printers here)
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