I finally decided to buy a mini PC to make it as a pfsense router and I was wondering witch option is more suitable for my needs
First I was thinking of doing with proxmox so I could install pi-hole and wireguard in it but looking more into pfsense I see that there is PfblockerNG and also a Wireguard package that could be installed inside.
What does everybody in here use? I’m curious to know if thinkering in proxmox to run pfsense is more efficient than just installing bare-metal.
Thank you
Conclusion: will go with sole pfsense since I never used it in the first place, once accustomed will switch to proxmox, thank you everyone I hope there will be more posts like this in this platform
I’m currently running OPNsense virtualised in Proxmox. It’s a little confusing if you haven’t run a custom firewall before but the setup was relatively simple and works flawlessly now that I understand it a bit better. The only downside being if you are running it on the same machine as your services and need to restart, your network will go down as well.
Same here, opnsense on proxmox. I’m very happy with it. Snapshots mean I don’t have to worry about a “bad” update and I appreciate the easy console access through prox gui without needing an ipkvm or similar in scenarios where I’ve screwed something up and can’t hit the gui or ssh. Plus, if you backup your *sense config after any changes you make, in the event you need to setup a new physical box it’s a quick iso install and restore config. For me the pros outweigh the cons, even if a bit of performance is lost.
I run opnsense, which has a long a storied history with pfsense and in my opinion is better, on a VM in proxmox.
I have a cluster of three servers and I can live migrate the VMs around to do maintenance. It gets backed up to proxmox backup server so restoring from a bad upgrade, which I’ve never had happen, or severe experimentation, which happens frequently, is simple.
It’s also one less device to power on, and pay for. My cluster is running regardless and every watt less helps keep my wife happy.
I’ve never had any issues that I could attribute to it being run in a VM. It does my 1gbe fiber and a dozen vlans with no issues.
What hardware did you buy? I’m looking at building a new box for proxmox. Currently I’m using an old laptop with an extra ethernet port dongle to run proxmox and virtualize opnsense, unifi controller and a couple other lvms. From others posts i read, i the choice between bare metal or virtualized seems personal. I went with proxmox just to learn a thing or two about vm environments and its applications.
I had a bad experience with a pfSense VM once when I was still learning.
TL;DR: I was trying to use 100% SDN in my lab and painted myself into a corner.
I was using that pfSense VM as my core router for my lab and got into a bit of a bootstrap problem after a long power outage because everything in my lab relied on DV switches through vSphere (which I couldn’t manage and couldn’t ‘see’ the hosts). After a tedious recovery, I pulled pfSense back to a physical box.
Lessons learned: always keep your core network router separate from anything that depends on it. lol. I do still use virtual pfSense for dev environments, though.
I run pfSense virtualized along with a wireguard vm and a couple of other vms for core services. A benefit of virtualization is that you can live migrate your router to another physical host if you ever need to do any hardware maintenance. It’s nice being able to service the hardware without waiting until every user is asleep so you can safely bring your router down.
I bought the Intel Celeron n5105 from some vendor called wooyi store on AliExpress, from what a saw on yt that CPU is a little overkill for a router and it uses too much idle power, but I think it was a good purchase for me bc I don’t plan to switch this router soom. Edit: I’m also thinking between using the onboard wifi card or just buying an wifi AP to use at home, do you have some recommendations?
I currently use VyOS with it hosted on proxmox. I pass-through a 4-port network card and I get my full internet speed. It should be similar, but I will say it is nice being able to host other things on the proxmox host such as pihole. I keep only the router functions and core functions there, with another machine for other services
How do you like vyos? I had looked into it, and it seemed a little cumbersome last time I looked at it. I believe it’s entirely cli? I suppose that’s not a bad thing, but sometimes a gui is nice.
I find it to be quite stable, I haven’t had any real issues, haven’t rebooted except for version updates which isn’t too frequent (stable). No GUI built-in, there are a few projects out there and they are working on one officially, but the cli is solid. If you have ever configured juniper routers/switches it is quite similar
