pfSense running on Plex Media server host: 3 NICs, no LAN network access?
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Preface: I've had a Plex Media server for a while now, but I don't trust my new ISP and want a barrier in place to protect my devices and network. Gigabit fiber up/down. The Plex media server is running natively on Windows 11 Pro, and I decided to add an Intel PRO/1000 PT dual port server adapter for WAN in and LAN out and spin up a Hyper-V with pfSense to handle routing, VPN, and threat protection. Host machine has i7-8700 GTX 1060 32GB DDR4 256 NVMe SSD and 6TB HDD in RAID.
Application: I want both pfSense interfaces (WAN and LAN) to be invisible to host OS. Basic setup should be WAN in on interface 1, LAN out to physical switch on interface 2, switch to 2nd LAN in/out for Plex server. I want pfSense to handle DHCP and NAT, not relay from ISP.
Problem: I cannot access/ping webconfigurator without allowing host to share NICs. Netgate's guide suggests creating two virtual switches, 1 External for WAN and 1 Private for LAN; however, this doesn't dedicate NIC interface 2 to VM. Therefore, for my application, I must create 2x External switches and assign 1 to WAN and 1 to LAN, both without management OS access, unless I'm mistaken. But when setup like this, I am unable to access/ping 192.168.1.1/24 at all.
Question: What am I doing wrong? Why can't I ping 192.168.1.1 via LAN/interface 2 with this setup? Not getting DHCP from pfSense, either. I haven't changed any setting in host ethernet adapters. With Netgate's setup I can't access it either, but that makes sense with a Private switch.
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I'll go ahead an answer my own question here: the issue was apparently driver related. On my third time installing pfSense, I manually uninstalled and reinstalled an updated version of the Intel PRO/1000 PT driver. After that, it worked without any issues exactly how I wanted it to. I'm not sure why that would be the case as even the updated driver was only slightly newer, but either way it works and is invisible to the host OS, which is all I need. I'm getting full gigabit speeds both ways with only 2ms more latency than I had before. I'm running Snort.