Hello,
Is there a network device order preference concerning a pfsense box and an OpenWRT device?
OpenWRT first to ISP router, then pfsense box?
Or pfsense box first facing ISP, router then OpenWRT device?
Yes, I know this is inherently bad, with 3 routing devices, though, I did have this working good before, I am just redoing my setup.
I am wanting to use the OpenWRT device primarily for CakeAutorate SQM duty.
In essence, this is entirely a policy decision - you can make it either way.
There isn't really a way to answer this based on your information either, as it's quite unclear what kind of internet access (is PPPoE involved, modems, etc.) and its speed rating we're talking about, nor what actual routing hardware is involved or at your disposal). In general I'm not a fan of router cascades (unless you're in university campus sized environments), it just needs twice the electricity and forces you to do many configuration settings twice, on two different devices in lockstep, following very different configuration mantras, this is just a recipe for problems. Don't get me wrong, of course this can be done - and be done properly, it just makes things unnecessarily complex.
Keep in mind, for sqm/cake to work, your OpenWrt device (regardless of the question if you put it in front- or behing the pfsense one) would have to do all the heavy lifting of being able to route your WAN speed, this basically means two x86_64 devices, which doesn't sound very appealing to me, considering that one device (either pfsense XOR OpenWrt could do the job alone).
So what do you want to accomplish here?
pfsense is (effectively) x86_64 only and not really capable to act as AP itself, so from that angle your OpenWrt device would have to tackle the wireless aspect - for which it would have to be behind the pfsense router (but in that case -if you want sqm- you effectively lose all the pfsense specific features).
If you do put the OpenWrt device in front of the pfsense, making it do routing and sqm, there's nothing left for the pfsense system to do - it's just dead weight.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all implying that pfsense would be a bad choice (although I would favour opnsense over pfsense, thanks to their continuing behaviour), but it's 'only' useful as a router -the router-, while OpenWrt could integrate well into a pfsense( opnsense environment as dumb-AP or managed switch (rtl838x) as well, but if you do want it to do sqm in such an environment (so be a router as well), one of the routers is just superfluous.
Hello,
Thank you for your reply!
Before, I had OpenWRT facing my ISP router, then the pfsense box feeding my switch for everything else.
Now I want the OpenWRT router behind the pfsense box that is facing my ISP router.
I was hoping someone had successfully performed this.
I can get the WAN to work internally, as I can download package list, nslookup, etc.
However, I cannot get any routing to the LAN by any of the myriad settings changes I make.
I am sure some will chastise me, WHY are you even doing this?
Shrug, because I wish to.
Thanks.
Wow, I don't what my malfunction was yesterday.
Today, all is working well.
Yey!