Hi Rezin,

Thank's for the Information now it works

A short user manual how to use pfSense appliance with VMware Server 2.01

1.) Download VMappliance
2.) Unzip
3.) Edit the .vmx file and remove (comment) the lines
    #ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
    #ethernet1.virtualDev = "e1000"
4.) Start the appliance
5.) Connect via VMware Remote Console and reconfigure the NIC's
    le0 –> LAN
    le1 --> WAN
5.) Set Lan IP
6.) Connect to the web GUI

install on your physically networkcard from laptop a second ip-adress with 192.169.1.2

Thank you for the reply Gob!

I did forget to mention that im running Vmware Server ontop of a debian installation(ESX/ESXi doesnt support my hw:( ) but i guess i would go about it the same way. This isnt really related to Pfsense but does anyone know how to lock down an interface on a Vmware host running Debian ? People running Pfsense virtually should have some knowledge about this i guess ?

Thank you!

To my knowledge there is no guide as until RTM R2 it wasn't even working properly.
Its quite simple all you have to do is remove all the "Network Adapters" and replace them with "Legacy Network Adapters".

These virtual  "Legacy Network Adapter" however don't seem to support vlans from within the vm so the trick here is to add as many network  interfaces as you need then assign individual vlans to them.

I have been running 1.2.3 RC2 in a vm since 2k8 RTM R2 came out and all seemed fine but out of the blue one night the (until recently rock solid)  host rebooted! taking down all the vm's with it. This is of course really bad.
I suspect it is probably freebsd playing up from within the vm or the legacy adapter not liking vlans rather than a Windows 2008 R2 bug. I am currently running R2 with the pfsense vm OFF to ensure server stability and then when I am sure again I will try to upgrade the 1.2.3 VM to v2 BETA and see if that is more stable.

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,12157.0.html

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the frame check error had nothing to do with the fact that virtual machines behind the firewall couldn't connect to the internet.
The vswitch connected to the public network needed to reconfigured to accept promiscious mode

Det pågældende netværk her er til en IT uddannelse, så man må gå ud fra at det også vil generere en del trafik af forskellig art.

Ole Thomsen

You most definitely can use virualisation on a box without AMD-V (or Intel VT).  ESXi is perfectly happy running on socket 940 Opterons - these are essentially the same processors as the Athlon64 and have been running for (literally) years.  If you think about the timeline - VMWare existed before the vitualisation extensions…

You could also play with XenServer although that is restricted to *NIX (no windows) on a CPU without AMD-V / Intel VT.

I found something interesting today with VirtualBox on my desktop system, which has given me errors in the past (including the original error here):

Try putting the virtual hard drive and virtual CD drive on different 'controllers'

For example, I put the CD drive on PIIX3, and the hard drive on Sata 0, and I was finally, for the first time, able to get a full install of pfSense going on my desktop.

My laptop runs pfSense VMs all the time with no trouble, but it appears to have issues on certain combinations of hardware.

The 1.2.3 LiveCD snapshot around July 24 offered an option to activate the serial console during setup, as described here: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/InstallationGuide

However, the latest images like pfSense-1.2.3-20090822-0454.iso.gz is missing this option. So you have to boot up on a PC with VGA, configure the NICs, log in from another PC via 192.168.1.1 and set "Enable Serial Console" in System > Advanced. Is there any way to do this on command line?

Another difference I noticed between the before mentioned images is that the July image offered a menu at the serial console to reboot, halt, or set up the NICs, while the latest image immediately quits at the command line.

FYI, I set up a flash drive using the CD image instead of the flash image because the 22/08 4G flash image does not offer the Squid 2.6 and SquidGuard packages that I need to filter some annoying ads and stats sites. After setup and switching to serial console, I then place the flash drive into the Alix2.

[SOLVED]

Have now upgraded 2008 to R2 and there are now no issues running FreeBSD based VM's. The upgrade was seamless, all you have to do is make sure you delete any snapshots and obviously you will need a new M$ Key.

I now have my dev box back in the form of a VM yey!

If your hostmachine has just virtu boardflag.. I would try proxmox (www.proxmox.com). Install it as KVM then map your NICs.. It's working remarkably here with less overhead than VMwareserver.

I am running my PF-Sense with 2 processors and 768 meg of ram.  I have 1 connection for the WAN and 2 for the internal networks.  My processors rarely spikes to 25% when I am doing uploads from remote sites.  Normal processor utilization is 1 to 2 , may be 3%.

My VM's and my normal Network share the same wan port, I see no issues.

Memory utilization is 20%
Disk utilization is 4%
Swap file is 0%

Have a seperate interface for VM verse normal traffic is is overkill.  There should be no issues sharing one interface.
RC

I manage 35 VM 's on XenCenter over two XenServer getting ready to open to 4 different servers expanding to 100 VM's.
RC

I have set a few isolated VM's on XenServer.  We set a up a trunk port to the a isolated network and vlan.  From there we add the isolated vm to the isolated VM.  From there people can access.

RC

I am guessing since this was last edited in May that you have since fixed the problem.

For others researching similar problems,

-You must use bridged interfaces for pfSense inside VMware otherwise it will not see any traffic.
-Whatever network interface you use for WAN, turn off all protocols other than VMware binding in the host OS.
  If you do not, it will most likely use up your WAN IP address and a) block pfSense from having a valid IP on WAN
  and b) leave the host computer open to the internet to be pwn3d by the world
-after this, the only way for yout host system to access the internet is thru the virtual firewall

The package was updated a day or two ago, reinstall and you should be set.

Yeah the issue that required the manual start has been fixed, I updated that page, thanks.

Hi I have a setup using vmware server 2.0 with two NIC's, on the WAN make sure you untick the TCP/IP option within windows so the only box ticked is the bridge for vmware the LAN side I share the same network card for windows and pfsense with no problems all depends on how much traffic you have over your LAN.

cheers,

Paul  ;)

You need to put the LAN on host only and it needs to be on the same subnet as your host only network (which is arbitrarily assigned, check VMware to find out).