pfsense VM custom router setup
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Not sure if I'm getting this correctly, so I have a main computer that I use for everyday things, and I'm building a second computer that I want to half turn into router
The second computer has a z170i motherboard paired w i7-6700k, and tldr i want it to act as a router, my plan was to buy "Syba Gigabit Dual-Port Network Card PCIE 10/100/1000Mbit", run pfsense in a VM and do ethernet wall(outlet) to first port of the card(assuming this allows usage of wan?) and then ethernet cable from second port of the card on second computer to main computers ethernet port, would this work? Would I be able to access router settings from main computer, or even have internet? I don't have a router nor a switch and would like to just have it off of the second computer.
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@xqtSarah said in pfsense VM custom router setup:
my plan was to buy "Syba Gigabit Dual-Port Network Card PCIE 10/100/1000Mbit", run pfsense in a VM and do ethernet wall(outlet) to first port of the card(assuming this allows usage of wan?)
Ensure that the card is well supported by the operating system. For pfSense a Realtek NIC is generally not the first chioce at all, but maybe it's well supported under your hypervisor system. Then it should work well if you use paravirtualized network cards, but don't pass-through the NICs.
Basically, your plan should work. I have a similar setup.
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@viragomann would I be 100% safe with an intel based card? I cannot find any with a reasonable price for 2 port gigabit sadly
What's a good common NIC that would 100% work for my setup?
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@xqtSarah You could take a look at EBay for well-priced used OEM cards. This is a great thread at a great site.
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/list-of-nics-and-their-equivalent-oem-parts.20974/
I use an i340 4-port card which was an IBM OEM issue with Server 2012R2. Maybe try for an i350, either 2- or 4-port. Good luck.
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@xqtSarah
As mentioned, if you virtualize pfSense and don't pass-though the NICs, the device drivers of the underlying operating system are used. So it's not on pfSense to support the hardware.If you give pfSense direct hardware access by passing through the NIC you can checkout the FreeBSD 12.3-RELEASE Hardware Notes for compatibility.