Multi physical interface with same subnet
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You can not use 1 pfsense and have interfaces on the same network, and also have devices on this network having the same IP..
Now if the IPs were different and you just needed to leverage connections to pfsense that could be done via bridge the ports..
So if your machines/devices had IPs say 192.168.10.1 and 192.168.10.2 then you could bridge 2 interfaces on pfsense and that would work. But in such a case its easier to just use a switch if you need multiple connections, etc. ;)
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It's all down to routing. Imagine if you had the same subnet, for example 192.168.1.0/24, on two different interfaces. The routing table would have two entries for the same subnet like:
Destination Gateway 192.168.1.0/24 link#1 .... 192.168.1.0/24 link#2 ....If the system would be now asked to forward a packet to host 192.168.1.100 that is on the first (link#1) network, would it be able to decide which link (interface) to use? The answer is an absolute no because both entries in the routing table are equally wide (/24) so there is no way to decide which link to use.
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In such a scenario it "could" (in theory) be possible if the routing device also looked in its arp table and said own 192.168.1.100 is connected to link2.. But where you for sure have a problem is in his scenario both devices have the same IP… So there are 2 192.168.1.100..
His proposed setup is borked for sure.. The correct solution would be to change 1 of the segments to a different L3 scheme. Or if you want single L2 to make sure devices all have different IPs in the L3 addressing your using on that L2
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@kpa:
It's all down to routing. Imagine if you had the same subnet, for example 192.168.1.0/24, on two different interfaces. The routing table would have two entries for the same subnet like:
Destination Gateway 192.168.1.0/24 link#1 .... 192.168.1.0/24 link#2 ....If the system would be now asked to forward a packet to host 192.168.1.100 that is on the first (link#1) network, would it be able to decide which link (interface) to use? The answer is an absolute no because both entries in the routing table are equally wide (/24) so there is no way to decide which link to use.
The only possible solution would still require at least a different IP address. Then there could be a specific route to the device and then the routing longest path match would work. The device would also need to be configured with a suitable subnet mask, so that it knew other devices in the same network were elsewhere. Even then it's still a messy solution to a problem that could be avoided entirely by changing the address to a different subnet.
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or a metric, etc.
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@jaf:
if it's possible with only 1 pfsense.
Definitely no.
@jaf:
…it seems it's too strange to be implemented.
It's technically not possible to do something like that with one device.
Imagine putting two green apples on one table. Now tell your customer to "grab the green apple".
He just doesn't know which one.
Same for an IP packet. It just doesn't know if it should take the left or the right route to one of two devices with the exact same address. Routing doesn't work this way. -
@jaf:
if it's possible with only 1 pfsense.
Definitely no.
@jaf:
…it seems it's too strange to be implemented.
It's technically not possible to do something like that with one device.
Imagine putting two green apples on one table. Now tell your customer to "grab the green apple".
He just doesn't know which one.
Same for an IP packet. It just doesn't know if it should take the left or the right route to one of two devices with the exact same address. Routing doesn't work this way.Well, if it's possible to do it on 2 devices, maybe it's possible to virtualize it on 1, no?
But I agree you must have at least 2 IP address on the wan (like you have with 2 devices) to make the difference for the 2 green apples.
But anyway, it's to uncommon to implement something like that all in once, so I can use 2 (in reality for my project more than 2). -
Of course you could virtualize two pfSenses on one physical to do the same job as two physicals.
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Of course you could virtualize two pfSenses on one physical to do the same job as two physicals.
I wanted to say, making one VM that you call "pfsenseMulti", containing an implementation of pfsense containing all that in once, with a smart HMI like pfsense :)
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It's technically not possible to do something like that with one device.
@jaf:
… it's to uncommon to implement something like that all in once...
@jaf:
…implementation of pfsense containing all that in once...
Just out of sheer curiosity: you cannot understand or you don't want to believe that technically this is not possible?
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I think the problem is that my English is not so good, and my explanation not clear. :(
Or maybe I'm an idiot? I hope not.And yes, I don't understand how it can be technically impossible to develop a VM integrating the 2 devices solution, and developing a special HMI to control all that. After, you call this VM "pfsenseMulti".
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Huh?
You can for sure have a VM host box and put as many Pfsense VMS on it as you your host can support from memory and horse power..The point is you can not have the same IP on the same network and expect it to work.. How you put them on different networks is up to you.. Be it virtual routers or physical ones.
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The point is you can not have the same IP on the same network and expect it to work..
Where did I say this can works???
Sorry again if my explanations was not clear… -
You didn't - just pointing out this fact so everyone is clear ;) How you create the different networks is up to you.
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@jaf:
I think the problem is that my English is not so good, and my explanation not clear. :(
Or maybe I'm an idiot? I hope not.And yes, I don't understand how it can be technically impossible to develop a VM integrating the 2 devices solution, and developing a special HMI to control all that. After, you call this VM "pfsenseMulti".
Isn't this a heck of a lot of trouble to avoid the proper solution, that is change the IP address to a different subnet?
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Or even a different IP on the same subnet ;)
