Freebsd 9.1 host + virtualbox + pfsense .ova vm; wireless AP setup?

n00balert · May 2, 2013, 5:12 AM

Hello folks, I'm curious to know if anyone else has experience setting up a similar trio. I wanted to set up an AP/Wifi network through pfsense vm but having dificulty understanding the relationship of wifi adapter ath0 on my freebsd host, with, 5 virtual ethernet adapters given as choices in bridged mode in virtualbox. I tried a few combinations of those choices with ath0 and wlan0 without any luck, pfsense just wouldn't see a wifi adapter.

my lan and wan ethernet adapters are working flawlessly in bridged mode and i'm quite happy with this set up…...except that i have no wifi for my other devices; I wanted to use my tp-link b/g/n pci wifi adapter as an AP thru pfsense but can't figure out how to...I could set up an AP on the freebsd host as a last resort...but i'm curious if it is at all possible with a pfsense vm?

I went through a few searches on google but couldn't find anything conclusive...wondering if this helps.

Thanks!

ps: this might also be something to do with my lack of bsd knowledge...etc. anyone knows why this process is chewing up so much cpu in pfsense VM, I used an .ova file imported in virtualbox. PID 12 stays at around 25% during no activity and takes up more cpu with activity. If I reboot pfsense vm it helps but only for few hours.

PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU COMMAND
11 root 171 ki31 0K 8K RUN 168:53 60.99% idle
12 root -32 - 0K 104K WAIT 63:15 32.96% {swi4: clock}

at the same time; CPU on freebsd host (AMD64 Opteron 185) reports;

PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND
5020 myuser 21 20 0 1404M 1158M VBoxIS 0 64:39 15.38% VirtualBox

jimp · May 2, 2013, 1:36 PM

I don't think VirtualBox can pass it through in any way that would allow pfSense to control it.

You would need PCI Passthrough, which seems to only work with VirtualBox on Linux.

n00balert · May 3, 2013, 2:27 AM

Hi Jim, thanks for the reply. Now I can sleep better :)

I wonder if there are other ways to accomplish the similar? I wanted to repurpose my old desktop not just as a firewall/router but a media server as well. I'll try looking into Xen or Linux+VBox+pfSense and see if PCI passthrough works that way.

Cheers!