Vmware and virtual network: I can't make a simple setup :(
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Hello,
I'm running a linux box with vmware 5.5.2 and I want to make some simple network simulation. In a initial setup, I want to build a network based in two communicating virtual machines, running linux and windows, with pfSense (virtually) placed between them.
I don't know how to do it. I've tried to use the vmware's virtual switches… But wasn't able to bridge correctly the virtual switches with the virtual machines and pfsense... How can I get pfsense to work with 2 lan interfaces? And what should I do in vmware to get the virtual machines connected to pfsense?
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If VMWare on linux is the same as on Windoze then this should be easy.
I assume you want 3 vms on your host with no external access from the VMs?
You need 2 VMware virtual networks, the pfsense VM needs to network adpaters - 1 connected to each virtual network, then your 2 other VMs are connected 1 to each virtual network, if you let VMWare run DHCP, they can auto allocate IP settings, or you can set them by hand in the various VMs. I could explain in detail for VMWare on Windoze, but am yet to run VMWare on Linux…
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If VMWare on linux is the same as on Windoze then this should be easy.
I assume you want 3 vms on your host with no external access from the VMs?
You need 2 VMware virtual networks, the pfsense VM needs to network adpaters - 1 connected to each virtual network, then your 2 other VMs are connected 1 to each virtual network, if you let VMWare run DHCP, they can auto allocate IP settings, or you can set them by hand in the various VMs. I could explain in detail for VMWare on Windoze, but am yet to run VMWare on Linux…
Vmware in linux is almost the same… But some features are hidden or only available via command-line. One of these features that is not present in linux version is the "Virtual Network Editor". I don't have the windows version to see all the capabilities of this feature, but I can say that the similar in linux is quite limited.
About what you wrote, I have built something like you said. I have pfsense running in a VM, with 3 NICs... One of them is connected (I don't know how this connection is done) to vmnet3 which by the way is connected to a windows vm and the other is connect to vmnet4, which is also connected to a linux vm. However, it doesn't work... pfsense only detects 2 nics, and one of them is always destined to WAN connection, which doesn't interest me. I am really confused in setting up a virtual network environment with pfsense.
Thanks in advance for any help...
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Usually, I use two NICs in VMWare to run pfSense– one is Bridged, and the other one is Host-only. Set your LAN interface to the bridged NIC and set your WAN to the other one. Depending on your setup, you might want to do it the other way around, but you must manually tweak the pf rules first. The last thing I remembered, I wasn't able to access WebUI from WAN. ;D
[ simon.cpu ]
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The last thing I remembered, I wasn't able to access WebUI from WAN.
If that was possible on a default system, then this would be a huge bug :)
The GUI is never accessible from WAN -accept if you throw in your own rules. -
Yepp yepp… My WAN side didn't really face the Internet. It was just inside our test network. ;)
[ simon.cpu ]
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People… I just want to forgot the WAN side and work only with two different LANs. I want to test the pfSense capabilities in acting over the traffic between the 2 LANs, without care about the WAN side, that could be disabled.... Is there any way of doing this with pfsense?
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If you want to do strictly routing, add an allow all rule on the WAN interface, use it for whatever network has your default gateway, disable NAT, and you have a router. WAN needs to be the interface that has your default gateway.
