New esxi 5 build with pfsense help with NICS
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The way VMWare virtualizes the networking the virtual NIC that pfSense sees ignores the speed your "real" NIC on your ESX(i) box is connected as.
In practice, internally in ESX(i) the "real" NIC is connected to a virtual switch. The virtual NIC that pfSense sees is connected to that virtual switch. Just like in a real switch, even though the uplink to the outside world may be only 100Mb, another connection to an end device may be Gigabit (or more) and the connection negotiation won't be limited down based on another port's link speed, but the traffic would still be limited.
This explanation doesn't fix your issue, but tries to explain why pfSense can still "link" at Gigabit while your "real" NIC is only linking at 100Mb.
I would still look at the cable, a faulty cable can still link at 100Mb and work fine a that speed, but not be able to auto negotiate for Gigabit if one (or multiple) of the non-transmit/receive pins/wires are bad. At least test a replacement cable.
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i get it now matguy. thanks for the explanation!!
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i'll try yet another cable.. and even a trendnet unmanaged gigabit switch.
i'm betting the fault is in the netgear prosafe gs 108t -
i'll try yet another cable.. and even a trendnet unmanaged gigabit switch.
i'm betting the fault is in the netgear prosafe gs 108tOh, I missed the part where you were going to swap the cables/nics around. But, trying a different switch is a good troubleshooting step. I've used the small Netgear switches with ESX and ESXi with good success, although not that model personally. Certainly try the Trendnet, it'll be interesting if something in your chain there is thwarting the GigE auto-negotiation.
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Maybe a silly question but are you sure all the cables are straight-through (not cross-over) cables?
Maybe you just used "red", "green" an "blue" to identify the cables for your post but (and sorry if you already know this) a lot of places use different colored cables for different things. For example, red for cross-over is fairly common.
If you inherited these cables from somewhere or just chose different colors when you bought them, it might be worth checking.
I have seen a Netgear switch accept a cross-over cable where a straight-through should have been used but it would only negotiate up to 100Mb/s. There might even be something in the standards that says that's what should happen.
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notice how the lan only say 100mb?
That actually looks like the guy's WAN, given that he's got it labeled PPPOE. Probably his modem only does 100 Mb/s on its LAN interface.
I'd agree with biggsy. What's on the other end of that NIC displaying only 100mb? The NIC and the cable are probably fine. To test it just take a laptop or PC that is gigabit and plug it into whatever device is on the other end of that link. If the other machines also display 100mb then I'd bet biggsy is correct in guessing that your modem or whatever it is at the other end is only capable of 100mb.
OR
Do you have a physical gigabit router or switch? Plug that into the "vmnic1" interface and see if it can resolve to gigabit from a known good gigabit device on the other end.
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@pf2.0nyc:
notice how the lan only say 100mb?
That actually looks like the guy's WAN, given that he's got it labeled PPPOE. Probably his modem only does 100 Mb/s on its LAN interface.
I'd agree with biggsy. What's on the other end of that NIC displaying only 100mb? The NIC and the cable are probably fine. To test it just take a laptop or PC that is gigabit and plug it into whatever device is on the other end of that link. If the other machines also display 100mb then I'd bet biggsy is correct in guessing that your modem or whatever it is at the other end is only capable of 100mb.
OR
Do you have a physical gigabit router or switch? Plug that into the "vmnic1" interface and see if it can resolve to gigabit from a known good gigabit device on the other end.
The picture was from someone else's setup to just show basically what he's seeing. His is actually showing 100Mb to a Netgear Prosafe GS108T. Gigabit to his WAN is fine.
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ya the wan is connected to a Motorola surfboard modem, docsis 3.0… forget the model... but showing a blue light on connection which = gbit.
it is a valid question about the cables and the name i chose for this account "..noob" probably wasn't the best.. but all my cables are patch, aka straight through. i have only one custom made crossover that i hardly use and it's only cat 5.
my problem has been solved with a longer cable and using the 5 port trendnet gbit switch.
although i think i may use the unrecommended settings to connect straight to the netgear.
next question without opening a new thread maybe you couple guys that have kindly helped me can tell me what this hit on the firewall is all about:
WAN 10.20.64.1:67 destination 255.255.255.255:68 UDP
i don't get the 255.255.255.255. it happens almost every min. what the hell is going on!
in the end i think my problem was not esxi related but more netgear switch.
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this is related to DHCP traffic … the 255.255.255.255 is the broadcast range it is sending afaik.
it is odd that this happens every minute on your WAN interface. (should only happen when your dhcp lease expires and renews)
http://www.linklogger.com/UDP67_68.htm -
I'm surprised it only happens every minute. This is DHCP traffic, as heper has said. It's cable modems obtaining or renewing leases.
If I leave on the Log packets blocked by the default rule I see the DHCP requests and replies for every cable modem on the same segment of cable.