[SOLVED] Starlink Install

[russoj88]

I have a gen 2 Starlink that I'm trying to connect to a new bare metal router [1]. I think I'm on my 7th try from scratch to get this working, but am having no success.

Using the Starlink router (and WiFi), everything works fine. I get > 50Mbps up and > 15Mbps down, and the pings are under 35ms. Then I go through the "bypass" process before connecting the Ethernet to the new OPNsense box.

At this point I'm only trying to get the OPNsense instance to update.

I've installed the 24.1 image on ZFS. After the install, I assign the interfaces and uncheck "Block private networks" on the WAN. This gets me an IP. I've tried adding the monitor IP from this guide[2] as well, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

DNS does not work at this point (on the OPNsense instance), but after checking "Do not use the local DNS service as a nameserver for this system" in System -> General -> Settings, I am able to get DNS responses, but they are very slow (~10s). I test this with the `host` command.

My next step is to attempt an update, but it times out. I'm doing this from the terminal (#12) on the OPNsense instance. I've also tried a plain `pkg` update which also times out. From some other posts, this seems to be a DNS issue.

1. Is there a place to download an install image of the latest version? I'd like to eliminate an older version being the issue.

2. Is there an updated guide for using Starlink? The guides I've found are all outdated in some way.

3. I get the feeling this shouldn't be this hard! Has anyone successfully used Starlink? If so, what steps did you take to get it working?

[1] The hardware is:
MB: A1SRi-2758F: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/x10/a1sri-2758f.cfm
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 120GB SATA SSD (mounted in a PCIe card)

[2] https://wiki.abyssproject.net/en/starlink/connecting-starlink-opnsense

[russoj88]

If anyone lands here, I was having a similar issue with DNS as mentioned here[1]. Putting a switch between the Starlink Ethernet adapter and the OPNsense box fixed it, but I have no idea why.

[1] https://forum.netgate.com/topic/174105/starlink-problem-with-sg2440-22-05/38

[underatack]

And a second vote for adding a switch. I had a Netgear switch sitting around, and adding it doubled the measured bandwidth.

Hardware:
Starlink Standard 3rd Gen in "bypass mode"
OPNSense 25.7.6 on Deciso DEC740, using an RJ45 SFP module (had "regular" ethernet port left)
There is a 50ft CAT6 cable running from the Starlink router to the firewall.

I took packet captures on the firewall with and without the switch but did not notice any issues. Maybe some ethernet power safe feature is in use by the Starlink router?