How to configure pfSense 2.5.0 on your QNAP NAS Server

[@MikeFaucher]

Excellent Video! Had not thought of this use case. Thanks!

[@vmerinom]

Thank you for this video!! Regards from Chile

[@Dannington]

Hi Craig. Thanks again for another great video. My nas has got 6 ports (1688x) - can you use, say, ports 3 and 4 as an isolated in and out for pfsense, then feed that into my home router? Cable Modem -> nas port 3 (pfsense in) -> nas port 4 (pfsense out) -> mesh router with everything, including nas port 1 (nas sees this as gateway). So I’d sort of be dropping pfsense in, in between my modem and router. Thanks again.

[@souk-tv]

Really nice video, I've subscribed..

[@Silent1Majority]

Absolutely Thankful for this video. Much appreciated for many of the tidbits. Are you able to leave pfSense running and return to QTS? Would the configuration of the virtual switches be different using a QGD1602P-3758 model due to the 20G adapters between QTS and QSS? Thanks again.

[@Silent1Majority]

@@QNAPUK I think I understand, please correct me if wrong: The pfSense, adapter-1 WAN, virtual switch was created using the "Guardian vSwitch Mode" using VLAN ID 10 on port one and that's it? No adapter-2 LAN vSwitch? I used Advanced Mode to create the pfSense, adapter-1 WAN, virtual switch-1 with no IP assigned. I then used Advanced Mode to create the pfSense, adapter-2 LAN, virtual switch-2 as DHCP client and system Default Gateway 🤦🏽 Could never get back to the NAS login screen with this though. I wasn't able to find documentation or webinar training videos explaining how to properly use Guardian vSwitch Mode.

[@Silent1Majority]

@@QNAPUK Thank you for the insight and webinar information (registered and looking forward to it.) I will also try the suggestions you outlined. I knew setting up the QGD-1602P would be out of the ordinary for such a newly released device. It is not in my network as a critical device so no harm will be done 😉

[@CharlesLeo]

For home users on let’s say a 4-bay NAS such as a TS-451, would you recommend putting the NAS between a cable modem and an existing router the disabling DHCP and static routes on the existing router or is there another way to have this still behind an existing network? I’m assuming for the first setup (assuming you have two Ethernet ports/NICS), you’d connect one port (WAN) directly to the cable modem and the other NIC to the existing router.

[@henrik2117]

Great video! Thank you for sharing!

[@henrik2117]

@@QNAPUK my pleasure. I remembered qnap wrote something about pfsense in one of their release notes but never got around to check it out. Did a search and found your guide which is very good and easy to follow. Just what I was looking for. I like that you keep focus on setting up the nas and installing pfsense and letting the configuration part out.

[@ppal64]

No mention of which QNAP is compatible , what software and hardware requirements. No mention if you want to run the NAS with routing how many NICs required.

[@LL0LKKLLP]

Good job with the tutorials. Inspiring. I now plan to set my Qnap NAS to run Pfsense, Pihole and couple of personal websites. So if I may.. I'd like to request a tutorial on how to set up a website with my own top level domain name. And preferably with SSL, MySQL, PHP. Thank you.

[@swerosberg]

Do NOT assign DHCP for the virtual switch connected to the adapter connected to Internet. That will give the adapter a real IP and expose the NAS to Internet. The whole point of installing pfsense is to NOT expose the NAS to internet. So check the "Do not assign an IP address" on that virtual switch! I find it quite disturbing that you do not pay attention to that in your video.

[@pbrigham]

Great video, for home lab to test Pfsense is perfect, however, to have it at home is not advise as every time a firmware update comes to the Qnap the firewall will go down. Thats why is always better to have a separated hardware to the firewall.

[@pbrigham]

@@QNAPUK Yes that is true, but not as often, and they reboot in seconds not minutes, and obvious, any failure on the NAS and the firewall is gone :)