Using pfSense as Captive Portal only using Virtual Box.
-
Hi, I am trying to implement pfSense in my network using Virtual Box, and use only the Captive Portal Service for the guest wifi. I am still new to this, and would like to know how to correctly configure pfSense.
-
does your switch support VLAN?
-
@free4 Yes my switch is a CiscoSF300-24PP
-
then you could do what you want
firewall---(port A)->switch->(port B)------(em0.10)->pfsense->(em0.11)------(port B)->switch->(port C)------>your router
in my exemple, vlan 10 will represent the network between the firewall and pfsense, and vlan 11 will represent the network between pfsense and your wifi router.
switch port A : linked to your firewall. inside vlan 10, without 802.1Q tags
switch port B : linked to your computer with virtualbox installed. trunk : inside vlan 10 and 11. 802.1Q tags enabled on vlan 10 and 11.
switch port C: linked to your wifi router. inside vlan 11, without 802.1Q tags.you will need to ask pfsense to create virtual interfaces for specific vlan 802.1Q tags. you can do this either on GUI (interfaces->(assign)->vlan menu) or in pfsense console (menu 2, assign interfaces, then y to "should vlan be setup now?")
em0.10: linked to a "bridged" interface in virtualbox. bridge to the Ethernet network card
em0.11 : linked to the same bridged virtualbox
interface -
however, I just want to warn you that using a wifi router between you and the pfsense isn't optimal (it will force you to disable captive portal MAC filtering...which is not good)
why don't you setup directly a captive portal on your Wi-Fi router? if the router can't offer such functionality, why don't you buy a pfsense appliance or a small Wi-Fi switch such as Cisco aironet?