5 wan ports needed and i have only 2 wan ports

[star_tiger5]

Four days ago, i buy dual core PC for install pfsense.
It contain 1 internal LAN card and only 2 PCI slots.
I buy 2 lan cards(Gbits) and put then on PCI slots.
I install pfsense and set interfaces as:
Internal lan card    > Lan port
1 PCI lan card    > 1 wan port
2 PCI lan card    >  2 wan port

Now problem is that I need 5 wan ports for load-balancing in pfsense b/c I have taken INTERNET for 5 ISPs.
And I have only 2 wan ports.

My question is:
1-What you will do in this situation???
2-My friend say me to buy D-link usb LAN card DUB-E100 ,from it you can increase your wan ports. Is it good idea??Can d-link works perfect??
3-yesterday I read an article on VLAN. Is it possible to increase wan ports form VLANs?? Can VLAN works perfect ???

[matguy]

VLANs should work fine for your needs.  VLANs are very similar to a VPN tunnel, except less negotiation and security if you have physical access to the tagged ports; which should not be an issue for your situation.

One port from your pfSense box goes to the VLAN capable switch, this port on the switch would be tagged with your various VLANs you want to use.  The number assignments are purely cosmentic, use whatever you want for numbers, although I would keep the numbers under 128 since some hardware has limitations with high numbers (feel free to test, though.)  Then, assign these VLANs to separate ports on the switch, they should be untagged, "native", or port based (your switch may use various terms to describe this.)  Configure pfSense with these VLANs for the respective ports.

This is a very high level instruction, but that's basically how it works.

I would not depend on USB NICs for anything important, they can work fine, but they can often be very flaky.

You could, and it may not be a bad idea, to look at multiple port NICs.  PCI-Express dual or quad port cards can be fairly inexpensive.  PCI dual or quad port cards can also be inexpensive, but you can easily be bandwidth limited by the PCI bus, which may not be a problem for WAN connections, that's up to you.

[sreerajuv]

U can find Multi wan configuration in followink link

http://linuxhotcoffee.blogspot.in/2012/09/pfsense-201-dual-wan-configuration.html

[ptt]

@sreerajuv:

U can find Multi wan configuration in followink link

http://linuxhotcoffee.blogspot.in/2012/09/pfsense-201-dual-wan-configuration.html

Having "WAN1" on Tier 1 & "WAN2" on Tier 2 and using "Member Down" as trigger level you are NOT Doing "Load Balance" you are doing "Fail Over".

Please review your "Blog" post, then come back with accurate info.

You can check the info from the pfSense Docs: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-WAN_2.0#Gateway_Groups

If any two gateways are on the same tier, they will load balance.

If they are on different tiers, they will do failover preferring the lower tier.

If the tier is set to "Never" then the gateway is not considered part of this group.

[matguy]

@ptt:

@sreerajuv:

U can find Multi wan configuration in followink link

http://linuxhotcoffee.blogspot.in/2012/09/pfsense-201-dual-wan-configuration.html

Having "WAN1" on Tier 1 & "WAN2" on Tier 2 and using "Member Down" as trigger level you are NOT Doing "Load Balance" you are doing "Fail Over".

Please review your "Blog" post, then come back with accurate info.

You can check the info from the pfSense Docs: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-WAN_2.0#Gateway_Groups

If any two gateways are on the same tier, they will load balance.

If they are on different tiers, they will do failover preferring the lower tier.

If the tier is set to "Never" then the gateway is not considered part of this group.

Also, I think this was more of a hardware question, of how to get 5 physical ports accessible with his hardware than how to configure them (although, I wouldn't wager against that being the next step/need/question.)