SOLVED One cifs client can't log on when gateway is down

[Adam Bise]

This issue is very strange to me. I have 3 clients connected to cifs shares. But one of them is unable to log on when an upstream gateway is unavailable.

I can't even begin to understand this, so I will try to explain my setup in detail.

First off I'm using version 9.2.1.8 on an ASRock E3C226D2I
My NAS has 2 interfaces set up as
gi1 - 192.168.137.11/24
gi2 - 192.168.1.11/24

The only service I have set up is cifs, using default options, on one dataset, using Windows ACLs.

I live in the sticks so our household internet is my Verizon 4g phone.

On my main desktop PC, I have a wifi interface joined to my phones hotspot. I have an Ethernet connection on that PC as well, set up for ICS.

The Ethernet interface on my PC is connected to a switch, which also is connected to the wan port on my wireless router, as well as gi1 on my NAS.

My desktop Ethernet is using the default ICS network of 192.168.137.1/24
I have my wireless router wan IF on 192.168.137.2/24. It uses 137.1 for its GW and DNS.

The LAN IF on my router is configured as 192.168.1.1/24
The LAN IF is physically connected to gi2 on my NAS, the other 3 clients, 2 windows machines and my playstation.
They all 3 use 192.168.1.1 for their GW and DNS. My router issues dhcp to the desktops, my playstation is set up static.. 192.169.1.20.

DHCP lan and wifi clients all get 192.168.1.100+ with 1.1 GW and 1.1 DNS

Now this is the truly strange part. My playstation can log onto my NAS using a password, and so can my windows machines, but if I disconnect the hotspot on my phone, then my playstation will now get a log on error, and the windows computers can still connect, but no longer by name. With my phones hotspot turned off, now they can ping my NAS by name, but cannot log on by name.

My playstation logs on by IP, and I have also set a GW address of 0.0.0.0 on my playstation, which has no effect.

So, I apologize, but I don't know if this is a networking problem or a sharing problem. I just find it very strange that when I turn off my phones hotspot I start having issues with connecting to shares.

Where should I start?

Is perhaps my desktop conflicting with FreeNAS as a master browser?
I do have 192.168.137.1 set up as the only name server on freenas, and I have configured the gateway as the same.

Is it possible that traffic is somehow being bridged through my PC? I have verified the IFs are correct and verified where everything is connected.

I have also tried unplugging from power the switch between my main PC and router, and get the same issues. It's as if my desktop must be online for anything to work properly!!

 

[Adam Bise]

Only thing I can come up with is that there is something wonky going on with ICS. Although I don't understand why when I disable that entire part of the network things still don't work. Why on earth my PS2 would have issues is beyond me. It doesn't even have a gateway and can't even reach my desktop.

At this point I don't even know if there is a problem with FreeNAS at all.

Granted I don't know the ins and outs of how sharing works in a workgroup environment. Like whether or not some kind of identifier for permissions is stored on my desktop. But the permissions on my shares are set to objects located on my freenas box.. like freenas\user or freenas\group, so I don't see how that could be a cause.

Also, I haven't had a whole lot of time to play with it. Maybe I should just get a Raspberry PI and turn it into a wireless bridge or something. That way my desktop and everything else could be on the same subnet, and I could just use one interface on my NAS.

I will work on it more this weekend.

 

[cyberjock]

Your problem is a little fuzzy to me, but I can tell you one thing. I *hate* ICS on Windows. It never worked quite right and only certain ports are forwarded. It's very limited in function and if you try to use it outside its design function it takes work from you to make it happen. I'd bet that ICS is part of your problem (if not your whole problem).

 

[anodos]

Fuzzy is an understatement.
Perhaps you can try putting pfsense on a computer with a supported WiFi card and an Intel nic. Set the WiFi as your wan interface and configure pfsense to handle NAT, DHCP, etc. Connect it to your switch. Set up your WiFi router as just a wireless AP. Put everything on same subnet. In other words - drastically simplify your setup.

 

[Ericloewe]

Fuzzy is an understatement.
Perhaps you can try putting pfsense on a computer with a supported WiFi card and an Intel nic. Set the WiFi as your wan interface and configure pfsense to handle NAT, DHCP, etc. Connect it to your switch. Set up your WiFi router as just a wireless AP. Put everything on same subnet. In other words - drastically simplify your setup.

WiFi on pfSense might just be worse than Windows' ICS, given that it's limited to 802.11g.

pfSense plus an el-cheapo range expander/access point/WiFi bridge/synonym for marketing purposes, on the other hand, could work.

 

[Adam Bise]

Got a message that arp for my PS2 moved from gi2 to gi1. Not sure why, or how it related to authentication for my PS2 but.. I deleted gi1 and now it is working again.

The error on my PS2 was authentication, although the creds never changed.

BTW I would love to get pfSense going. I looked into putting it on a PI, but I hear the wifi isn't supported.
Anyway, it is working now, except I cant connect to the NAS from my main desktop without gi1.

Maybe I will throw in another nic and create a new network for gi1 or do what anodos suggests and get a cheapo wireless bridge. That would be the best option, then I can enable power mgmt on my desktop and have everything on the same simple subnet.

 

[Adam Bise]

Wound up configuring gi1 as 192.168.2.2/30 and added an alias on my ICS NIC 192.168.2.1/30
Now everything is working great again =)