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    advice on physical layout plans for new PFSsense router setup

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • stephenw10S Online
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      No you can use a managed L2 switch as long as it is VLAN capable. Trunk all the VLANs to pfSense and route between them there.

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      • A Offline
        alexeymohr @stephenw10
        last edited by

        @stephenw10 So in that case pfSense does need to have the VLANs set up, but you recommend just trunking them all through a single interface instead of dedicating individual interfaces per VLAN?

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        • stephenw10S Online
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Either you setup VLANs in pfSense and use those as interfaces to route / filter between.

          Or you use separate interfaces for each subnet. In which case any VLANs you might have would be all be handled in the switch.

          If you have multiple switches and access points and are carrying multiple VLANs across them I would choose the VLANs in pfSense option. You only need one link between the switch and pfSense to carry all the trunked VLANs but that could be a LAGG of multiple Ethernet connections.

          Steve

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          • A Offline
            alexeymohr @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 Yeah I've got two Unifi USW-24-POE switches, a U6-Lite access point, and a U6-LR access point (all managed by a CloudKey Gen2) - the plan is to have all VLANs be available on each of those devices. None is an L3 device.

            My initial plan was to have each NIC on the Protectli pfSense router dedicated to an individual VLAN, but it seems like maybe I'd be better off just aggregating a few of those ports and then trunking all the VLANs at once?

            johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S Online
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Yup, that's what I would do. Use two ports there to create an LACP LAGG to the first switch and trunk all the VLANs across that.

              Steve

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              • johnpozJ Offline
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @alexeymohr
                last edited by

                @alexeymohr said in advice on physical layout plans for new PFSsense router setup:

                but it seems like maybe I'd be better off just aggregating a few of those ports and then trunking all the VLANs at once?

                You loose control of which physical interface is actually used for traffic - and "depending" you could end up with hairpin traffic over the same physical interface for intervlan traffic.

                I personally prefer more control and like placing vlans on specific physical interfaces so I am sure that intervlan traffic where there is a lot of it not possible to hairpin over the same physical interface.

                If you have the ports not a problem doing this... Only thing lagg/lacp gets you is if 1 of the interfaces fail, cable fails or unplugged etc you don't loose connectivity.. I like control more than redundancy for interface failure..

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 25.07 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07

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                • MarinSNBM Offline
                  MarinSNB
                  last edited by

                  Does anyone have any links/references to a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this setup using switches for VLANs (with/without LAGG)? Thanks!

                  Netgate 6100 Max pfSense+
                  โ€”>Unifi Aggregation/24 Pro PoE/24 PoE Enterprise switches
                  โ€”> UCK2+
                  โ€”> 3x U6E APs

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                  • stephenw10S Online
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    There are a bunch of video walk throughs on YouTube. Tom Lawrence's probably the best. For example his LAGG tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VULKulpXBYU

                    johnpozJ MarinSNBM 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • johnpozJ Offline
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 dude - bet you beer that is spammer.. Look at his other posts..

                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                      SG-4860 25.07 | Lab VMs 2.8, 25.07

                      MarinSNBM JKnottJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S Online
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Meh, could be. ๐Ÿ˜‰

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                        • MarinSNBM Offline
                          MarinSNB @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10 thank you so much!

                          Netgate 6100 Max pfSense+
                          โ€”>Unifi Aggregation/24 Pro PoE/24 PoE Enterprise switches
                          โ€”> UCK2+
                          โ€”> 3x U6E APs

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                          • MarinSNBM Offline
                            MarinSNB @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz Was this intended for me?

                            Netgate 6100 Max pfSense+
                            โ€”>Unifi Aggregation/24 Pro PoE/24 PoE Enterprise switches
                            โ€”> UCK2+
                            โ€”> 3x U6E APs

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                            • JKnottJ Offline
                              JKnott @johnpoz
                              last edited by

                              @johnpoz said in advice on physical layout plans for new PFSsense router setup:

                              stephenw10 dude - bet you beer that is spammer.. Look at his other posts.

                              Just his question made me wonder if he's serious. Physical layout? Really?

                              PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                              i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                              UniFi AC-Lite access point

                              I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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