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Pfsense behind ONT?

SirAsvald

Member
Hi All,

I would like to replace the Linksys router with my pfsense box. Essentially have the Pfsense connected directly to the ONT and for it to receive Public IP address. Has Anyone done this? reasons is because I am double Natted and it is causing issues with some of the services I am running on my lab.

Thanks.
 
I have, was pretty simple.

Plugged the ONT into the LAN port of my PfSense box and then configure what the ONT expects to receive, in my case it was PPPoE credentials and then worked right away
 
I have, was pretty simple.

Plugged the ONT into the LAN port of my PfSense box and then configure what the ONT expects to receive, in my case it was PPPoE credentials and then worked right away
Thanks for letting me know that it works, as for the PPPoE credentials, what would they be?

Thanks.
 
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Community Fibre doesnt use any PPPoE authentication, instead the serial of the Adtran ONT is used to authenticate to the remote OLT. So, it should just be a matter of plug and play after configuring the pfSense WAN interface for DHCP IPv4. Only issue maybe whether your pfSense hardware is capable of routing at 1Gbps but a simple speedtest will verify this.
 
Thanks for letting me know that it works, as for the PPPoE credentials, what would they be?

Thanks.
You would have to get in contact with your ISP for that, that's if they're using PPPoE they could be using DHCP which should just work.

In my case the details were listed on my account page with my ISP (Giganet via CityFibre)
 
So I am in Community Fibre and have my pfsense box connected directly to the ONT. Like @stackdell says CF doesn't use PPPoE so no issues there. I think @stackdell got confused here as you are not trying to connect a pfsense directly to the CF fiber but via the ONT so no issues with the Adtran serial number and the OLT.

The only possible issue is whether CF will block the MAC address of your pfsense interface or not. There are contradictory reports about this issue, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't and you need to call Customer Services to "reset the MAC address list". I would strongly advise you avoid this hassle given the recent reports of CF Customer Services being very poor. So the solution is pretty simple. Find out the MAC address of the WAN port of your Linksys router and then set it on the MAC Address field of the pfsense interface you want to use for CF before you connect it to the ONT. Then the ONT will think it's still connected to the Linksys router. I didn't have to do it but I did it a long time ago so YMMV. Finally note that some CF connections use CGNAT so they don't have public IPv4 addresses. So depending on what plan you are you may or may not have a public IPv4 address assigned to your pfsense router.

Screenshot 2024-05-29 at 10.39.24.png
 
I have it too. its the easiest PF WAN setup ever. one think I did is that I cloned/copied the MAC address of the supplied router to the PF WAN interface. in the page as Green's screenshot.
 
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So I am in Community Fibre and have my pfsense box connected directly to the ONT. Like @stackdell says CF doesn't use PPPoE so no issues there. I think @stackdell got confused here as you are not trying to connect a pfsense directly to the CF fiber but via the ONT so no issues with the Adtran serial number and the OLT.

The only possible issue is whether CF will block the MAC address of your pfsense interface or not. There are contradictory reports about this issue, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't and you need to call Customer Services to "reset the MAC address list". I would strongly advise you avoid this hassle given the recent reports of CF Customer Services being very poor. So the solution is pretty simple. Find out the MAC address of the WAN port of your Linksys router and then set it on the MAC Address field of the pfsense interface you want to use for CF before you connect it to the ONT. Then the ONT will think it's still connected to the Linksys router. I didn't have to do it but I did it a long time ago so YMMV. Finally note that some CF connections use CGNAT so they don't have public IPv4 addresses. So depending on what plan you are you may or may not have a public IPv4 address assigned to your pfsense router.

View attachment 14626
I have the 1G/1G package. The IP starts with 45.94.X.X
 
Same for opnSense in case anyone else is wondering. As others have said, depends on your connection type, be it DHCP (IPoE) or PPPoE but it is fairly straight forward. Only limit then is your hardware.
 
Green good advice, perhaps a hint for those who want to know how to find the WAN MAC address, is it printed on the device?
 
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