pfSense on Thinkpad

[@Defal_]

This is one of my favorite videos ever. Just the fact that there is no fancy editing and gives me the information that I need in a simple way to understand is charming.

[@techdrums4204]

Thank you very much Jaren! Been looking for a video on Pfsense for a while that breaks it down in simple terms. You did a great job. Now I can dust off that old laptop and give it a whirl. Cheers mate!

[@mdhurrtn]

Excellent! The greatest tutorial on installing pfSense I have seen with an unmanaged switch. Thanks.

[@phantomxray3154]

I watched this thing and made me get the thing installed on my thing ,Now my other things are connected to my new thing , I love the things👽

[@jarenhavell]

Dude! So happy you got the thing doing the thing.

[@T500Kz]

This is sooooo sick. Found a 7 dollar router at value village and never knew about all these open firmwares ! I flashed dd wrt onto it, but this video has me inspired to tinker with my t420. Thanks.

[@benifrani9647]

Simple step by step, sounds like a teacher ,great stuff thanks

[@benjamin1832]

Thank you, very useful sir

[@--Tanjumul]

And i want a full series on Pfsense Sir !! please do it sir !

[@juliodemedeiros]

very nice tutorial thank you.

[@wsup8275]

Great video, thank you !

[@juansamalot8693]

Can pfsense be install alongside windows or do i need to format HD and have only pfsense on it? Thanks for your video.

[@jarenhavell]

It would be pretty difficult to get that to dual boot. I don't recommend it. You're better off trying PF sense as a "live disc" from the USB drive, or installing it to a removable USB drive.

[@loganhawkins6486]

Put the thing in the thing lol

[@iftequarahmed7487]

I think you will have broad cast strom from isp router and from pfsense aswell.

[@jarenhavell]

oh? did you experience that as an issue? if so, what is your setup?

[@iftequarahmed7487]

@@jarenhavell Hi jaren. No i was asking question to you. Since both (isp, Pfsense) routers are acting as DHCP doesnt ther will be a broadcast strom. Plz answer. Cant we directly connect isp cable to pfsence.

[@jarenhavell]

@@iftequarahmed7487 yes, you can connect the isp modem direct to the pfsense router, but most ISP equipment I have seen these days is an "all-in-one" modem/wifi/router. The Pfsense will not pass dhcp requests or responses from the WAN to the LAN. The traffic is not allowed to pass. A Broadcast Storm can occur when a loop is connected in the network, such as connecting a switch port to another switch port. A broadcast packet such as a ping or dhcp request will be repeated forever, going in a loop in the equipment. Inexpensive or unmanaged Layer 1 switches and hubs have no ability to prevent this condition, while L2 or L3 switches and routers can limit rebroadcast and forwarding of broadcast traffic with various methods. If you are interested, I encourage you to look into these topics: Switching Loop, Spanning Tree Protocol, Time To Live (TTL), Virtual Lan (VLAN), and Multicast vs Unicast vs Broadcast traffic. Happy Routing!

[@ltonchis1245]

😂thanks for the simplification, now it's much more clear! keep making move videos like this!😂

[@elstondias9172]

Have you noticed any difference switching over to pfsense? would like to know thoughts.

[@jarenhavell]

I mean, it's pretty cool. your experience may vary based on the hardware you use. for me, Initially it was great untill summer, and then my hardware had heat issues and became unreliable. after I fixed that, Internet has "just worked", and I know I can do more cool things later when I have the time.

[@elstondias9172]

@@jarenhavell thanks for the reply btw what do you mean by my internet has just worked? were you getting a speed drops during the day?

[@maxcarter5922]

That is what I come to youtube for. Straight up information on how to setup a home network with pfsense, switch, access point. Man, all the basics are covered, thanks a lot.

[@--Tanjumul]

quality type video !! thank you sir from Bangladesh

[@bukenya_archives]

Seriously this was a fantastic lecture I have benefited alot from it

[@cjhoffmn]

This was easy to follow and get working! However, sadly, the laptop I was repurposing needed two USB ethernet cards, and it cut my internet speed by 2/3 and I couldn't get it working any better than that :( I was really bummed by this, was looking forward to having this level of control

[@jarenhavell]

I had the same speed issues with PFSense due to the drivers that is has for certain NICs and adapters. You can either buy new adapters that are better supported, or try re-loading it with OPNSense, which seems to occasionally have better driver support.

[@CognacKidd]

I think Jaren should have used ExpressCard LAN and the internal LAN port rather than using any USB's!

[@jarenhavell]

I certainly could have, though I don't have an ExpressCard network adapter. You have one I could borrow?

[@chrisumali9841]

Thanks for the demo and info

[@redmapleleafwanderer]

wow i like it.

[@mjahangir786]

@Jarren awesome video!!! Instead of using a switch can I connect a router directly to my LAN and assign a router a static? Or do i have to have a switch?

[@jarenhavell]

I'm not sure I completely follow what you are asking, but the easiest way to find out is to just try it! worst case scenario you just unplug it and plug it in like it was all set up before. keep in mind that when you talk about a router, the PFsense box is acting as a firewall/router. you can certainly have two of them in sequence, this is sometimes referred to as "double nat".

[@mjahangir786]

@@jarenhavell thanks for getting back to me.. basically i am wondering can Use this as a simple setup meaning no switch, no ap. Basically isp modem, pfsense laptop, and lan connecting directly to my personal laptop?

[@jarenhavell]

@@mjahangir786 yes, that should work!

[@Martin-ot7xj]

Hi there, at 05:45 , why you didn't use your wifi card as lan ?? i mean why you didn't use one lan as wan and get internet then use wifi card as lan ,then give internet to your network and all devices can connect to pfsense wirelessly and use internet , after that we don't need to use the switch and access point any more ???!!!! only router then pfsense behind the router with 2 port one wan and one wifi card as lan without any switch and extra access point ????!!!why in every pfsense tutorial everybody use switch and access point ???!!! but we don't need it for small network like home ??!!

[@jarenhavell]

you can do that,docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/wireless/configuration-ap.html . We opt for acces points and switches because they often have better througput or features, but this is a scenario where we are customizing the environment to suit our wants and needs. Try setting it up as you advise, and let us know how it works!

[@Martin-ot7xj]

@@jarenhavell sure , thankyou for quick answer

[@Martin-ot7xj]

​@@jarenhavell sure , thankyou for quick answer

[@CognacKidd]

@@jarenhavell Do those Access Points that you use ALLOW you to NOT have passwords on the WIFI ssid?

[@theuprightsloth9006]

if the old laptop that i want to use for this is capable of handling multiple VMS, can i set up PSFsense in one of the VMS, and continue to use the other resources for mundane reasons?

[@jarenhavell]

Absolutely!. I've done this with proxmox and had it talking to the network cards using VLANs and network bridges. it also means that you have the capability of talking to the world with just one network card. beyond the scope of what I can explain in a comment but there are several videos on that exact topic if you're interested! just for fun I even tried it by loading up a thinkpad with a hypervisor and PFSense asa VM and it did indeed work! you can also do the same with opnSense as well as VYOS

[@jarenhavell]

and if you want to still use that machine for very mundane things like web browsing you could install proxmox on top of Debian, rather than a bare metal with their installer.

[@theuprightsloth9006]

@@jarenhavell can the same be said for docker or is it bad alternative?

[@jarenhavell]

@@theuprightsloth9006 That's an interesting question, I'm not sure that docker is well suited to PF sense but I am curious if there is another method of going about it. it would probably have to be a custom docker image that you built yourself certainly an interesting experiment! let us know how it goes if you give it a try!

[@cameltoehunter]

Hi , I followed your instructions everything works perfectly but the speed I’m getting is only 40mbps but if I do a speed test in pfsense shell i get 500mbps . Is there a setting that I should look at ? I was told using a usb to Ethernet might the issue due to translation .

[@jarenhavell]

I've had issues with certain cards and pfsense. bsd doesn't always have good support for certain cards... usualy good for intel cards. You can try OPNsense and see if you get better throughput.

[@cameltoehunter]

@@jarenhavell thanks for the quick reply , I’m going to give opnsense a try hopefully it will be the solution to this issue . Thanks again .

[@CognacKidd]

@@cameltoehunter Come back and let us know if OPN helped performance!? If it doesn't, you are not using the authors USB to LAN stuff right?

[@cameltoehunter]

@@CognacKidd the problem was that I was using a usb to lan ,after installing another card the problem was fixed

[@playera1507]

@@cameltoehunterso you installed a Network NiC inside your computer and didn’t use the usb to lan adapter?

[@ohnanawhatsmyname3963]

Does usb nic word well. N how about the laptop i am also thinking of making pfsense out of my laptop.

[@jarenhavell]

working well on my home network. no complaints.

[@ohnanawhatsmyname3963]

@@jarenhavell thanks for reply. I will also build it.

[@gamerneversleep4200]

@@jarenhavell can u tell me which Usb model r u using??

[@jarenhavell]

@@gamerneversleep4200 the cheapest 1gb one on sale that week.

[@gamerneversleep4200]

@@jarenhavell but my usb nic get frequently disconnected

[@alphabanks]

Great video however if you have a smart/managed switch you can just trunk traffic to the laptops internal nic. Basically you don't need a usb nic if you trunk.

[@jarenhavell]

absolutely correct, this is just a method that makes pfsense easy to play with and understand. (and for those reading all ng at home search for "router on a stick" or a "one armed router". I actualy have this set up for myself and had intended to do a follow up video, just havent got around to it yet. summer was very busy! perhaps in the winter.

[@sangeeth96]

Does this affect the max internet/LAN speeds?