PfSense on ESXi 6.0?

Virtualization
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  • R
    Banned

    ESX 6.0 was released a few days ago…..anyone tried installing pfSense on it?

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  • J

    @riahc3:

    ESX 6.0 was released a few days ago…..anyone tried installing pfSense on it?

    i've tried it on the beta version and it works fine.
    don't know about the release one but i believe it the same code .
    so it should works.
    while creating the VM make sure its freeBSD and not just a linux.

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  • R
    Banned

    @Jamerson:

    @riahc3:

    ESX 6.0 was released a few days ago…..anyone tried installing pfSense on it?

    i've tried it on the beta version and it works fine.
    don't know about the release one but i believe it the same code .
    so it should works.
    while creating the VM make sure its freeBSD and not just a linux.

    Im gonna upgrade from ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 6.0

    For now, I dont have to make a new VM…..lets hope all works good :)

    0
  • J

    @riahc3:

    @Jamerson:

    @riahc3:

    ESX 6.0 was released a few days ago…..anyone tried installing pfSense on it?

    i've tried it on the beta version and it works fine.
    don't know about the release one but i believe it the same code .
    so it should works.
    while creating the VM make sure its freeBSD and not just a linux.

    Im gonna upgrade from ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 6.0

    For now, I dont have to make a new VM…..lets hope all works good :)

    i just did and it works fine !


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  • R
    Banned

    @Jamerson:

    @riahc3:

    @Jamerson:

    @riahc3:

    ESX 6.0 was released a few days ago…..anyone tried installing pfSense on it?

    i've tried it on the beta version and it works fine.
    don't know about the release one but i believe it the same code .
    so it should works.
    while creating the VM make sure its freeBSD and not just a linux.

    Im gonna upgrade from ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 6.0

    For now, I dont have to make a new VM…..lets hope all works good :)

    i just did and it works fine !

    Me too :)

    Went great. No issues at all.

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  • R

    Found some issues with ESXi 6.0 and Pfsense 2.2, but maybe with FreeBSD 10.1 in general:

    I can't make vmx3 work what so ever … Tried to install with the included driver, nogo ( traffic won't pass on the vmx interface ). Tried installing the tools that come with ESXi, same thing.

    So unless somebody says otherwise, vmx3 and pfsense 2.2 are not supported it seems ...

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    Running vmx3 just fine with pfsense 2.2 on esxi 6..  You have no need for the native tools since freebsd suppose the vmx3 out of the box.

    Can tell you one thing if you try and use the native tools and the vmware driver on 5.5 vmx3 dies.  Just pick vmx3 and let freebsd/pfsense do its thing and your good to go

    I upgraded the other day as well - went fast and smooth

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  • J

    @reqlez:

    Found some issues with ESXi 6.0 and Pfsense 2.2, but maybe with FreeBSD 10.1 in general:

    I can't make vmx3 work what so ever … Tried to install with the included driver, nogo ( traffic won't pass on the vmx interface ). Tried installing the tools that come with ESXi, same thing.

    So unless somebody says otherwise, vmx3 and pfsense 2.2 are not supported it seems ...

    its working fine here,
    if you are using the native Vmware tools, remove them and install the one from the packages.
    vMware tools are broke,
    Pfsense 2.2 support vmx3 out of the box

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  • R

    Thats crazy … I installed ESXi 6.0, install a FRESH copy of pfsense 2.2 from ISO, no matter what i did ... WAN would not get DHCP from my router ... Switched to E1000, no problem ...

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    When I get home I will install a fresh copy of 2.2 on my now esxi 6.  But its currently working and getting dhcp.. So not sure what would be different with an upgrade from 5.5 to 6 vs native 6.

    So your saying pfsense with native was working 5.5, you had 5.5u2 to support freeebsd 10.1 or did you install the vmware tools?

    Only takes me a few minutes to bring up a clean copy of pfsense.. But I can not do it remote since pfsense is my connection in, I could daisy chain 1 and put in on the lan side of my current one to validate that it gets dhcp using the vmx3 native drives in pfsense 2.2  But I assure you mine has renewed its lease since I updated to 6.

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  • J

    @reqlez:

    Thats crazy … I installed ESXi 6.0, install a FRESH copy of pfsense 2.2 from ISO, no matter what i did ... WAN would not get DHCP from my router ... Switched to E1000, no problem ...

    i've tried a fresh install of 2.2 vmx3 works fine.
    How did you create the VM ? what version of Linux ?

    0
  • R
    Banned

    Just to add a bit of information, on pfSense 2.2, both my NICs were E1000….Maybe thats why it went so smoothly.

    I always have used the Open-VM-Tools package though...

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    Why would use you e1000 on pfsense 2.2, freebsd added native vmx3 drivers.  So why not leverage them?

    I did a clean install of pfsense when I went to 2.2, since moved from i386 to 64 version.  I was already on 5.5u2 when 2.2 came out and installed it using vmx3 and the native support.  The native vmtools broke stuff, changed the interface names of the nics and just not worth it - the openvm tools package with a bit of tweaking of turning off the scripts so you can shutdown the vm without errors works fine.

    When I went upgraded to esxi 6 this weekend, all vms came up fine all using vmx3 nics and pfsense for sure works.  But just for validation since mine was an upgrade, I will fire up clean install when I get home.

    @jamerson you wouldn't be using a guest of linux, you should be using the freebsd guest.

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  • R
    Banned

    @johnpoz:

    Why would use you e1000 on pfsense 2.2, freebsd added native vmx3 drivers.  So why not leverage them?

    Honestly, I do not know.

    I have my "LAN" and my "WAN" interfaces; Is it just deleting (e1000) them, creating new network adapters and just using vmx3 this time around?

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    yeah that is that simple

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  • J

    @johnpoz:

    yeah that is that simple

    Hi John have you tried the vMware Tools 6.0 build 2476743 version 9.10.0 ?
    are this broke too ? or the Native tools are not compatible with FREEBSD

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    I have not tried the native tools, to be honest what do the openvm tools not provide that the native ones would?  Is that driver for vmx3 better than the ones in freebsd 10.1 out of the box?

    The install process for native tools has never been click click like it is on other OSes - I really don't see a point to use them now that vmx3 support is built in.  But sure when I get a chance I will give it go again.  That way the VM will show current tools instead of 3rd party which prob the only benefit to using them ;)

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  • S
    Banned

    According to release notes on ESXi 6.0 FreeBSD is only supported in Version 9.3 and not 10.1.

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    Huh, freebsd 10.1 has been supported since 5.5u2

    Not sure what you were reading.. But 10.1 is clearly supported and tools are available in the media even.

    http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/pdf/VMware_GOS_Compatibility_Guide.pdf




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  • J

    @johnpoz:

    I have not tried the native tools, to be honest what do the openvm tools not provide that the native ones would?  Is that driver for vmx3 better than the ones in freebsd 10.1 out of the box?

    The install process for native tools has never been click click like it is on other OSes - I really don't see a point to use them now that vmx3 support is built in.  But sure when I get a chance I will give it go again.  That way the VM will show current tools instead of 3rd party which prob the only benefit to using them ;)

    i agree John.
    is the out of the box vmx support 10GB NICs ?
    on the vmx it shows just auto detect.

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    Do you have 10gig nics?  Are you seeing slower network performance?  Yes the old native drivers use to say 10g for the speed..  I show only autoselect with the native freebsd driver.

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    So I fired up a clean vm, 2.2.1 and install the native vmware tools.. They are broke..  I can get ping to pass through wan and lan if using vmx3f0 and vmx3f1 as my lan.  But nothing else.  I have e1000 up as well for lan to allow me to get to the vm and play with stuff.

    What I can tell you is with the native tools it shows 10g nics vs autoselect ;)  And if you look at the hardware

    em1: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
            options=98 <vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,vlan_hwcsum>ether 00:0c:29:3b:8c:e3
            inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
            inet6 fe80::1:1%em1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
            nd6 options=21 <performnud,auto_linklocal>media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
            status: active
    vmx3f0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
            options=403bb <rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso4,tso6,vlan_hwtso>ether 00:0c:29:3b:8c:ed
            inet6 fe80::20c:29ff:fe3b:8ced%vmx3f0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
            inet 192.168.3.108 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.3.255
            nd6 options=23 <performnud,accept_rtadv,auto_linklocal>media: Ethernet 10Gbase-T
            status: active

    I am wondering if start turning off some of that advanced stuff like VLAN_HWTSO if that will make a difference?  drive seems to load and can ping it, but nothing else works?</performnud,accept_rtadv,auto_linklocal></rxcsum,txcsum,vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,jumbo_mtu,vlan_hwcsum,tso4,tso6,vlan_hwtso></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast></full-duplex></performnud,auto_linklocal></vlan_mtu,vlan_hwtagging,vlan_hwcsum></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>

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  • F

    johnpoz; I replied to your to your post on another thread: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=87675.msg506040#msg506040

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  • johnpoz
    LAYER 8 Global Moderator

    Yeah saw that, thanks turning off the txcsum and rxcsum seems to fix the problem..

    0

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