Is it possible to access the pfsense console remotely?
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Hello everyone...
trying to find out if possible to access the pfsense console remotely.
Sometimes i needed to access pfsense directly and connecting a monitor is a pain for my setup.
So, i wonder. is it possible to access the console remotely?
i am talking inside the local network not from outside.
Hope is not too complicated, if possible,
Thank you for any inside. -
@jriofrio You would need a KVM switch for that.
Depending on the hardware you are running pfSense, just connect the KVM switch and you are done.If you are using a Netgate appliance, it would be a little harder because you would need a USB port on the KVM, which these cheap ones usually don't have, and make sure that the OS that the KVM is running is compatible with the driver that the console port uses.
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Yup, depends what hardware you're running on. You might have remote options already.
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@stephenw10
I'm running pfsense in a HP computer Prodesk, i5 CPU .
Is there a ssh or telnet solution for this?
I'm not sure if this helps but I have a HDMI dongle that allows to have a virtual monitor. Just don't know how to use it with pfsense running in the PC.
Anyway thanks for the comments, please let me know alternatives to access the console.
Happy Thanksgiving
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You can SSH into pfSense to access the console but that won't allow upgrades, full boot logs etc. It's only available once the ssh daemon starts.
It's unlikely you will have any sort of IPMI in a desktop chassis like that.
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@stephenw10
Could you please elaborate more about the IPMI , not familiar with it. -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface
It provides out of band access to hardware so you can see the real console over a network connection. You can usually also re-install remotely and see hardware details like temps fan speeds etc. But that's usually a server feature.
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@jriofrio there are KVM-Over-IP available but they are mostly not cheap.
Like TinyPilot Voyager for $350 is an example.
Or a new one on Kickstarter is JetKVM for $69 according to their website (Lawerence System did a review on it). But be careful with Kickstarter projects, they may not come alive.
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@patient0 said in Is it possible to access the pfsense console remotely?:
@jriofrio there are KVM-Over-IP available but they are mostly not cheap.
Like TinyPilot Voyager for $350 is an example.
Or a new one on Kickstarter is JetKVM for $69 according to their website (Lawerence System did a review on it). But be careful with Kickstarter projects, they may not come alive.
Or build a PiKVM... https://docs.pikvm.org/v2/
All you need is a Pi4 (preferably) and a HDMI to CSI module.
