pfsense + unraid

[Epsilon0]

I'm creating a router/NAS for my apartment next year, and I want to run pfsense on top of unraid. Has anyone tried this before? Any tips? Anything is helpful.

[archedraft]

Yes, I have ran a pfSense VM on unRAID and it can "work". You need to VT-d and a spare dual NIC card to give to pfSense. Advice, don't do it! It is way too much work. For example, if for some reason the pfSense VM doesn't boot when you restart unRAID, you will not be able to access the unRAID webGUI because you won't get in IP address from pfSense. You are forced to use unRAID's console and try to figure out why it didn't start. Another hurtle, what happens when you need to put unRAID in maintenance mode to replace a failing disk. The VMs are stopped when you stop the array, luckily if you already had internet you can still access the unRAID webGUI because your laptop/computer still has an IP but I am not sure what happens if your in maintenance mode for a long time and your laptop wants to renew its IP?

 

Get yourself something like this and thank me (I like beer). 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107153

[MyKroFt]

I got a dual nic mini-itx/atom used off a ebay (commerical industrial machine pull - $45) and had a 1U case.  Added a 120g ssd and 1 1U power supply and made the perfect pfSense router.  Its been running perfect for the last 6 months.

 

Ya anytime the array is down - you will not have access to the internet - so I dont recommend going that route either

 

Myk

 

[Epsilon0]

Thanks for the advice, but don't hate me if I don't heed it. My roommates and I are all electrical engineering students and we love to make things work. I'll bring up your suggestion next time we discuss it but we're probably going to move forward anyways. I've already gotten most of the hardware we will need- NIC's and whatnot- and we realized that if we want the NAS and the router to be in the same machine then pfsense wouldn't be able to do everything. If we can't get it working and frustration makes us stop then at least we will have the experience and the extra hardware.

 

[Epsilon0]

My roommates and I are planning to do a dual NAS/router for our apartment. Has anyone ever VM'd pfsense on top of unraid before?

[MyKroFt]

Good luck...

 

Been there and switched directions - not a novice with unRaid or pfSense

 

Myk

 

[MyKroFt]

search for pfsense here, there are many threads on how some ppl are doing it and how some tried

 

Myk

 

[Epsilon0]

Thanks

[steini84]

Ran it for a couple of years under esxi(unraid as a guest). Was pretty good unless I had to reboot the host. Also pretty fine under proxmox and later unRaid but after being in another country and locking myself out of the network (after unraid killed my vm because of a memory shortage) I decided to get a seperate box. It's been turned on twice: when I got it and when I moved. Really happy to be free of that hassle

[tr0910]

I'm creating a router/NAS for my apartment next year, and I want to run pfsense on top of unraid. Has anyone tried this before? Any tips? Anything is helpful.

You guys just go ahead and do it. Sounds like an awesome project. It will work much better once we can run VM while unRaid has the array offline.  At this point the above points are correct, but I too would like a stable pfsense running on unRaid.

 

I hear limetech understands this need and is sympathetic. But not sure how far off always running VM's might be.

[steini84]

In my experience pfsense was stable as a rock. It just added a lot of headache when the hypervisor needed to be restarted or had problems. 

[archedraft]

In my experience pfsense was stable as a rock. It just added a lot of headache when the hypervisor needed to be restarted or had problems.

 

I had a similar experience. 95% of the time it worked great as a VM but it was the other 5% that was a real pain in the butt. I was always glad I kept my old pfSense box when those issues cropped up. I would just start up the old pfSense box and get whatever the issue was resolved. The problem was that each issue would normal take ~2-3 hours to mess with and now that I have a stand alone box, I do not have to waste those hours.

[jbrodriguez]

I ran a pfsense setup for quite some years and it never died on me.

 

Having said that, I'm currently running vyos, with this uptime as of today

 

vyos@kerberos:~$ uptime
17:02:23 up 182 days, 23:10,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05

 

The major downside to vyos is that .. it doesnt have a web interface, you need to do things via the command line.

 

BUT ... it so much simpler to setup once you get the hang of things ... it's also .. somewhat .. the base for those shiny ubiquiti routers on the market

 

Can't praise vyos enough anyways !

 

Also, check this thread for additional information, I hope this isnt against forum rules:

http://forum.vyos.net/showthread.php?tid=26212

[togbabe]

Couldn't you just have a backup box like a really really old crappy PC handy that can be plugged in when the VM dies; and leave it off all the other time?  Also, fixed I.P addresses sound handy to have bound.  So, you just turn on the old crappy PC with sfsense on it when something goes wrong with UNRAID.  And, all the other time, URAID is permanently on, so it is ideal to run the router.

[SundarNET]

I always try to have a esxi server running pfsense and at least one windows vm for remote access with all modem ports with vlan tags so if i kill my pfsense vms i can always connect via the win vm using a vlan tagged port to the modem "needs managed switches and advanced networking skills

i tried the pfsense on unraid but like everyone is saying its a bad idea if most of your network isnt static your stuffed and will have a fun time waiting for your pfsense vms to boot before you get access to internet and then either wait for your unraid IP to update 'takes ages sometimes' or restart the network via cli on the unraid machine itself.

dont do it unless extremely neccesary and make sure unraid has a static ip address

to add in i usually have 2 connections to deal with at most locations i work at and also need to use squid to block sites blah blah so am required to use pfsense as its one of the best load balancers i have used yet but squid will only work on one connection so i have to have 2 pfsense routers to load balance and then proy after "creates a nice strong network being that one has multiple firewalls enabled but quite confusing at times"

Edited April 23, 2022 by SundarNET
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