Before installing

[madforevercna]

Hi everybody, I'm a newbie and I don't know pfSense well except the fact that it serves as a VPN and that it controls banwidth. Among (many) others. But I'm not even sure of that.

Whatever, if someone could explain to me 2 things before proceeding to the installation it would be wonderful :
1 - Must the PC have two network cards in order to install pfSense?
2 - Is one obliged to format one's HDD to install it ?

All I'm doing is mentionning what was said in this video :
Youtube Video

I may be wrong.

[KOM]

1.  You can configure it with just one NIC but it's kind of a hack.  Two NICs are better, and NICs are cheap.

2.  No, you don't have to format it beforehand.  That will be done during the installation phase.

[johnpoz]

1. No as long as your networking infrastructure (switch(es)) supports vlans…. I would not call use of vlans a hack as kom puts it... But yes it would be better to have 2 nics then you do not need to understand or be able to support vlan tagging.

2. As kom said no - but just keep in mind that install of pfsense will wipe any OS or data you have on the drive.

[madforevercna]

I get the "erase data" part but not the Vlan one.
I'll follow your advices (having 2 NIC cards) and maybe wait till the installation of Windows 10 cause I'm on Win 7 right now.

Thanks @johnpoz and @KOM

[johnpoz]

"wait till the installation of Windows 10 cause I'm on Win 7 right now."

Huh??  You do understand unless your installing pfsense as a VM.. It will erase any OS you have installed.  Your not going to dual boot pfsense and windows OS…

If you do not understand what vlans are, or have a switch that supports them - then yes you would need 2 nics..

[madforevercna]

That's why I saw this comment earlier. One guy asked if pfSense needs a dedicated PC ?

I've tried and used many software in my life but each time I read about a software and know it will deeply modify something I avoid it , just like : Backtrack, DaemonTools…etc

[johnpoz]

You can always run pfsense in a VM on your OS of choice.. VirtualBox for example, or the built in virtual software of windows 10 if you so desire..

This would allow you to run pfsense while not messing with your installed OS at all.

[madforevercna]

Thank you very much. What remains is to see what are the recommended NIC cards for the software to run omptimally.
To make the story short, I just plan to use its QoS feature.
And read a little more about LAN/WLAN/VLAN or whatever they call it.

Sorry if my english isn't that good. It's just my 4th language (learning order not preference order lol)