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    VirtualBox guest additions for pfSense?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
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    • L
      lockheed
      last edited by

      Is there such a thing? The last post about it I found was from 2010. Since then, I found no mention on installing Guest Additions on pfSense, even though with other systems it brings some performance improvements.

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      • jimpJ
        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
        last edited by

        While there is no official package, you may be able to install the FreeBSD package from the shell.

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        • L
          lockheed
          last edited by

          Would it offer any benefits on pfSense?

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          • jimpJ
            jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
            last edited by

            I'm not aware of anyone running it with the additions in place to say. Few if any run using Virtualbox for production. It's not a hypervisor most people would consider a good choice for more than testing/development.

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            • luckman212L
              luckman212 LAYER 8
              last edited by

              What would you recommend for testing/homelab purposes then?

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by

                Go with a type 1..Ā  esxi is FREE ;)

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
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                • luckman212L
                  luckman212 LAYER 8
                  last edited by

                  Sure ESXi is great for a dedicated machine.Ā  But I sometimes want to test things on my laptop (OS X) and so I need to run something that sits on top of the OS.Ā  I have Parallels and Virtualbox, and somehow I just find Virtualbox more comfortable. Do you think there is there a better choice?

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                  • jimpJ
                    jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                    last edited by

                    For testing/homelab you wouldn't need to worry about additions or production quality. VirtualBox is fine for testing in many cases (lots of us use it for simple stuff)

                    We have a VMware license so we mostly use workstation for local testing or ESX when we can. Since I moved my test VMs to ESX I have not looked back – it's great for that (and many other things) plus you don't have to fight other things on the workstation for RAM/CPU

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                    • johnpozJ
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                      last edited by

                      If I need to test anything I fire it up on my esxi box, this allows me to put it any vlan I want in my local network..Ā  I haven't fired up a vm on my actual workstation in years..Ā  Not all that much money to buy a box to use as your VM host..

                      That would be my suggestion if your looking to have an actual homelab, then should really have a dedicated VM host..Ā  I haven't played with vb in quite some time… But last time I used it was pretty solid, just not as useful as actual host machine to run your vms on is all.

                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                      • O
                        OK
                        last edited by

                        Same thing here, I use Virtualbox on my laptop all the time when testing stuff or learning new things while traveling.

                        Problem is, you always fight for RAM, especially if the Guest needs more, like 8GB, and you want two for failover etc.

                        Also, even in a lab, you want some VMs to run 24/7, like the central logging host maybe.

                        Using a dedicated virt host is a good idea, I“m currently testing esxi and xen.

                        If VMs created on VMware Workstation can be moved to ESXi and vice versa, that would be a plus, as I“m not aware of virtualbox VMs running on a type 1 hypervisor or xen VMs that can be run on a workstation/laptop. But that“s something still in the test pipeline ;). With esxi, there is definitely limits depending on the VM version, the free one does not support everything. Maybe that“s some potential for conflict with the latest and greatest on VMware workstation. Not saying there IS a problem, but somethign to doublecheck (on m y todo list).

                        There is 10 sorts of people…

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                        • ivorI
                          ivor
                          last edited by

                          This thread is 3 years old, please start a new one instead of reviving old threads. Thanks.

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