Does pfSense work on linode.com?

kroberts

Hi,

Does pfSense work on a Linode box?

I want to install a firewall, UTM and VPN. It seems to me that pfSense should work there, and that it would be easier to install and manage than a typical Linux setup.

Thanks.

KOM

I am a Linode user. Linode allows you to deploy premade images on your node(s). pfSense is not one of the images that you can deploy on your node, only Linux. See attached.

linode.png_thumb

kroberts

OK, I guess I'll have to whittle a security appliance out of a stick.

Thanks.

vc6SfV8

Yes, you can deploy pfSense on linode. You can put whatever os you want on linode, just start with a blank machine and download the image using finnix.

mauriston911

Is there already a tutorial on how to install pfsense in Linode? I tried the finnix way and used rsync but it didn't work. Any update on this thread? Thanks in advance.

kroberts

They let you specify the networking of all your images. I think most hosters do. So if you have 10 guests running it makes all kinds of sense to put them behind a good firewall.

If you lease/buy physical hardware at a hosting site. Then it makes even more sense.

vc6SfV8

Following back up on this - I successfully installed pfSense today on Linode.

Follow the directions here: https://www.linode.com/docs/tools-reference/custom-kernels-distros/install-freebsd-on-linode

In step 5, replace the curl command with the following:

curl -k https://nyifiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.3.1-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz | gunzip | dd of=/dev/sda

Everything else works beautifully. :)

Ryan

vc6SfV8

An update:

I had problems with routing - they appear to be solved by setting the VM mode in the linode configuration profile to Full-virtualization. (In case this helps someone else. ;))

Ryan

Guest

@vc6SfV8:

An update:

I had problems with routing - they appear to be solved by setting the VM mode in the linode configuration profile to Full-virtualization. (In case this helps someone else. ;))

Ryan

You were most likely running into the VirtIO driver issue. ( https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=88467.0 )
Since you don't have access to the hypervisor side of the deal, you can't set the ethtool options. Full virtualisation is probably the only way to make it work well in this case.

I'm not sure how this impacts performance, pfSense with VirtIO and the csum offload fix performs very well, but I haven't done any recent tests to see if it's working well in HVM (full virt) mode.

thcassio

Hi, thanks for the posts.

How did you manage to split the networks on same eth0 adapter please?

hafyz

@vc6SfV8:

Following back up on this - I successfully installed pfSense today on Linode.

Follow the directions here: https://www.linode.com/docs/tools-reference/custom-kernels-distros/install-freebsd-on-linode

In step 5, replace the curl command with the following:
curl -k https://nyifiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.3.1-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz | gunzip | dd of=/dev/sda
Everything else works beautifully. :)

Ryan

Hi, I followed your tips however during during the botting of Installer Profile I am getting this error

"Cannot Direct Disk boot a disk with no MBR: Linode Configuration Profile problems detected. "

Any ideas on how to solve this?

Thank you.