newbie help with router
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Hi.
I have a forcepoint 1100 router which has 2x 10gig + 8x 1gb ports.
I have another 10g switch connected via the 10g port and from that go one server and one 10gbaseT adapter to a 10g switch in another part of my house.
I have a bunch of 1gig devices also connected to this 10gig switch, but i want to remove this switch from my devices.in pfsense..
i have lan0 (port 0 ) set as WAN and it works well.
i cant seem to get to use the other ports like a switch - i have tried making a bridge but it doesnt seem to work.can i have some help please.
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@qbhatti said in newbie help with router:
i cant seem to get to use the other ports like a switch - i have tried making a bridge but it doesnt seem to work.
Don't use the pfSense as a switch (bridge) if it can be avoided.
L3 Bridging is CPU Cycle costly , and will never perform as on a real L2 switch.Buy a "cheap" Vlan capable switch for the 1G devices.
You can get 8-ports for around $40..50 , and 24-Ports for around $150 ... Even cheaper if you et a used from *Bay.Create some Vlans on pfSense , and on the 1Gb switch , connect the two ...
Done/Bingo
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OK, no thats fine - I have the equipment already, I was thinking to use less equipment, but if you are saying it is better to leave the switch to switch i wont move anything around!
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@qbhatti
If you want to have your 10G Switch dedicated to Servers , there is no issue in connecting your 1G switch to a free pfSense 1G IF.That would perform fine.
It all depends on how your traffic flows , and if you have some kind of L3 (inter vlan) routing capability in the 10G Box.
If you have and are interested in utilizing L3 functionality in the 10G Box.
I would just connect 1 or 2 pfSense 1Gb interfaces to the 10G Box, and let that do the "internal heavy lifting".
Note: L3 routing in the 10G Box, would prevent pfSense from filtering traffic on/between those "10G-Box L3 routed interfaces", as it would never see the traffic./Bingo
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Yup, a real external switch is almost always the better choice here. Only use a bridge if you need to filter between two network segments in the same subnet.
That said is should be possible to add ports to a bridge. If you're not using the ports for anything else and the traffic across the bridge will not be too large it would probably be fine.
Steve
