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    What can I do with the extra ports of a quad port NIC for home usage

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • S
      shawn8888
      last edited by

      Currently, my pfSense is running as a VM on an ESXi host. Recently I upgraded the single port NIC to a quad port NIC. My original idea was to use the extra ports as a switch, but after read some of the posts here, I realize it may not be a good idea.
      How can I take advantage of the extra ports? I know there are some good usage for servers and enterprises, but they don’t interest me. Such as:

      1. Network redundancy/balance - I only have one Internet ISP.
      2. Network teaming – All my home devices are on gigabit network, and I am happy with that so far.
      3. Multiple vlan and subnets – All my home network is on one subnet and I would like to keep it simple.

      Are there any good ideas that I can take advantage of the extra ports? Or should I just ignore them and pretend it’s a single port NIC?

      JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JKnottJ
        JKnott @shawn8888
        last edited by

        @shawn8888

        I'd say ignore them.

        PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
        i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
        UniFi AC-Lite access point

        I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
          last edited by

          You could break out your vm kern connection to specific interface, and your vm(s) to different interface.

          vm kern sharing with other port groups on on the same physical nic has had some performance issues in the past.

          As to the teaming comment, if your running windows and any of these machines have more than 1 nic you could get smb3 multichannel support working, this will double your smb bandwidth.. Not sure what your running on esxi host - so might not make any difference.

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

          S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • S
            shawn8888 @johnpoz
            last edited by

            @JKnott

            I'd say ignore them.

            That sounds easy. ;-)

            @johnpoz

            You could break out your vm kern connection to specific interface, and your vm(s) to different interface.

            I am not sure what you mean. Do you mean different VMs use different ports of the NIC? I don't have many VMs running, so why should I do that?

            As to the teaming comment, if your running windows and any of these machines have more than 1 nic you could get smb3 multichannel support working, this will double your smb bandwidth.. Not sure what your running on esxi host - so might not make any difference.

            currently I have only one quad port NIC on the ESXi box. That's why Network teaming seem no use for me.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
              last edited by johnpoz

              No there is a VM Kern port group, and it normally shares the the connection to physical nic with with another port group on the same vswitch for your vms..

              This in the past has introduced some performance issues.

              Since you have multiple nics to work with, then you create a new vswitch and put this vswitch on its own nic connected to the same L2 since you only want simple flat network..

              As to teaming no point.. How many clients on you physical network do you have talking to these vms.. If you create team on esxi to your switch.. Then physical client A can can talk to vm A at full gig, while client B can talk to vm B at full gig, vs having to share the single physical connection your esxi host has.

              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • kiokomanK
                kiokoman LAYER 8
                last edited by

                tag them as "reserved" for future use :)

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                • provelsP
                  provels
                  last edited by provels

                  DMZ? WiFi AP for a Guest Network? ISCSI to a XigmaNAS? :)

                  Peder

                  MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
                  BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

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