Please help getting started...

[Hollywood]

Hi,

I am new here and wish to make a miniPC my router and have the LAN output feed to a managed switch. My internet is 1gb up/down. My current equipment is in a closet for my network equipment with the switch, but with a temporary Asus wifi router. The Asus router LAN IP is set to 192.168.10.1. I assume this will be the WAN gateway address?

Upstairs in my office I have an ethernet jack that provides internet. For the sake of learning, I am trying to set this up on the floor in this office to learn and test to see if I can get this to work. For this learning setup, the wall ethernet jack will be my WAN connected to port igc0 of the miniPC that has opnsense 25.7-amd64. The other port is igc1 and I am assuming it is a LAN port, and is connected to my desktop PC.

I was not able to access the opnsense computer with 192.168.1.1, but I changed the LAN to DCHP and it set the address as 192.168.10.72. The WAN does not show an IP address and it take about 2 minutes before it quit trying to assign one.

ipconfig does not show a default gateway as is, BUT... if I connect to the Asus wifi on my PC, I can now connect to opnsense with 192.168.10.72 and ipconfig shows the gateway as fe80::3a05:25ff:fe30:f6f5%17 on one line and 192.168.10.1 on the next.

So why can't I connect from my PC to the opnsense PC via the ethernet (and web browser)? Why is opnsense failing to assign a WAN IP address?

I think you can tell from this post what my skill level is (or isn't), so please don't be too technical with your help. I'm sure I am doing something wrong and hope someone can spot it and guide me. Aside from what I wrote, if you see other issues, please also point them out too.

My ultimate goal is 3 or 4 vlans, secure, IoT, VPN, and guest. I can't proceed until I get the above sorted out.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Maurice]

It seems you mixed up the ports. By default (unless you assigned them manually), igc0 is LAN and igc1 is WAN.

Cheers
Maurice

[Hollywood]

It seems you mixed up the ports. By default (unless you assigned them manually), igc0 is LAN and igc1 is WAN.

Cheers
Maurice

You are correct. It was intentional, but I was wrong. I have poor concentration and did not visualize it properly.

I did an opnsense reset and assigned the IP's with DCHP. The WAN is now 192.168.10.72 and the LAN is 192.168.10.71.

On my desktop PC, ipconfig still does not show a gateway. (but), IF I connect to the temporary Asus router's WiFi, ipconfig shows the gateway as 192.168.10.1 and my browser connects to opnsense with 192.168.10.71 and I can view webpages, so the big picture is that the system is seeing the opnsense PC. (other then that my head is spinning!)

My assumption is that since the opnsense PC LAN port is plugged into my desktop PC, I should get a gateway and at least be able to access opnsense with a browser, but as I stated, I can only do this if I connect with wifi to the temporary Asus router.

I know I am missing something, but I am at a loss. I am one step closer thanks to you and I hope an opnsense gateway and internet access will be an also simple fix.

Thanks again and also to anyone else that can help.

[Maurice]

The WAN is now 192.168.10.72 and the LAN is 192.168.10.71.

You cannot use the same subnet for WAN and LAN. Just keep the default settings - WAN as DHCP client (so it'll get an address from your Asus router) and LAN as static IPv4 192.168.1.1/24.

My ultimate goal is 3 or 4 vlans, secure, IoT, VPN, and guest.

That'll be a bit of a learning curve.

[Hollywood]

The WAN is now 192.168.10.72 and the LAN is 192.168.10.71.

You cannot use the same subnet for WAN and LAN. Just keep the default settings - WAN as DHCP client (so it'll get an address from your Asus router) and LAN as static IPv4 192.168.1.1/24.

Maurice,
Everything you helped with was spot on! Some of it I knew, some I was just trying because I was guessing. I did another opnsense reset so that there would be no old settings confusing things. On a hunch, I swapped the LAN and WAN cables on the opnsense PC as auto-configuring the WAN IP was taking so long. It turned out to be the solution/problem.

Now my desktop PC sees the opnsense PC on the ethernet port and I have internet and could logon to opnsense (without being on that wifi network).

I would also like to thank you for not bashing me for writing DCHP instead of DHCP :)  It actually may have let you know my (lack of) skill level. Anyway, the opnsense PC is now a basic router and I can install it in my rack, and do the rest as I have time and watch some youtube videos.

Your help and hints where to look solved this and is greatly appreciated!

THANK YOU!