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    Direct connection says host is down

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • patient0P Offline
      patient0 @williamsilverstein
      last edited by

      @williamsilverstein I don't understand your setup.

      Both are Proxmox VE servers or is one a VE and the other a Proxmox Backup server? If bothj PVE, is a pfSense VM on each PVE? How are the PVE bridges configured? And why a huge 10.1/8 network? Is the PVE firewall enabled?

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      • W Offline
        williamsilverstein @patient0
        last edited by williamsilverstein

        @patient0 Yes, both Pfsense are VMs on PVE. I am doing a PCI passthrough on the network cards so I can use the hardware offloading.

        The reason for the /8 is to match the local network I'll eventually connect to, allowing me to maintain the IP addressing convention.

        At first, I was thinking I may need the switch, here, but the hardware indicates a valid connection.

        Yes, I tried and confirmed the firewalls are off.

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        • patient0P Offline
          patient0 @williamsilverstein
          last edited by

          @williamsilverstein both VMs have a WAN connection in PCI passthrough and OPT1 as a local network interface as passthrough? Are the 10.1.0.50/51 the IPs of the pfSense OPT1 interfaces, like are they part of the same local network, not WAN.

          And btw: when you write "Direct connection says host is down", what do you mean be that? Are the interfaces marked as down in pfSense Dashboard?

          Maybe a quick diagram (by hand even) would help?

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          • stephenw10S Online
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            @williamsilverstein said in Direct connection says host is down:

            10.1.X.X for a local network.

            That's /16.

            I agree seeing /8 like that is a massive red flag for me. It would be very easy to get a subnet conflict with such a huge subnet on one interface. It's also almost always the result of an initial setup by someone who didn't really understand the available private subnets at the time. 😉

            But, yes, how are the VMs configured inside PVE?

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            • W Offline
              williamsilverstein @stephenw10
              last edited by williamsilverstein

              @stephenw10 The /8 was only connected to the other port. I put a switch in, but no difference.

              This is the original:

              20251013_234523.jpg

              I inserted a router, just in case I was wrong. No difference.

              20251014_092627.jpg

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              • stephenw10S Online
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                So you are not using 10.x.x.x. on any other interfaces there?

                How are those ports configured in PVE? Are you passing them through to the pfSense VM(s)?

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                • W Offline
                  williamsilverstein @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10 There ports are not configured in the proxmox or the VM. The network device is passed through to the VM

                  8adfad02-a459-44cb-898c-ec0166ae873b-image.png

                  6c3207ee-27a8-4015-875f-12de67fd4224-image.png

                  35b639ee-c6b1-4acd-ad4d-33dba389da92-image.png

                  b038e1fb-9fec-4851-8bbf-4c5876250b40-image.png

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                  • stephenw10S Online
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Ok, well those subnets are killing me! But they should work.

                    So are you sure the ports you have linked are actually the ports you have passed through?

                    Do you see it lose link when you unplug it?

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                    • W Offline
                      williamsilverstein @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 Yes. I checked it before, and I just checked it again.

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                      • stephenw10S Online
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Ok so how are you testing the connectivity?

                        'Host is down' implies it's ARPing for the target device and not seeing any replies. Can we assume neither host appears in the ARP table of the other?

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                        • W Offline
                          williamsilverstein @stephenw10
                          last edited by williamsilverstein

                          @stephenw10 You are correct. I plugged a windows laptop into the same switch and set an IP address of 10.1.2.50 (netmask 255.0.0.0) and it would not see either 10.1.1.50 or 10.1.0.50..

                          The other network does not show up in the arp list.

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                          • stephenw10S Online
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Hmm. How are you actually testing? Just trying to ping the other IPs?

                            Try running a packet capture on that interface and see is anything is arriving at all. One both VMs.

                            It looks like it's not passing the NIC through correctly IMO. Some hardware off loading perhaps.

                            Are you connecting to the VMs using the LAN? The vtnet interface?

                            Can the VMs connect out using the other passed through NIC on the WAN?

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                            • W Offline
                              williamsilverstein @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10

                              The 2nd ports on each machine did not.

                              I changed the PCI passthrough to allow only one passthrough on each machine with all functions checked, which now provides two Ethernet devices in PfSense. Now, one works, not the other. One machine works (10.1.0.50), the other shows that the 2nd port (on 10.1.1.50) is down on the interface status screen.

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                              • stephenw10S Online
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Hmm, well it sounds like definitely some pass-through issue in PVE then. Anything in the Proxmox logs?

                                So on the failing machine the NIC that's passed through never shows link? Have you tested the other ports to be sure it's not just passing the wrong one?

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                                • W Offline
                                  williamsilverstein @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10 You are correct, but it confuses me even more. The Idrac says port 4 is down.

                                  From the idrac8 software:
                                  port 1, identified as 10gb, mac ending with 6e.
                                  port 2, identified as 10gb, mac ending with 6f
                                  port 3, identified as 1gb, mac ending with 6c
                                  port 4, identified as 1gb, mac ending with 6d

                                  From the arp table (either in pfsense machine or router)
                                  WAN 192.168.0.89 :6e (pfsense wan address, passthrough)
                                  WAN 192.168.0.90 :6c (proxmox address)
                                  OPT2 10.1.1.50 :6d (direct connection)
                                  OPT1 10.1.1.50 (not active now) :6f

                                  Also what is confusing is that the interfaces widget indicates the wrong speeds for some reason.
                                  5e957934-8be9-4fd1-816c-1c0a3c6861ca-image.png

                                  Part of the current idea is to have a 10gb directly wired to a 10gb so that i can use that for fast backups. When I move into the COLO, I will connect OPT1/2 (whichever works) into a local switch tied to 5 other machines.

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                                  • stephenw10S Online
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Hmm, now I'm confused. Your screenshot above shows two igb NICs. That's a 1G Intel NIC. It can't link at 10G. Are you using different NICs there now?

                                    I expect the idrac to show the real hardware MAC for each port. The internals only vtnet ports should show a MAC generated by Proxmox.

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