I replaced a Dell tower running PFSense 2.2 that kept needing to be rebooted with a Nokia (Nokia Checkpoint IP390 8 Gigabit Ethernet GbE 4GB CF 1GB RAM) rack mount appliance running the newest PFSense 2.3 that I got off eBay.
Things seemed to go smoothly except that the server isn't forwarding DNS info to the DHCP clients. The clients have full access to the internet and I can manually configure them to use Google's DNS servers. The PFSense server has DNS working on it, I can ping domains just fine from there, and the clients have it configured as the gateway and DNS server for them.
Unbound is installed, running and from what I can see is configured correctly with nothing checked under DNS Forwarder, but DNS Resolver is checked for all interfaces.
I have the local clients going for now by manually configuring each ones DNS, but would like to fix the server to work correctly so I don't have a headache each time I plug in a new computer.
For what it is worth, the interface is also REALLY slow, even from the local console it may take 10 seconds to respond. I just got into the office and on the console just hitting ENTER took it about 15 seconds to refresh the admin menu the first time, and about 5 seconds the next time.
Any help is appreciated.
Best Answer
If the DNS forwarder is enabled, the internal interface IP for pfSense will be handed out to DHCP clients as a DNS server. If the DNS forwarder is disabled, the DNS servers configured on pfSense will be handed out instead. https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/DNS_Forwarder