using Pfsense CE as a router and switch or bridge
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I hope I do not get totally bashed for asking this question but I have four 2.5gb ports on my device that I am trying pfsense on. I have gathered from looking this topic up, that pfsense is meant as a router/firewall and not a switch. I am using this at home and trying to learn a bit more about networking as well. 1st port is wan, 2nd port is LAN and the other two do not get used based on what I see in tutorials. I found a couple tutorials discussing making multiple ports a bridge as a way to make use of sending traffic to different areas of the house. However, every time the switch question come up it seems like the answer is buy the freaking switch. But adding another 2.5gb switch is a bit much right now for me and if I can get buy using the multiple ports to act as a switch that would be great. Are there any instructions anywhere that discuss the possibility of using pfsense ce as a switch to route traffic through them and provide ip addresses for my single home network? Also, is there a big difference, or what are disadvantages, between using bridge mode vs switch?
Thank you for any help or replies. I am new to this community and hope to get some advice from anyone that can give me any ideas. -
pfSense still has to forward all the traffic between the ports and at 2.5Gbps that's a substantial load.
It's better to use a switch but it can certainly be done.
I would start by creating bridge with the other two port and assign that as a new interface. Add rules etc and make sure that works as expected before reassigning it as LAN.
Steve
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@stephenw10 Thank you for replying. I guess a managed 1g switch will do for now. Link Aggregation was something else that I noticed as a possibility
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Yes you could use two 1G links in a lagg. You won't see 2G for a single connection though.
