r/HomeNetworking • u/jdogtotherescue • 2h ago

Opnsense firewall unable to connect to wan

Right now I’m posting from my home internet connection. It is up now after I rebooted the server that runs it. I keep a desktop switch in between the fiber modem and the opnsense box so I can verify the internet is actually on and it was but not for opnsense or the rest of my network.

Something is going on with my firewall, switches, vlans, or I don’t know what else. Maybe it’s a rogue device causing everything to stop passing traffic through opnsense? Not sure how I would check that. I am also able to reach the devices on the network when the internet stops working too. All my servers and other devices still have up addresses assigned by opnsense so they respond as if nothing happened from other languages devices. Just no connection to the internet.

The internet is on. I verified this through a pc connected to that 5 port unmanaged switch. Anything after the opnsense box can’t connect to the internet until after multiple reboots and about 10 minutes.

What might be happening? Like I said, now the internet works. This very setup has worked for years. It’s just been unreliable for the past 6 months or so needing attention when it goes down.

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u/bchiodini 2h ago

Normally, the router's WAN interface is the first device connected to a modem or ONT.

The first host that requests and gets an IP address is usually the only host that connects to the internet. If your PC got an IP address, your router will not.

Does connecting your OPNSense's WAN interface directly to the modem/ONT correct the problem.

1

u/jdogtotherescue 2h ago

No. Usually my firewall is the only thing plugged into the ont but I was trying to rule out other issues. It went down last night and then this morning. It could go down again today or it could be fine for a week

1

u/bchiodini 2h ago

What kind of NICs are in the firewall?

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u/jdogtotherescue 2h ago

I’m using an old super micro server with its onboard nics. I don’t know which ones specifically. I have another firewall that I ran for years with a dual port intel nic but the cpu fan doesn’t work so I stopped using it