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    PfSense on ESXI - only one way traffic???

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved NAT
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    • V
      viragomann
      last edited by

      Also ensure that the windows 7 vm firewall doesn't block access. Shut it down or open the ports you want to access.

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      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
        last edited by

        Why do you have 2 vmkerns setup?

        So you have 2 internet connections?  These 2 routers you mention the tp and the linksys?

        I would setup pfsense with these 2 connections as wan if they have internet.  I would then setup other vswitches to put your vms in that are connect to your pfsense vm.  So pfsense would have 4 interfaces, 2 tied to the real world that connect to your 2 physical networks  192.168.1 and 10.0.0 and 2 tied to different networks on your esxi host so you could put vms in either network and firewall between them.  And both of these networks (or more) could leverage your 2 internet connections that pfsense is tied too.

        So in a nutshell you end up with something like this. See attached.

        You have your 2 wan vswitches, connect a vmkern to wherever network you want.  Not sure why you would need more than 1?

        Then create as many lan vswitches as you want and connect to pfsense.. Pfsense then firewalls and routes between them without nat.  And now you have multiple internet paths and paths into your 2 networks.

        You could manage pfsense from its lan side from one of your VMs that you console into via your vmkern connection from whatever physical network you want to, or you could open up one or both of its wan for management to pfsense from either of your physical networks.

        lab.jpg
        lab.jpg_thumb

        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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        • A
          avibarilan
          last edited by

          Hi

          thank you so much for taking the time to right an answer and attach a visio…wow...thank you so much!

          your point makes sense if it is implemented in 2 direct ISP connected networks.
          in my case we have one network (192.168...) that is connected to the TPlink router that is connected to the internet.
          the second network (10.0...)is connected to a linksys router but this router has no connection to the internet, it is actually only a switch.
          thus, currently, my pfsense uses its 192.168 address as a wan connection and the vm's in the 10.0 network get internet connectivity actually through the 192.168 router \ gateway.

          i have two kernel ports because i wanted to create a seperation between the two networks and allow them to communicate with each other through pfsense.

          what do you suggest in this case?
          should i still not use NAT?

          any suggestion???
          i am open for everything at this point

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            if your linksys is only a switch why is it on a different network?  Are you wanting to use this network for actual physical devices and or wifi devices with that routers wifi?

            Are you using wifi off these routers?

            If you just have the 1 network to the internet, you can let the tp nat if you want if you wanted to use its wifi, etc.

            Then all depends on what you want this other network to be on your esxi other phy nic.. Could be another segment, could be be your vmkern in the same lan segment.  There are mutliple ways to skin the cat, comes down to what you want to actually do.

            So you could do this.  What is it you want to do exactly??  If possible I would not do rfc1918 on pfsense wan, And connect that physical interface just to pfsense wan, with nothing else on it.  If you can not, then using rfc1918 and nat is not big deal - just put pfsense wan into the dmz of your tplink.

            lab1.jpg
            lab1.jpg_thumb

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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            • A
              avibarilan
              last edited by

              Hi

              i love your diagrams!!!

              what want to achieve is to simulate the combining of two "separate" networks together.
              one network is the 192.168 network and the other is the 10.0 network.
              the current topology allows me create these networks with my two routers,
              but the 192.168 will have to be "the top level" network since only this network is connected to the internet.
              (by the way, wifi is off on both routers, i dont use wifi at all)

              this requirement "forces" me to enable all vm's in the 10.0 network to some how use 192.168 address as their default gateway.
              when i install pfsense i have to chose which network is my wan and which lan. so naturally i am choosing 192.168 as wan and 10.0 as lan.

              my desired result:
              two lan networks (192.168 + 10.0) that are allowing communication between networks.

              my current result:
              two networks that only have a one way communication (10.0 vm's can connect to 192.168 but not the other way around)

              did i explain my use case better?
              again, thank you so much for your time!

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              • KOMK
                KOM
                last edited by

                John, what are you using to make your diagrams?

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                • A
                  avibarilan
                  last edited by

                  i'm guessing microsoft visio

                  i use it too

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                  • johnpozJ
                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                    last edited by

                    Sounds like then my 2nd lab1 drawing is what your after.  You can have vms on your 10 network, and any other networks you want that are purely VMs.. If you want other networks in the physical world without more interfaces for esxi host you would need switch that does vlans.

                    You have Vms and physical hardware on your 10 network via vswitch connected to that phy nic.    You can bring up as many other networks as you would want to put vms on and just create a new vswitch for that network and new nic for pfsense tied to that vswitch.

                    As to gateway with your 10 devices, this would be pfsense interface in the 10 network.  Since all your networks both your 10 and anything else you would bring up on esxi host are all lan interfaces to pfsense then all you have to do is allow the traffic you want, there will be no natting between them.. Only nat will be when you go what amounts to a transit network (192.168) to get to the internet out the pfsense wan.

                    This is pretty close to my own setup, but I have more phy interfaces in my esxi host (4) so I have 2 physical lan with 1 having some vlans on it, and then 1 interface in the host just for vmkern (sharing this with a normal vswitch takes a performance hit on the vmkern moving files to and from the datastore) so since I had a port I broke it out on its own.  And then 1 that is just wan and tied directly to my cable modem, so pfsense gets public on its wan interface.

                    Here is my esxi networking.  See attached.

                    So you notice my pfsense (pf22 has interface in every vswitch.  The wlan vswitch you will also see is set to 4095 which trunk so that is the pfsense interface that I have pfsense vlans on that correspond to the physical network through to my phy switch, etc..

                    Your setup since you only have 2 nics one is tied to your internet router that is doing nat, would be nice to just have pfsense do the nat vs double nat but can work with.  Then your other phy nic would have your normal physical network and your vmkern, and then you can create as many other vswitches as you would want for other vms - see my dmz vswitch as example.

                    Yeah use visio for the drawings..

                    esxinetwork.png
                    esxinetwork.png_thumb

                    An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                    If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                    Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                    SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                    • A
                      avibarilan
                      last edited by

                      Hi

                      i will try to do it the way you suggested.
                      thank you so much for your effort!

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                      • KOMK
                        KOM
                        last edited by

                        Yeah use visio for the drawings..

                        Hmm, was hoping it was FOSS and not Microsoft.

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                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                          last edited by

                          I wish it was foss as well, but have yet to find one that is good as visio.  I have tried quite a few of them dia, yEd, pencil project, gliffy is free online one I point to use that post us something like crayons on a napkin ;)

                          When you use it pretty much everyday at work, its what you get use to.. And if I sent someone a drawing in a different format are they going to be able to read it? etc..

                          But always on the lookout for a good foss tool that can replace it.. So if you find one please post about it! ;)

                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                          • KOMK
                            KOM
                            last edited by

                            Continuing to hijack the thread…

                            yED looks nice.  What didn't you like about it?  LibreOffice Draw with network shapes from VRT Systems looks promising as well.

                            I've used Visio in the past but found some of how it operated to be frustrating, especially when it came to aligning lines and connectors.  Maybe it's improved since, but I don't want to spend the money to find out.

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                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                              last edited by

                              yEd is very nice - should prob spend some more time with it to be honest, but bad habits die hard so I find myself always going back to visio.

                              As to auto align and connectors there are some free stuff you can add to visio to help with that.  The big one for me when doing actual work diagrams is labels on the connectors for the interfaces on each end..  Here is a great free addon

                              http://www.squaremilesystems.com/products/sms-visio-utils/

                              My fav part is the network connector

                              http://www.squaremilesystems.com/products/sms-visio-utils/network-connector/

                              If you just want the vss of the connector stencil, just send me a pm ;)  That way you don't have to fill out their form, etc..

                              networkconnector.png
                              networkconnector.png_thumb

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                              • KOMK
                                KOM
                                last edited by

                                Thanks but I'll keep playing with the other two for now.  LibreOffice Draw is already on my home box and it seems to do the job.  Getting decent network image templates was the stickler, and the VRT stuff seems good enough to me.

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                                • jimpJ
                                  jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                  last edited by

                                  @KOM:

                                  Thanks but I'll keep playing with the other two for now.  LibreOffice Draw is already on my home box and it seems to do the job.  Getting decent network image templates was the stickler, and the VRT stuff seems good enough to me.

                                  LibreOffice Draw + VRT is what I use for the diagrams in the pfSense book (now, as I'm updating it), and other places like the Hangouts. Not sure if I've moved any over on the Wiki  yet. They are nice shapes with a permissive license so there are no concerns with using them in published diagrams, too.

                                  LibreOffice Draw has lots of room for improvement but it's not too bad these days.

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