How to Virtualize Your Home Router / Firewall Using pfSense

It's time to say goodbye to your home router and start virtualizing it using Proxmox and pfSense.

00:00 - Intro
00:20 - Why
01:40 - The Required Network Card
02:04 - Hardware Install
02:22 - Software Install
02:40 - Proxmox Config
04:55 - Install pfSense
08:33 - pfSense First Start & Config
09:56 - pfSense Tour
12:53 - Package Manager
13:39 - Conclusion

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#Proxmox #Homelab #pfSense #Virtualization#TechnoTim

Description Tags: Techno Tim, technotim, vm, proxmox, homelabs, hyperv, hypervisor, install pfsense community eidtion, pfsense setup, nic passthrough, router, firewall, secure, firewall, router, homelab ideas, virtual machine ideas, kvm

Thank you for watching!

[TechnoTim]

Which firewall / router are you running at home? If you can't remember, maybe it's time to SWITCH ;)


By the way, if you're new here, welcome! Please remember to ✨subscribe✨ for more content like this!

[amosgiture]

Always log on with the new account before disabling the old account.

[sebastiaanstoffels]

I have an identical setup. One thing to consider depending on how many cores you have on the host, is to make the CPU type 'host' and pass through 1 or 2 physical cores. This should ( depending on your CPU ) enable the AES-NI CPU crypto which can be useful if you use OpenVPN and want faster throughput over encrypted connections. Awesome guides by the way, I wish these vids were around years ago!

[alejandrodpf]

Incredible quality, easy to understand, as always fantastic! Thanks for your videos Tim, keep doing them please.

[valeriomec]

Tim, your videos are invaluable. Thanks for the amazing work, you TRULY deserve like 1 MLN subscribers already.

[GhostZodick]

I went through the same research journey around the same time. I also seriously thought about putting pfSense on virtual machine. Eventually I decided to purchase a dedicated hardware for pfSense because of all the reasons people talked about on the internet. I probably would try to visualize it if I saw your video earlier. Now my whole set up is already completed, and it's very stable. I don't want to mess with it.

[matthewwren]

Such a great idea for those tech heads that want to do something more than what those basic modem routers.. Just a note for those with different NBN connections that you may still need the netgear/gateway/modem from your ISP but simply put it into bridge mode then pass that to the WAN interface as per TechnoTim's guide!! (suit most Australian NBN type of setups) As I am and Aussie viewer also!!!

[rbrjoel]

Seriously the most helpful tutorials on YouTube, thank you!

[Cleanser]

just fantastic. I have been prepping my own home server and was sweating because I wasn't sure what to do to isolate it from the network.

"Is it safe to host?"
"whats pfsense even do"
"should i buy dedicated hardware"
"where WAS that lasagna!?!"

and this video made it so clear. Thank You

[kodemasterx]

Even though I have a PCI network card with two ports, adding them as PCI cards in Proxmox did not work for but instead as NICs, the rest was flawless, thanks for the video man, I dropped a sub as well.

[nixxblikka]

I really enjoy watching these videos, it is your relaxed way to present the topics and nice background music ! Keep up the great work

[Hazmatguy]

Love playing around with Proxmox at home, it really impresses my boss when I talk above his head with tech stuff lol. Thanks!

[haydenc]

Outstanding!!!! Thank you for this!
What is cool, is since the host os is debian based, you can install and run netstat which gives MUCH more information about thruput on the nics

[Supperconductor]

That took some effort, but I got my NICs on the Dell R710 passed-thru and my network is up! I learned a heckuva lot along the way. Thanks Tim!

[dionisierus]

the production quality of your videos is excellent. Tutorials are short and helpful - no wasted time. Subscribed!

[frankrobinson]

Techno Tim Rocks!!! Awesome content and delivery. Thank you.

[roguestratus]

Heyo Tim, you have greatly helped me get into the Homelab scene, and I appreciate it. With that said, you really should consider revisiting this video with a 2022/2023 edition. Reason why I say this is because passing my NIC down to the OPNSense VM in Proxmox (and even Pfsense) straight up did not work. I almost gave up, until I talked to someone that had a workaround: by creating a Linux bridge with the NIC as an alternative way. Passing the NICs down did not work but creating a bridge did. I had other people express their grievance about following your video and having it not work. And from what I heard, when it comes to virtualizing routers/firewalls, passing down NICs is a huge NoNo for this reason. I have no doubt this worked for some people, but I feel like there is a higher chance of success with an updated video by using the create Linux bridge method. Just my 2 cents!

[peterhast]

Thank you for doing this, and the education, I appreciate it, it worked great.

[JamesMartin]

Great tutorial. I really like how well you laid out this content. I'm a network engineer and while I knew how to do all of this networking, I wanted to see how you explained it for laymen. Fantastic stuff. I also completely muffed my own proxmox setup, I didn't realize you could pass through NIC's so easily. I made an OVS bridge for the WAN, I don't want to talk about it :( One little change I would make is on the LAN gateway address. While you can always make the gateway whatever IP you want on the subnet, I really like to keep it to either the first address in the subnet, or the last address in the subnet. Remembering a random address is difficult years down the line and if you ever need to add a statically configured network device, its easier to remember first address or last address. Anyway, just my $0.02.

[odirienduranceejitagha]

I had no idea before now I Know, Thanks for your video.