Practicum 2 Journal 13 - January 21, 2014 - Documenting pfSense

So today I got to talk with Wes and James a bit more about what is happening around here. Also at lunch James had to go home because his son was throwing up from him hitting his head yesterday. Hopefully he is alright. So today I worked on documenting what I have done in pfSense so that Ken can (if he needs at all) work with it when I have left.

Practicum 2 Journal 12 - January 20, 2014

So today wasn't crazy busy around here. Ken has hired on a new guy, his name is James and he is mainly a networking type of guy. Unfortunately though is that he will be replacing Wes. Ken needed someone to do more networking based work than to do the tickets that are coming in. Wes understands what Ken is wanting, but Ken is also being super nice about it. He said that he would call Wes if the time comes that he needs to expand more in a year or so, and that Wes could also use the meeting room there is he wishes.

But basically, today I was talking with Wes and James about random stuff (Arduino stuff mostly, as I had taken a course for it on Saturday) and quad-copters as well as I am starting to write down the process we took to do this pfSense box.

Practicum 2 Journal 11 - January 17, 2014 - All alone?

So last night Wes had to go to the hospital with his wife for a special reason, she was having a baby. I got an email last night asking if I had Ken's cell number so Wes could talk to him, then he had mentioned in the next email about why he wouldn't at work tomorrow. I was their all alone today fiddling around with the pfSense box a bit, and a little on the virtual machines.

Mr. McNeill had also stopped by today for my midpoint assessment. Basically it is to see how I am doing, what I should be doing differently, and to make sure I am getting along with and creating a good rapport with my fellow employees.

Practicum 2 Journal 10 - January 16, 2014 - Port Forwarding and Laptops

So today I was finally able to get port forwarding up and running. After like 2 days of trying to get it up and running I was able to get it going. When you use pfSense to be able to set a different external IP you would usually setup 1:1 addressing in the NAT section for each internal IP to use a specific external IP, then using the rules just set it so that say port 80 was forwarded to anywhere from 192.168.x.x which was supposed to work. On several websites it read that if you want to forward a port from an internal IP address for a server (for example) you had to use the rules section underneath the Firewall tab to forward them. What I found out is that when VLANs are involved you have to forward the ports using the normal Port Forwarding section on the NAT page to set them. So a day or two trying to figure that out, and I only had to do it the way everyone said not to do it. You use the default port forward section to open up the ports, but you have to set the destination to be the external IP that you wish to use from your Virtual IP list.

Ken also opened up the box of laptops that he got in from a client, so we set them up. They are the Lenovo Y510p, I was looking at getting that one for the course but it wasn't a fit for me and cost about $100 more than my Asus Vivobook that I picked up. The client company had picked four of them up for about $500 a piece, crazy cheap for these laptops.

January 15, 2014 - First Aid

So today we had first aid, it was a bit interesting. Last time I had done first aid I was in my third year of Scouts (so as of writing this about 4 years ago). Some things have changed, but not much. It was definitely different to take the course again, even though the last one I took was four years ago.

Although First Aid is not technology related at all, it is still good to be able to have it on your resume, potential bosses like to see extra things like that on the resume.

Practicum 2 Journal 9 - January 14, 2014

So today we were finally able to get pfSense working mostly the way that is needed, we just aren't able to get it to work correctly for port forwarding. What I mean by that is that we CAN forward ports in and out. But when we allow all ports outgoing (from the network to the internet I mean) then it works fine, when we restrict to only web browsing ports (such as port 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS) then it either does not work or is SUPER slow for loading things.

Running things through VLANs and port forwarding is starting to get a bit confusing and above my head, but luckily after doing some research I start to understand the bits that I need to, it is really cool what VLANs are capable of.

Practicum 2 Journal 8 - January 13, 2014

This switch is really cool when you get into it.It has one major flaw though that Wes and I see with it, you have to go three steps down into the menu to save the settings no matter how small or insignificant they may be. But today we got VLANs going and mostly syncing up with pfSense.

pfSense is really cool for the fact that it doesn't need brand new hardware at all, all it mainly needs is an old desktop computer with a second (or more depending on what you want to do with it) network cards. Their is so much you can do with it, such as captive portals for connections (for example that login screen you see when you sign in to the local McDonalds or Starbucks WIFI connection and you have to click agree), VLANs, Wake on LAN, load balancing, redundant internet connections, it even supports something called CARP. CARP allows pfSense to essentially sync itself with another pfSense box which in turn makes redundant boxes capable.