Esxi 6 & pfsense nic help

lweddin1

Hello,

I have been browsing the web for a guide to help me install pfsense in esxi 6 under workstation 12. I will try to explain my setup as best as I can.

Hardware:

Motherboard - Supermicro 2758F
16g Ecc Ram
120-SSD

I would like to also say that I use to run just pfsense on this box for almost a year but I have decided to utilize the hardware since it was built for home use and was a little much for what I actually needed.

Linux is my main OS then I installed Workstation 12. In Workstation I installed Esxi and Windows 7 under two different VM. Under Esxi I installed pfSense.

To get my other nic's to show up in esxi I had to power down the VM and add another Network Adapter 2 and click Custom. If I did not do this no other nic would show up.

Now my problem is getting internet via WAN & LAN on pfsense. I beleive it has something to do with my Nic settings. After adding my second Nic I noticed it was already connected. This is the guide that I found that helped point me in the right direction. https://snowulf.com/2015/08/31/tutorial-using-vmware-esxi-and-pfsense-as-a-network-firewallrouter/

johnpoz

For what possible reason would you have it nested like that?? Just install esxi native, and install the OSes as vms you want..

lweddin1

I was just wondering if it was possible to do it this way & if there was an easy fix. Sadly if not I will just do a native install.

To answer your question, the reason why I have it nested like that so I can use Splashtop to remote into my Linux OS and remote control all the settings.

johnpoz

"I can use Splashtop to remote into my Linux OS and remote control all the settings." That is pretty lame reason.. Once you have esxi installed, and or pfsense - you can either just access esxi directly via the client, then console to any vm. You could RDP/Splashtop to any vm, run esxi vclient from there. You could just ssh to your esxi host, etc. etc..

If you want type 2 on your box, then just install pfsense to workstation 12, no need to install esxi under that.

lweddin1

In the end I just installed esxi am going to use that to run my VM's like you first suggested. I have already installed esxi and have it running with pfsense. My only quesetion is do I have to do any https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Tuning_and_Troubleshooting_Network_Cards before I had to increase the mbfu but now since pfsense is running inside esxi i am unsure.

Also I noticed that my thermal sensors are not working, is there a fix?

lweddin1

I also installed Open-VM-Tools package. Other then that I was going to set up pfsense like I would normally do if it wasn't in a VM.

johnpoz

How wold your thermal sensors work in a VM? Look to esxi for your thermal info on the hardware.. I don't think your system supports vt-d does it?

I have not needed to do anything with mbfu, nor any other sort of specific tuning.. Then again not running on your hardware..