Access Panel weirdness with pfSense and Unifi

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hi All,

I have a strange situation which i cannot seem to get resolved.

Setup is Unifi Switching with pfSense 6100 head end. Nothing fancy, a few VLANs and two WAN connections. pfSense handles the DHCP and routing, Unifi switching all configured and working for everyone else. Plug my laptop in to the same VLAN i get a DHCP address and internet just fine.

A door access company has installed an access panel to control a door and video intercom. Its connected by RJ45 to the network, and its on the same VLAN as the desktop in reception where the door release and video phone are. Loading the software on to the PC for configuring the panel, and it cannot see it at all. The panel is apparently DHCP, but pfSense is not seeing it. In unifi im seeing a totally different MAC to that printed on the panel, but even that MAC is not configurable.

Of note if i use unifi to block that MAC then the correct MAC pops up, but still pfSense doesnt see or assign it an address.

I have turned off things like pfBlocker etc, its not that. The MACs dont seem to be appearing at all. but like i say, connect anything else to it, works just fine.

Any thoughts?

2

You sure the panel is using dhcp,

Does it have a default ip , if the network is set to fixed

This is one for the door access comapny, as it would appear the system is not working.

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3

Sounds like the devices is defective.

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4

So i should have mentioned.

If i statically set a fixed IP for that MAC in pfSense in the correct VLAN, it does seem to reflect that in unifi … but the device is still unreachable.

The door company is here now, but like every scenario, they blame me, i blame them … no one is going anywhere lol

5

They need to login into the device, so you can see the ip address (static or dhcp) - is it in the correct network range and the mac address

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6

Is the unknown Mac address from any of the other devices installed?

If you plug the controller directly into the pfsense, does it show up?

On the reception PC, could local windows firewall need to allow any ports for the app to see the controller?

Could the controller panel be set to be a dhcp server? Can the controller be factory reset?

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8

Did you ever get this working?

9

Hi all,

The company returned 3 times in the end, we still have no resolution all their panels have had some kind of issue. Definitely does not look like a network issue at this point.

Once they successfully install a unit, I will close the thread off with a comment.

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