Any advice on upgrading hardware of deployed router
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I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. I have an existing pfSense CE deployment that has been running for years, this system works great but I feel it is time to replace it and add some capability. We have a bunch of IoT devices, streaming devices, kids have some servers ported through, and my DHCP table is almost 200 devices strong. We'd like to explore VLAN capability to increase throughput within the house as well so I gathered up all the hardware to support this going forward and have it wired.
The question is this - how can I install a second pfSense router to ease the transition?
The original router is 2 port gigabit, the new is 4 port gigabit + 1 onboard. At first I thought I could simply install the new router and use one port as a pass through but that would break the NAT routing correct? Not terrible, as we should be able to logically through VLAN's change some routing - we tried a bit of that this morning and oddly only google services would work, no other websites could be accessed outside. Not wanting to upset the boss we reverted the changes and I started looking for options. Not wanting to be forced to rebuild the entire router I'm waving the white flag and seeking guidance.
In theory the best way is porting through to the original router and transitioning everything to the other port hosting all the VLAN's, can this be done?
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@Scotaidh Notvreally sure how VLANs will help with throughput…separate physical networks?
What do you mean by passthrough…one behind the other?
I would install pfSense on the new router, restore your config file, and add/configure the new interfaces.
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@SteveITS Thanks, as I think you clarified a simple mistake I made.
After you said "add/configure" the interfaces I realized I made a miscalculation of how simple it is to refresh these. The NAT/FW/DHCP tables only utilize WAN and LAN assignments and those assignments are programmed to the physical hardware. WAN currently being re0 would be igb0, LAN from re1 to igb1. So this would only take about 5 minutes. Silly of me.
Thank you sir, the obvious eluded me.