pfSense... how to tell it's working

is there an easy way to tell if pfSense is working.... I have a connection to the box,, the interfaces are showing active but I can't see anywhere it actually routing to the pc/server ip's

had some trouble at first my routing process was modem - pf box - switch - network and I couldn't get an internet connection

went modem - switch - pf box - switch - network and I can connect to everything fine but for my mind the way the data flow is set up the Wan is bypassing the pf box strait to the network and that's why it works.... am I wrong ???

confused and yes 0 experience with networking

Probably the easiest way to see of it's working is to open the traffic graph on the dashboard and see if there's any traffic when you download something.

But from the sounds of it it's not working. I assume your modem is a modem and router? You need to put it in bridge mode or disable routing, then connect it to the WAN interface on pfsense and configure that interface appropriately. If you can't do that then at least disable the firewall (or configure pfsense's WAN address as the DMZ in the modem's firewall) and connect it to the WAN on pfsense. Then configure the WAN either with DHCP or with a static IP address. then Make sure your LAN interface is set up with a static IP address on a different subnet and configure the DHCP server for the LAN interface. Then it should work.

If you can't get it working then it would help if you posted some screenshots of the LAN and WAN interfaces configuration pages on pfsense as well as what model your modem is.

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When you first get PF setup, your arrangement should be.

Modem <---> PF <--> Switch <--> network

From here, you have to tell PF that you want to allow traffic out of the network.

you need to create a rule that says internal network can go anywhere.

on the LAN interface LAN-Network ---> ANY allow.

by default PF Denies everything.

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Is your LAN interface set up correctly? It needs a static IP address which is in a different subnet to the WAN address. Also you'll probably want to enable DHCP for the LAN interface too. Disconnect the modem if you have to if it's preventing you from accessing the pfsense webui, once you get it set up properly you can reconnect it. But it's important to have the modem in bridge mode or at least disable/bypass the firewall otherwise you'll have two firewalls which will be a pain.

And yeah, having it wired up like that won't work, you want the modem connected to the WAN interface on pfsense and the switch connected to the LAN interface.

In my practice if you do what @DeusQain said and you don't notice a difference then PFSense is working :P

so I haven't had much time to spend on the PFBox till today and good news is I managed to get an internet connection :) bad news is it was running at around 1up 1down when I usually get 40-5,, also noticed the connection wasn't stable was hitting 700+ latency and my connection from the PC kept dropping out and jumping all over the place...

any thought's and suggestions... been at this thing for quite some time but I tell you I'm giving myself a crash course in networking lol which is awesome and sometimes frustrating in an awesome way..

Are you connected with wireless or wired?

Wired,, wanting to get the internal lan up and running first before I add the the access point off that network having said that I did have the wireless on the modem on so the wife and kids could still get on the net while I worked on the network... which would be on the other side of the Pfbox and was getting full speed..

I did try and switch off the modem firewall as well but didn't see any noticeable difference..

It sounds like you're still using the modem's router, you want to have to modem in bridge mode so it goes to the pfsense router rather than it's internal one.