Problem with bridged mode and VDS (virtual distributed switch)

[seanlee]

For some reason, I cannot get pfsense to operate in a bridged mode in a vsphere 5 environment using a VDS. I've followed all the documentation at http://tinyurl.com/pf202-bridge, enabled promiscuous mode on the port groups, enabled net.link.bridge.pfil_bridge (1), etc. Has anyone had any luck with this? Here's my details:

• pfsense 2.0.3 x64 VM, 4CPU, 4GB mem
• Followed this guide: http://tinyurl.com/pf202-bridge (by William Tarrh)
• vSphere 5.1 using vDS (virtual distributed switch)
• Promiscuous mode enabled on LAN and WAN port groups
• 3 virtual NICs (WAN, LAN, MGMT)
• 4 pfsense interfaces (WAN, LAN, MGMT, and BRIDGE)
• BRIDGE interface includes WAN and LAN

Misc:

• My centos VM on the LAN has a public IP address, but cannot even ping the WAN gateway
• When I put the centos VM on the WAN port, it can ping the WAN gateway just fine
• Both VMs are on the same ESX host (shouldn't matter though with VDS)
• Everything else on the VDS works just fine (hardware is Cisco 5548 10G switch)
• NAT mode works just fine
• All interface FW rules set to "ALLOW ALL"
• Changed NAT to manual (no NAT rules)

EDIT: I also tried pfsense 2.0.2 and got the same results.

All comments appreciated.

Thanks

-Sean