pfSense on Proxmox installation and configuration - Step-by-step

What is better than one open-source tool? How about two?! Proxmox and pfSense are two great open-source tools. The pfSense firewall is a well-known enterprise-grade firewall that has many features and capabilities. Proxmox is a great open-source hypervisor. In this video, we take a look at pfsense on Proxmox installation and configuration and see how we can easily get pfSense installed on Proxmox in the home lab environment.

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Introduction - 0:00
Looking at the network configuration on our Proxmox host - 0:37
Looking at the default bridge with the Proxmox server - 1:24
Creating another network bridge in Proxmox to use for the LAN network - 1:42
Uploading the pfSense installation media to Proxmox - 2:00
Uploading the pfSense CE ISO to Proxmox - 2:36
Creating the pfSense virtual machine in Proxmox - 3:03
Adding the network adapters to the pfSense Promox virtual machine - 4:16
Adding the WAN side connection for pfSense - 4:47
Adding another network adapter to pfSense for the LAN side - 5:22
Powering on the pfSense virtual machine in Proxmox and connecting to the console - 6:00
Running through the initial installation options - 6:10
Installation is finished manual modifications and reboot - 6:41
Text-based configuration allows verifying the network configuration - 7:00
Configuring a new LAN IP address for pfSense - 7:38
Reviewing the configuration changes - 8:13
Describing the high-level configuration most will have from an ISP for pfSense - 8:21
Using a computer on the same LAN segment to finish the web-based configuration wizard - 8:53
Signing into the web-based wizard - 9:15
Stepping through the configuration wizard process - 9:22
Another option to configure WAN and other DHCP configuration - 9:50
LAN configuration if you want - 10:12
Setting the admin password and reloading the configuration changes - 10:17
Looking at the main dashboard of pfSense after finishing the web-based configuration - 10:35
Concluding thoughts and wrapping up pfSense installation on Proxmox - 11:05

Take a look at the written form of this information here:

[steevem]

just started this whole proxmox journey. my setup was a little different, i had a network card laying around that i added to my proxmox so i assigned 2 seperate port to pfsense. since i didnt have my lan network configured properly i had to desactivate packet filter entirely from wan port temporary and configure it from the ip my modem asigned it. once everything configured as i wanted i shifted the DHCP server from my tp-link router to my pfsense. after that i switched my tp-link router to an AP. really fun project and this video helped me a lot to make sur i started on good base.

[TracksWithDax]

I'm SUUUPER new, so this was helpful (but also took a lot of fiddling and watching other tutorials to wrap my head around).

My PC has one ethernet port so I'm trying to make the best of that-

What I ended up doing was making a second bridge not associated to any hardware, and having that be the primary NIC for my VMs.

Put them all on the same subnet, gave pfSense a NIC that's on the same subnet as well as the LAN side and then a virtIO NIC for the WAN side - same interface as my main bridge which is associated with my physical ethernet port.

I can access the web portal, but looks like a lot of fiddling to go before these VMs can connect to the internet through pfSense.

[johnvanwinkle]

I am thinking about virtualizing my PFsense setup I have been using for years to consolidate the number of hardware machines running in my home server room. Thanks for a great walk thru about how to do this.

[davidkamaunu]

I like your presentation it is smooth and easy to follow. Often it is the delivery of technical content to the audience that requires an easy to follow demonstrator. Thanks for this as I am setting up my own homelab right now. How many cores on your Proxmox VE node? I have a Quad core Phenom II X4 with 24Gb DDR3 I want to use and Im unsure of using it in this manner..

[TheVictoire]

thx for the video. I was wondering. When you create pfsense as your firewall connecting the internet how will you update the Proxmox hypervisor? If you update it it doesn't have an internet connection anymore because the pfsense VM will go down I guess.

[DigiDoc]

How do you make sure your home network does not go out when you make changes to your host? Do you keep a pve machine for the fw alone?

[RealKeytones]

Do I have to install this on the first device after the router and then connect all devices through that or no?

[zyghom]

so I have 3 LAN cards in my proxmox, all are connected to the switch, where also cable from the router comes. I understood it is a router (provided by ISP) that deals with IP on the WAN side but here you are saying something different. I am not sure how to connect all these things?
Should the cable from the router come directly to the LAN card assigned as WAN on pfsense? and the other cards to the switch?
or both: WAN and LAN cards can be connected to the same switch, where the cable from the route comes?
can WAN and LAN be in the same segment (192.168.1.x)?

[giancarlosrm]

Great content!! Let me ask you, Do you prefer Proxmox or Bare metal installation for a pfsense firewall? if you have vpn and encryption proxmox is giving me performance issues?

[ProperMethodz]

I wish you showed the creation of the bridge. I'm having an issue on this part where pfsense keeps telling me it doesn't exist after I create it.

[HanedanKomutan]

Hello, Proxmox And there is 1 pfsense and 1 windows 10 system inside, windows 10 pfsense is behind the lan port. Previously, I was accessing the proxmox web gui interface from Windows 10 with this structure. I forgot to take notes, I don't remember how to adjust it again. What should I do about this issue?

[Maik.iptoux]

Why no one had an video that shows the configuration when you DON'T have an router before pfsense? What is to do when the pfsense should be the only router so the WAN cable from modem is directly connected to proxmox host?

[zippytechnologies]

now, tell me about bond vs ovs bond without smart switch... so bonding extra nic's on each proxmox host for server to server and then fix up the isp provided public ip range (5 ip's) on one port from the ISP gateway... ugh not sure where to start... ddwrt was my friend for so long but now I need to grow...

[vesa-matti]

I now have a bare metal server on Hetzner with one IP4 address. How do I do this installation on it?

[joshsinykin]

how do you access the promox web mgmt gui from inside the pfsense lan side of the network?

[ripaire]

Hi sir thanks for this amazing vidéo, but please make sure to make a vidéo about how to setup proxmox and configure it to use wifi adapter to be able to connect to wifi because there's no vidéo explain this point all people they use cable to connect there proxmox server please make a vidéo about wifi configuration. Thanks again

[vytautasbenetis]

Thanks i had issues setting up the ip adresses but after watching your Video after the second installation everything worked fine and i found my mistake

[Alex-untl]

the only problem that virtualised pfsense that it is still connected to you physical upstream firewall, is there a way to directly connect your isp modem to WAN interface of your pfsense?

[AESJoe]

Can you make a video about proxmox errors and how to fix? I keep getting an QEMU error and can't find a fix....

[pogiest]

I am specifically looking for a training that sets up Proxmox with the intent of using it for OPNsense or pfSense. Every training I see starts with Proxmox already configured. For me I need to know how to configure Proxmox so that it has disks to upload my ISO files. I want to know how to setup Proxmox networking configuration to use with OPNsense . So it would be nice to have a tutorial that starts with a clean appliance that is ready to install Proxmox and OPNsense on. I know there are networking considerations to keep in mind and disk partioning, but I don't see any tutorials for how to configure Proxmox specifically to use it to host a firewall.