In the switch’s web interface, I went to VLAN and then 802.1Q, and then clicked on VLAN Configuration.

assign port 8 to be the WAN (connected to my ISP’s modem).

assign port 1 to be the LAN (connected to the Proxmox machine).

The web interface is nothing spectactular, but it allows for managing VLANs. I assigned a static ip address to the switch (in System > Switch Information) so that it was in the same subnet as the rest of my network. I realized I was unable to access this interface because I was on a different subnet, so I set my machine’s address to 192.168.0.22 in order to temporarily setup this switch. To find the address, try checking your DHCP leases in your router interface (if you plugged it into an existing router). It also has a nice sturdy metal frame which was a pleasant surprise.Īfter setting up this Netgear switch, it shoud be possible to access the web interface at. I picked up the Netgear GS308E because it has both a sufficient amount of ports for my needs, and it supports VLANs. This is simply not the case, because VLANs are awesome! In order to create a router, all you need is a single port NIC and a network switch that supports VLANs (also marketed as a managed switch). I had initially made the assumption that in order to build a router, you would need more than a single NIC (or a dual-port NIC) in order to support both WAN and LAN. Tim has a lot of good videos, and this one is about virtualizing pfSense. There is a good video on this by Techno Tim. Since I already have a machine running Proxmox, why not just run it in a VM? It’d allow for automatic snapshotting of the machine. pfSense can be run on many different machines, and there are even some officially supported appliances.

I’ve heard nothing but positive things about pfSense and the fact it’s been around since 2004, based on FreeBSD, and written in PHP gave me the impression that it would be relatively stable (and I’d expect nothing less because it has an important job to do!). I figured this would be a good opportunity to try pfSense. OpenWrt has served me well, but it is time to move on! pfSense # I’ve also recently been experiencing instability with my router (likely the result of a combination of configuration tweaking and firmware updating). Ever since I’ve connected some standalone wireless access points, I’ve had less of a need for an off-the-shelf all-in-one wireless router combo. It supports many different configurations and there exists a large index of packages. OpenWrt is an open-source project used on embedded devices to route network traffic. My aging router has been running OpenWrt for years and for the most part has been quite reliable.

Pfsense wifi access point