DHCP not working?

[Mooglestiltzkin]

I use a Netgear Smart switch, but i use the local managed mode.

I have a weird issue, when i factory reset, it uses DHCP by default which is fine.

But oddly dhcp doesn't work when using my pfsense router.

Instead it only works on my asus off the shelf router.

I've checked the pfsense router settings but couldn't for the life of me figure out why is dhcp not working when using with the pfsense router.

Firstly, an IP is designated to the switch via dhcp. The issue is, there is no connectivity to the netgear switch admin web UI. 

Any ideas?

[Retired_Member · Accepted solution]

@Mooglestiltzkin 

It is a pfSense issue, not NETGEAR. Your ASUS router is VLAN-unaware so it works well with your NETGEAR switch in its factory default settings. However, you’ve created VLANs on your pfSense router. The pfSense port you were using needs to be added to the VLAN as an untagged member.

[Mooglestiltzkin]

My configuration i run 3 vlans. So each vlan has their own DHCP server for the separate vlans.

DHCP server is handled by pfsense router only, nothing else.

Noted that the switch ip given by DHCP is within the same subnet as the desktop pc trying to access netgear managed web UI. I know this because i use the netgear network detection tool to detect the switch and see the ip assigned to it.

Also the odd thing is, if i set the switch to a static ip in the netgear admin web ui, that works fine. and fyi to access it, i have to use the asus router to do so, since pfsense doesn't work using dhcp.... so everytime for initial setup i have to use the asus router in order to set the static ip.

at one point i thought it may work if i set a static ip from pfsense router. it assigns the ip, but still same issue it can't access the web ui.

[AnkitGH]

Hello @Mooglestiltzkin 

Please tell me the topology you are using and how you have connected the switch.

And tell the switch model you are using currently,
Have you assigned any static Ip to the switch?

Have a lovely day, 
Ankit G
Netgear Team 

[Mooglestiltzkin]

router (pfsense) > switch (GS728TPv2) > desktop

switch static ip is set directly via the switch web ui. however to even do this, i have to setup and connect via my asus router. in that setup

router (asus AC68U) > switch (GS728TPv2) > desktop

once i am able to login to the netgear switch web ui which default is dhcp (works on asus, but not pfsense no idea why), i then configure the static ip (change from the default dhcp) in the netgear web ui. Apply.

then replace back to the hardware back to the original setup

router (pfsense) > switch (GS728TPv2) > desktop

now the switch web ui is accessible. Before it wasn't until i made this change.

So question is, why wouldn't dhcp work before on pfsense, but works on asus 😕 ?

[Mooglestiltzkin]

my pfsense dhcp is setup like this for lan

192.168.0.0/24

192.168.0.25 to 192.168.0.90

[Retired_Member · Accepted solution]

@Mooglestiltzkin 

It is a pfSense issue, not NETGEAR. Your ASUS router is VLAN-unaware so it works well with your NETGEAR switch in its factory default settings. However, you’ve created VLANs on your pfSense router. The pfSense port you were using needs to be added to the VLAN as an untagged member.