PfSense on esxi 6.7, can get it to work propperly.

marcel1988

ok.

In the meantime i have tried to run PfSense directly installed on a SSD.
That is running fine, and working woth both the INTEL nic for the WAN and the realtek as the LAN.

The devices that are attached trough a LAN kabel are getting 10.0.0.X and internet access,
When i tried it with windows 2019 its working perfect without a problem. So i think i need to consider to leave ESXI for what it is. or try a different hyperviser OS.

i only want to use it for:

1x windows server machine
1x firewall machine
2-3 linux machines.

Any thought?

kiokoman

change that realtek card to some intel they are cheap on ebay / amazon after all

three

Exactly what I would recommend as well. It would cost only a few bucks and will work right out of the box with ESXI. Otherwise you need to spend countless hours or days to get into another hypervisor. Do the math to your liking :)

marcel1988

Thank you both for the help :) i will buy a Intel card ;)

I just found one of these: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/184824/intel-ethernet-network-adapter-i350-t4-for-ocp-3-0.html for €20 euro.

Will this one work?

gcu_greyarea

With ESXi have you tried putting the LAN vSwitch and Port Group into promiscuous mode ?

marcel1988

ok so, i bought this https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/184824/intel-ethernet-network-adapter-i350-t4-for-ocp-3-0.html inserted it in the ESXI and booted up. It works perfectly.

So now it is running and working like this:

Fiber optic > Ubiquiti USG router WAN > Ubiquiti USG router LAN > network port NIC ESXI WAN > network port NIC ESXI LAN > Network switch and accespoint in the house. ( 10.0.0.X range. ) this is working perfect.

But i want to remove the Ubiquiti usg router so i can setup the fiber optic directly into the WAN port of the NIC of the ESXI.
so i'm working with T-Mobile here in here in the Netherlands. and i have added the VLAN 300 for internet into the PfSense on the interface of the WAN port of the NIC:

Under interfaces > assigment i have put the new VLAN300 into the WAN:

But i dont get a IP from the DHCP server of my ISP provider.

When i set it back on the normal settings, everything is working perfect and i get a 192.168.1.2 from the Ubiquiti USG.

kiokoman

under esxi did you set the vswitch to vlanid 4095 ?

marcel1988

So i need to edit this one:
This is the nic port that is comming from the fiber optic.

And can you tell me WHY i need to add VLAN 4095?

three

This is a specific of ESXI. If empty, VLAN are NOT supported. 4095 allows ALL VLAN numbers from the VM. I still get confused about VLAN, tagged, untagged, etc. But this should work,

kiokoman

indeed 4095 means that you set your vswitch as a trunk port letting any vlan pass through

marcel1988

Yes, this did the trick :)

marcel1988

so after a few day's working perfectly.
it now randomly stops working.

In the PfSense VM i see this:

When i reboot the VM everything works again.
What can this be?

kiokoman

try to reinstall open-vm-tools
maybe do a fsck also

marcel1988

@kiokoman

i have reinstalled the open-vm-tools and nothing changed
what you mean by fsck?

And what about the new update?
i'm now on:

2.4.4-RELEASE-p3 (amd64)
built on Wed May 15 18:53:44 EDT 2019
FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE-p10

kiokoman

fsck: from console is option 5 and F key ( F: Reboot and run a filesystem check )
and yes, upgrade to 2.4.5

marcel1988

ok now i understand what you mean. i just did that a couple of hours ago and it seems to work again.
What about the update?

after the update i need to reinstall vm-tools again? and another fsck?

kiokoman

nope, no need, make a backup of your config just in case and do the upgrade

marcel1988

Still this is not working fine. My internet disconnects every 4-5 hour.
So can you please check my settings and tell me if the are right:

First off all, the network settings:

ESXI WAN settings: + VLAN ID 4095
ESXI LAN settings:
PfSense settings:

Cable managment:

WAN T-mobile > WAN Port intel NIC ESXI
LAN Port intel NIC > port 1 into standard network switch. ( not managed )
port 2 network switch > Onboard LAN port of ESXI server for managment.
The rest of the network ports of the switch are 2 Ubiquiti WIFI accespoint, and some computers.

As you can see, i also installed OpnSense just to find our of PfSense was the problem.
But also OpnSense has the same problems.

kiokoman

it's ok, was the cable removed during this screenshot i suppose? physical adapters are not green
if you are using igbn (native esxi driver) try to install net-igb (intel driver for esxi)

also install open-vm-tools from pfsense packages if you didn't already

marcel1988

Yes, the cable is removed otherwise i dont have good internet ofcourse :)

Both the drivers are installed:

Also the package in PfSense for open-vm-tools is installed.