XigmaNAS

I am a N$F newbie and I try to activate a recognized Atheros WLAN card as Accesspoint to allow access to the server in parallel to the LAN access via WLAN with my mobile devices. Preferably it would be great to distribute also the internet access via the server. The reason: the N4F server is behind a pfsense firewall and I do not want to activate the WIFI AP service on the modem located before the firewall. As the server is always on it would be great to run it as AP, too.

I would like to connect the server to the LAN 192.168.1.x via a Gbit switch after the firewall with static IP and distribute internet and data via WIFI from the Atheros card. Do I need to activate DHCP or can I use the DHCP from the firewall? Or is it better to run a different subnet (192.168.2.x) and a separate DHCP Server?


Here are the settings:

nfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=8210b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,TSO4,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
ether 00:01:2e:2c:8f:6d
inet 192.168.1.12 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: Ethernet 1000baseT <full-duplex>
status: active
ath0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
ether 64:70:02:50:3f:32
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
status: no carrier
ipfw0: flags=8801<UP,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 65536
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

I hope one can help me to figure out the proper settings.

Kind of confusing what you are trying to accomplish here..

you have a NAS protected by a firewall that is connected to a wireless router with wifi turned off.
You want people to be able to connect to the NAS via wifi and have it protected by the firewall and distribute internet access..

If you turn wifi on now anyone who connects wirelessly will have to go through the firewall to access the NAS because they will be going from the router through the firewall then to the NAS.

Is your goal for people to connect and not go through the firewall? If you got wireless working on the NAS and people connected to it.. they would have to pass through the firewall to get online... but wouldn't hit a firewall connecting to the NAS.

If you can clear up your plan a bit more you may be making this harder than it is or going about it the wrong way.

I think his setup is like this
Internet ---> Modem/Router/Wifi ---> pfsense firewall ---> nas4free
If he turns on the wifi on, Clients will not be 'protected' by pfsense firewall and will have issues connecting to his nas directly.

Depending on the hardware pfsense is running, you could install a wireless card into pfsense and manage an access point from its web interface. If the pfsense firewall is too far from the NAS clients, I would recommend buying a access point for this. It could sit right next to the NAS and plug-in via switch or bridged NIC on the NAS.

The core for nas4free and pfsense is FreeBSD, so if it works in nas4free it will work in pfsense. Still not a wonderful AP, but servacible. That said, if you can get one a real Access Point is world better than any of the above.