Configure 2 NIC FreeBSD server as a WAN switch

ethoms · #1 January 22nd, 2012, 05:06

Basically I want to configure a FreeBSD (8.2) server to act like a network switch. One cable from fibre optic modem coming in on one NIC. And one cable going out from NIC 2 on the same subnet (an 16 public IP block from ISP) to a layer 2 network switch, to the other servers using the public subnet. Can this be done? I'm going to try it by setting up both NICs on same subnet, different IPs and then set

Code:

gateway_enable="YES"

in rc.conf. Just doing some research before I go to the office and start disrupting the connection.

Why not just use a switch between the modem and WAN facing NICs?

Because the back end (ISP) doesn't like talking to layer 2 devices, couldn't send email to yahoo, yet every other mail domain worked fine. I've tried using the router they supplied, split my public subnet into two; one on each interface, bridged them, and then put the switch behind that. Because the router is layer 3, it solved my sending to yahoo mail problem but I only get half my internet upload speed.

I've tried so many different configurations, each switch I use has slightly different behaviour. Basically the internet connection and/or the modem seem very fussy about the hardware it talks to. One things for sure, If I connect a server directly to the modem, I get full speed, infact I get double the upload speed I should be getting on my contract. So, I thought I'd let FreeBSD do my networking, I'm confident it can get more out of my connection than these damn off-the-shelf routers/switches.

The cable modem is 100Mb/s full duplex. I need a good networking stack (FreeBSD) to buffer this as I'm convinced it's the speed and duplex on different links that's causing the problems.

How can I do this, one cable from modem to FreeBSD server, service running on this FreeBSD server, then share through a second NIC and switch to another server (Solaris) also running internet services.

All the guides / documentation I can find regarding gateways / routers are related to 2 subnets. But I want to do only with one public subnet.

**phoenix** · #2 January 22nd, 2012, 06:29

Can you draw a diagram of the network topology? Not exactly sure what you are trying to do, but it sounds like bridging is what you need.

ethoms · #3 January 23rd, 2012, 02:11

I thought of bridging first of all, but it didn't work. I managed to create a bridge0 and set it a valid IP + subnet. From what I remember, it would ping out if the internet facing NICs was plugged but as soon as the other NIC was pluggged it couldn't route to anything. Perhaps I needed the gateway_enable="YES" option set. Will try again when I go to office.

Network diagram:

Code:

ISP gateway (200.200.200.113)
           |
           |
Fibre Optic Modem (100baseTX full-duplex)  
           |
           |
         [NIC1]
FreeBSD Gateway/Server (200.200.200.119{host},200.200.200.120{jail},200.200.200.121{jail})
         [NIC2]
           |
           |
     <<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
     |                          |
     |                          |
Solaris Global Zone{host}     Solaris Zone 1
(200.200.200.116)            (200.200.200.118)

ecazamir · #4 January 24th, 2012, 10:00

The proper syntax is:

Code:

gateway_enable="YES"

without the ending 'd'.

An alternate method to permanently enable packet forwarding is to set in /etc/sysctl.conf

Code:

net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

Or temporary, executing

Code:

sysctl net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

ethoms · #5 January 28th, 2012, 10:46

@ecazamir: Thanks, don't know where that d came from, I've edited it out.

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