Installing pfSense with a layer 3 switch
-
I have TWC 300 megabit connection now and I want to try pfSense. I have a Cisco SG300-28 switch running in layer 3 mode. I have a couple of questions about installing.
1. Can I install only an IP address I want on the LAN side. No DHCP server installed. My layer 3 switch handles all the VLANs and DHCP. I just need a plain IP address. Is this possible?
2. If I use embedded, how much ram does it take? If I add snort does it change?
3. I have an old Intel server board with a Xeon low voltage CPU and 2 Intel NICs. Is it best to have both NICs connected when you install. How do tell which is going to be the LAN side and the WAN side? I do not know MACs. Can I leave the internet disconnected when I install? Should I?
PS
Is it easy to add static routes for all my VLANs? -
If your going to run a downstream router (L3 switch doing your routing between your vlans) then you would connect to this router via a transit network, pick a rfc1918 /30 and use that as your transit.
Then yes you can create routes to your other vlans, or just 1 route that covers all your vlans. So for example if you use say 172.16.0.0/30 as your transit and all your downstream networks fall in 192.168/16 then you could use that one summary route of 192.168/16 pointing to your L3 switch address in 172.16.0/30 - for example pfsense lan 172.168.0.1 and your sg300 at 172.16.0.2/30
No you don't need your wan connected when you setup pfsense, but its normally easier if you do - pfsense will list the interfaces and their mac address when you setup so easy enough to pick which one is wan and which is lan if you know the macs.
As to using embedded version. Do you only have a CF or something for this server? As to amount of ram required, yes using packages like snort is going to up the requirements to run smoothly not only in ram and cpu but also storage space.
-
The only reason I thought embedded is it runs from ram? This is an old server no flash. Is there a down side to embedded? Maybe I will just use the regular install.
I don't remember the MACs any more. If I unplug one of the cables is there a light or something which will come and go as I plug it back in? Does pfSense figure out which cable is the modem and I can just go with it?
I don't see ram requirements any more. Is it because everybody has enough and ram is cheap. Will 4 GIG be enough for home or is 8 GIG better?
-
4 gig is more than enough… I run it in a vm and only give it 1.. Sometimes only 512..
All stuff runs in ram... ;) Loading the whole thing into ram buys you what exactly? I think your over thinking how much horse power pfsense actually needs...
Pfsense is pretty good at figuring out which interface is your wan.. If it dosn't work - just reverse them..
-
I have pfsense up and running. But I have a problem. I need to add static routes for my networks in the layer 3 switch.
I have gone to system routing and I can enter the routed network but I cannot enter the default gateway. The default gateway lives on the switch not the pfsense box. pfSense is installed in a VLAN on the layer 3 switch and the only path into the layer 3 switch is the IP addess for the layer 3 switch network which pfsense is installed in. I am not able to enter the layer 3 switch IP address uless I am missing something. The gateway is a pull down with predefined pfsense IP addresses. I need to be able to type an IP address for my layer 3 switch. How do I accomplish this? -
System > Routing > Gateways Create a gateway to the switch IP address on the correct interface and check default.
-
I have configured a gateway to the switch. Should the monitor IP address be same as the gateway? I added 3 static routes. It does not seem to be working. I can't ping from either side. Only the pfsense VLAN is working for internet. I had to move a workstation into it to have internet access.
-
So now that I have created these static routes do I need to create firewall rules to allow the static networks out? Or is all inside traffic allowed out?
-
I have entered the firewall rules and now I have internet access on all the VLANs.
My problem now is how do I tune this thing for speed? I am only seeing about 200 megabit with 24ms response time. The Cisco RV320 I just pulled out was hitting 350 megabit with 18ms response time. I am using DSLreports speedtest.
I have an old Intel server board with Intel NICs and low voltage Xeon processor dedicated, no VMs, with 4 GIG RAM.
-
Are you doing a speed test from something directly connected to pfsense, or something from behind your L3?
What are the nics in your pfsense? Did you set a transit network?
-
I am using dslreports speedtest from a workstation on a static route. I was worried about the static route so I am now testing in the same VLAN as pfsense. It seems sluggish and it should be really fast since my Cisco SG300-28 layer 3 switch is feeding it at GIG wire speed. I tried adding high D but it really made no difference. When I run the speed test the CPU goes to about 4% otherwise it is 0. I am looking at the Intel NICs and they show 1000 full duplex connection. Memory is setting at 4%. There is no DHCP only one IP address. Nothing has changed on my network except pulling out the old router and assigning the same IP address to pfSense.
How do I tune this thing?
Could it only be running fast Ethernet full duplex? The speed never goes above 200 megabit? I am fully convinced this system is only running at fast Ethernet full duplex speed because I have way more resources on both CPU and memory left over. pfSense is not using the resources available in this box. It is under utilized.
Is there a way to shut off IPv6? I don't need it.
The NICs are built in to the motherboard. This is an old Intel server 5000 motherboard.
What do you mean by this? 'Did you set a transit network?" -
I have 2 Intel 82563EB NICs built in to the motherboard. They are 10/100/100 NICs. I do not see support under FreeBSD 10.2 Hardware Notes. Has the hardware support been pulled for these NICs?
-
A transit network.. How do you have pfsense connected to your L3 switch.. What IPs? What are the other vlans on your L3 switch? Do you have any other devices on the network that connects pfsense to your L3 switch??
If you do your going to run into asynchronous routing problems!!
if you don't want to use ipv6, then sure tell your interfaces none for IPv6 and you can set advanced network ipv6 uncheck it and now all ipv6 traffic is for sure blocked.
-
My pfsense box has 2 NICs. One WAN em0 port with an Outside IP address from Time Warner Cable connected to an Ubee modem in bridge mode. The other LAN NIC em1 has 192.168.10.1/24 on it. It is connected directly to the layer 3 switch on VLAN10 IP 192.168.10.254. The switch handles the local VLAN routing. The other networks are 192.168.0.0/24, 192.168.2.0/24, and 192.168.3.0/24. There are no routing loops. It was working with the other router fine with less latency. I was going to give the other router to my daughter for her new house.
lVLAN1 192.168.0.254/24
l
192.168.10.254/24 l
WAN–--pfsense---------VLAN10---layer3switch--VLAN2 192.168.2.254/24
192.168.10.1/24 l
l
l VLAN3 192.168.3.254/24I have static maps to 192.168.0.0 192.168.2.0 192.168.3.0
My gateway for the static maps is 192.168.10.254 the layer 3 switch IP pfsense in plugged into which is an access port on the layer 3 switch and is the VLAN10 IP address. There are no VLANs defined on the pfsense box as the access port strips the tags off.
-
Well I made progress. I went under the WAN interface General Config selected IPv6 configuration type and selected none.
My DSLReport's speedtest now is running 345 megabit. IPv6 is having a drastic effect on NIC speed.
Have you seen this before?
-
that doesn't disable ipv6 on pfsense, that just sets your wan interface to not get a ipv6 from your provider.. I doubt ipv6 has anything to do with your speed other than you were prob using ipv6 for your testing and your isp ipv6 network is slower than their ipv4, or the connection to where you were testing via ipv6 is slower, etc..
So your now at the speed you are paying for..
Do you have any other devices on this 192.168.10 network? If so then its not a transit and those devices going to have issues talking to stuff on your L3 switch.
Also you don't need a /24 as a transit, you could just use a /30 - if you made it say 172.16.0/30 you could then just use a simple summary route 192.168/16 route to your networks on your L3 switch. Then no matter what 192.168 vlan you add to that switch you never have to touch your routes again.
-
The idea with VLAN10 was to create a router VLAN that would be totally isolated from all other devices on the local network including things as slow wireless devices, broadcasts, Windows elections, and all chatty local traffic.
Sometimes I need to add a short term device to the router VLAN because of changes and things like configuring pfSense.
So I did not use /30 mask.I could arrange my networks so I could super scope them in a class B mask. I have my layer 3 switch setup posted on SmallNetBuilder forums so I tried to keep it simple, no tricky masks. The only thing a little hard is I have ACLs setup so I can share certain IPs to the guest network using a /29 mask.
-
Here are some setting I have changed today under System->Advanced. I think my NICs must be supported as I have been reading pfSense all day and tunning.
1. I changed kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000" to increase mbufs. I had to add this entry to system tunables.
2. The settings for Hardware TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO) and Hardware Large Receive Offload (LRO) under System > Advanced on the Networking tab default to checked (disabled) for good reason. Nearly all hardware/drivers have issues with these settings, and they can lead to throughput issues. Ensure the options are checked. Sometimes disabling via sysctl is also necessary. I enabled these by unchecking them.
My system seems smoother now. What do you guys think? Any ideas about more tunning?
-
I have just added CoDel under traffic shaping without bw parameters. It is working quite well. Since I have a 300 megabit connection for home and I don't think I will saturate it this should be a prefect fit. I have gained 3ms over my standard configuration using DSLReports speedtest. My whole network seems to be flowing better.
I should add now my system does not show any more resources being used.
-
Do you have any other devices on this 192.168.10 network? If so then its not a transit and those devices going to have issues talking to stuff on your L3 switch.
Also you don't need a /24 as a transit, you could just use a /30 - if you made it say 172.16.0/30 you could then just use a simple summary route 192.168/16 route to your networks on your L3 switch. Then no matter what 192.168 vlan you add to that switch you never have to touch your routes again.
I have been thinking about your commit having devices on the 192.168.10.0 network. I am thinking maybe you are having problems because you are using the pfsense box as the default gateway for workstations in the same network as pfsense. If you use the L3 switch as the default gateway for workstations on the same segment, network as pfsense there will not be problems accessing devices on the L3 switch. All nonlocal IPs for the workstation will flow out the default route which points to pfsense on the L3 switch so it should all work well.
So when a PC on the same segment as pfsense requests an internet IP address the IP request hits the L3 switch and bounces back to the pfsense box.
-
Who is having problems? I don't have any problems.. And sure if you want to point devices to your L3 switch svi as their gateway still doesn't fix the asynchronous routing - you just now changed the direction of where the issue will happen.
Here is the jux of asynchronous routing issues when you don't use a transit, which with stateful firewalls can cause all kinds of problems, let alone the performance issues with hairpinning connections.
So when your taking to the network that is connected to your gateway your using your fine.. If your talking to the internet and you use pfsense as gateway. Traffic flows to and from the same point. If you were using your switch l3 svi in that segment as your gateway and talking to boxes on networks behind that l3 switch again your good.
The problem is when your using a gateway in wrong direction - see 2nd pic, you point to your L3 switch, just to go back to pfsense to get to the internet. But the return traffic will not go back to your L3 switch.. That packet to pfsense is going to a 192.168.10 address which is directly connected to pfsense.. So it just sends the packet directly to the client = asynchronous routing.
Now you could fix this problem with host routing on your client in your 192.168.10 network and his default to get to internet is pfsense, while he has specific routes to your other networks. Or you use a transit to connect pfsense to your L3 switch and don't have any clients on that network..
-
Who is having problems? I don't have any problems.. And sure if you want to point devices to your L3 switch svi as their gateway still doesn't fix the asynchronous routing - you just now changed the direction of where the issue will happen.
Here is the jux of asynchronous routing issues when you don't use a transit, which with stateful firewalls can cause all kinds of problems, let alone the performance issues with hairpinning connections.
So when your taking to the network that is connected to your gateway your using your fine.. If your talking to the internet and you use pfsense as gateway. Traffic flows to and from the same point. If you were using your switch l3 svi in that segment as your gateway and talking to boxes on networks behind that l3 switch again your good.
The problem is when your using a gateway in wrong direction - see 2nd pic, you point to your L3 switch, just to go back to pfsense to get to the internet. But the return traffic will not go back to your L3 switch.. That packet to pfsense is going to a 192.168.10 address which is directly connected to pfsense.. So it just sends the packet directly to the client = asynchronous routing.
Now you could fix this problem with host routing on your client in your 192.168.10 network and his default to get to internet is pfsense, while he has specific routes to your other networks. Or you use a transit to connect pfsense to your L3 switch and don't have any clients on that network..
I have not noticed a problem with running the setup as stated above. But I have only run it a couple of days. I have a solution that I would like to run by you for pfsense and a layer 3 switch.
192.168.10.X X>9
pfsense–----------------------workstation-----------------------------layer 3 switch
192.168.10.1/30 default gateway192.168.10.9/29 L3 switch default route 192.168.10.1/30
L3 switch VLAN10 192.168.10.2/24Will pfsense like this better? If you like it I will make the changes. My only thoughts are my local networks are all going to be contained in my alias definition for snort and everything. I don't know what kind impact on pfsense this will have.
-
This has nothing to do with pfSense. This is basic IP routing. What is 192.168.10.9?
-
This has nothing to do with pfSense. This is basic IP routing. What is 192.168.10.9?
You are right I made a mistake.
192.168.10.X x>6
pfsense–----------------------workstation-----------------------------layer 3 switch
192.168.10.1/30 default gateway192.168.10.2/29 L3 switch default route 192.168.10.1/30
L3 switch VLAN10 192.168.10.2/24 -
But you indicated it was a default gateway of the workstation on your transit network (which is your entire problem - get your nodes off your transit network - either behind the L3 switch or on another pfSense interface.)
-
But you indicated it was a default gateway of the workstation on your transit network (which is your entire problem - get your nodes off your transit network - either behind the L3 switch or on another pfSense interface.)
Never mind. I now see the problem you pointed out.
My initial setup does work pointing to the switch.
-
"My initial setup does work pointing to the switch."
And that is a BROKE setup plain and simple.. You have a asynchronous routing, as in my 2nd pic. While it may work depending on your traffic flows and firewall rules and or setting to be less strict its BAD practice!!
You should always avoid this sort of setup, along with avoiding any sort of hair pins where ever possible.. Sometimes you have to live with a hairpin when you allow traffic between vlans that are on the same physical nic. But all vlans and or subinterface always remove overall performance of that nic..
-
Well I have tried /30 mask. pfsense does not seem to talk to the switch. I can not ping either way.
pfsense–----------------------------------VLAN10----------------layer 3 switch
192.168.10.1/30 192.168.10.2/30The other networks and VLANs are on the switch untouched. The only thing I did was change the LAN interface IP 192.168.10.1/30 and the switch VLAN 10 to 192.168.10.2/30. Have you tried this with your SG300 switch?
If I use the /24 mask all works. It even works with no other devices in VLAN10 other than pfsense and the layer 3 switch.
I reinstalled pfsense and have the same problem.
Now I have a problem on the new install with the resolver. I think it was working on the first install. The new install seems to have issues with my routed networks and DNS. I turned off resolver and turned on the forwarder and all works. I am going to keep looking.
-
you could use a /8 for your transit network if you wanted. As long as no end use devices are on the network then its a "transit" network. /30 is just common since its only got 2 IPs.. A network that connects 2 or more routers is a transit network.. When you put devices on such a network and have different paths for how traffic goes to and from that device is when you have asynchronous routing. Which is BAD thing, especially when it comes to stateful firewalls like pfsense. Clients don't always like the going to mac A, and coming back from mac B either.. Like I said its BAD and Broken setup..
/29 is also common since you have 6 IPs and allow for hsrp on both sides of the transit with HA pairs with your routers with your physical IPs and VIPs on both sides.. You can use any sized network you want/need as your transit.
As to have I done this with my sg300.. I do not have my sg300 currently in L3 mode - I have no reason for downstream networks in my home setup, while I have thought of it for performance since my pfsense is VM on some aging hardware. But yes I have done it when I was playing with the switch when I first got it an had it in L3 mode. But this is something that that is done every single day in any network anywhere on the planet. As stated this is basic IP routing.
You clearly show a workstation on your 192.168.10 network, pointing to to your switch on that network, while the gateway off to the internet is pfsense on that same 192.168.10 network - that is NOT a transit network.. And if you just tried changing the mask to /30 you would only have 2 address in that network… So you could NOT have any workstations on it..
-
For home use I find separating devices from my server and workstations works better. I also have a music, LAN and guest network. I have 3 wireless APs with 2 common SSIDs one for LAN and one for guest to allow roaming and they support my network by putting the user in the guest VLAN or the LAN VLAN based on logon.
How all this started is a friend brought over a broken laptop for me to fix and it infected my music server which I had spent weeks putting CDs on. I now have a music VLAN separate from all others. This prompted me to build a guest VLAN. I still needed to share printers and certain video stuff which friends bring over. So I needed ACLs to share these devices to my guest network and my multi VLAN network was born using IP networks.
-
I have multiple vlans and physical networks - agreed this is a good setup even for a home. But I just let pfsense be my firewall/router between all my segments. I have no need for a L3 switch in my home network.. Pfsense is more than capable or routing the traffic.. If I really needed the full gig between segments I would update my hardware vs running L3 downstream and loosing my firewall between the segments.
My pfsense vm running on a old HP N40L can do 400-500mbps between the segments.. Which is good enough for my wifi that is for sure.. My workstation on the same segment as the stuff I work do.. The stuff on the other segments would never need to make sure they have full 1gig routed/firewalled… Internet is only 80mbps for gosh sake...
My guest wifi is completely isolated, if you want to get on my normal wifi, that is still isolated from my other networks you need eap-tls setup.. I completely get the use and commend proper network segmentation and firewalls in a home setup..
But if I was going to use a downstream router, I sure and the hell would not set up asynchronous routing - nor would I hairpin connections ;)
-
I wouldn't use a layer 3 switch for that. Or at least for the segments you really want to lock down like the guest network.
This is basic IP routing, bro. Only you can decide how you want your network topology laid out. You can have some networks on the layer 3 switch, relying on whatever its packet filtering capabilities are and some networks on pfSense using its full stateful firewall capabilities. You can have some VLANs with SVIs on the switch and some without SVIs for which pfSense provides all the Layer 3 services. It's really up to you.
But you really can't put hosts on the same network that connects the two routers unless you want to maintain routing tables on those hosts.
Well I have tried /30 mask. pfsense does not seem to talk to the switch. I can not ping either way.
Then you did it wrong, plain and simple. Post details of what you have actually done, not what you think you've done because it's not what you think you've done or it would be working.
-
you really can't put hosts on the same network that connects the two routers unless you want to maintain routing tables on those hosts.
Exactly!!!! Very cleanly stated…
-
-
I use pfsense for a fast router firewall NAT device. I like the idea of snort.
I want to keep all my VLAN networks on the switch. When I create VLANs I always assign an IP network to each VLAN. ACLs provide enough control for me and my network. I have 3 Cisco WAP321 which dumps users into a guess network or a LAN network. This works great for me. I am able to feed multiple VLANs to one router VLAN on the layer3 switch to feed the router. The SG300-28 has a 17 GIG backplane so it can run faster than any internet connection I would have. I only have a 300megabit connection. I just want the fastest firewall I can run on the front door to the internet. pfSense is on the table now.
I am not saying pfsense has a problem with a /30 mask. It could be the SG300-28 switch. It is why I asked johpoz whether he had tried it as he owns an Cisco SG300 switch also. I have posted a question on the Cisco small business web site to ask if there is an issue.
I took a working pfsense router 192.168.10.1/24 mask plugged into a router VLAN on the SG200-28 switch defined with a /24 mask. It was working and is my current config I am using. I changed the VLAN IP to 192.168.10.2/30 on the switch and I changed the default route to 192.168.10.2/30 also. I then ran 2 on the console for pfsense to change the LAN IP to 192.168.10.1/30. I could not ping from the switch using ping on the switch to pfsense. I could not ping from pfsense to the switch. The switch port used is an access port defined to the router VLAN. It is the same port used for the /24 mask which works. This sounds basic so I was looking for confirmation from john since he recommended using a /30 mask on this thread.
-
Neither the Cisco SG nor pfSense has any problems with a /30 netmask. Guaran-effing-teed. You did something wrong.
And it doesn't matter one bit what netmask you use. All that matters is that there are no hosts on the transit network that you expect to route properly unless you maintain a proper routing table on that host.
-
The net mask does make a difference. It works with a /24 mask and does not work with /30 mask. I do not run any clients in my router VLAN. The idea of the router VLAN is to isolate from the broadcast domain, default VLAN, Windows chatter, etc. I do not want the router waiting for any local traffic not destined for the internet.
-
Dude. You did something wrong. No way the Cisco or pfSense has a problem with /30. If it was /31 maybe. /30 no way. Look at your config again.
-
When I have another free evening. I spent about 5 hours going over everything. I even reinstalled pfsense.
-
Chasing ghosts. And that was after changing the netmask on both ends from /29 to /30 - no reboots just change and apply.
![Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.48 PM.png](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.48 PM.png)
![Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.48 PM.png_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.48 PM.png_thumb)
![Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.38 PM.png](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.38 PM.png)
![Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.38 PM.png_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.25.38 PM.png_thumb)
![Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.27.39 PM.png](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.27.39 PM.png)
![Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.27.39 PM.png_thumb](/public/imported_attachments/1/Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.27.39 PM.png_thumb)