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Pfsense as a switch

coreygibson

Just wondering if it is possible to use PFsense as for a standalone switch without using it for router functions.

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20 minutes ago, coreygibson said:

Just wondering if it is possible to use PFsense as for a standalone switch without using it for router functions.

That… makes literally no sense. 
 

Why would you want to do that? 

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51 minutes ago, coreygibson said:

Just wondering if it is possible to use PFsense as for a standalone switch without using it for router functions.

As others mentioned, it doesn't make much sense dedicate a PC to just that.  However if you have a PC in that location that is always going to be on (and is physically wired, not WiFi) when the other devices you plug into it are, then any Linux, BSD or Windows PC can act as a software switch.

Router:  Intel N100 (pfSense) WiFi6: Zyxel NWA210AX (1.7Gbit peak at 160Mhz)
WiFi5: Ubiquiti NanoHD OpenWRT (~500Mbit at 80Mhz) Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, MS510TXPP, GS110EMX
ISPs: Zen Full Fibre 900 (~930Mbit down, 115Mbit up) + Three 5G (~800Mbit down, 115Mbit up)
Upgrading Laptop/Desktop CNVIo WiFi 5 cards to PCIe WiFi6e/7

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It's possible, but stupid.  

 

A 15 dollar switch will have better performance than pfsense doing software switching. 

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the reason i wanna do it is to transfer between 40gb and 10gb using components that i already have.

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On 5/27/2022 at 5:40 PM, coreygibson said:

the reason i wanna do it is to transfer between 40gb and 10gb using components that i already have.

FreeBSD is not a good OS for fast networking (as in speed, it tends to be slightly better than Linux for latency and packet filtering in general), you'd be lucky if pfSense even had drivers for 40Gbit cards.

Linux would be a better bet, though I have no idea how software bridging would cope with those speeds, assuming you mean 40Gbit and 10Gbit NICs.

Router:  Intel N100 (pfSense) WiFi6: Zyxel NWA210AX (1.7Gbit peak at 160Mhz)
WiFi5: Ubiquiti NanoHD OpenWRT (~500Mbit at 80Mhz) Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, MS510TXPP, GS110EMX
ISPs: Zen Full Fibre 900 (~930Mbit down, 115Mbit up) + Three 5G (~800Mbit down, 115Mbit up)
Upgrading Laptop/Desktop CNVIo WiFi 5 cards to PCIe WiFi6e/7

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15 hours ago, coreygibson said:

the reason i wanna do it is to transfer between 40gb and 10gb using components that i already have.

I assume you mean you want to use a 40Gbps and 10Gbps interface that you got on your pfSense firewall, and not just transfer 40Gb (or 40GB) of files, since that would only take like 6 minutes over a standard 1Gbps connection.

 

Since pfSense does not do switching in hardware, it will be very slow. Unless you got a really powerful pfSense box, you won't be getting anywhere near 10Gbps through it even in switching mode, much less 40Gbps.

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dang, i was hoping to get this to work. oh well, ill stick with 10 gig for now.

 

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35 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

What are your two network interfaces?

 

Can your 40 gig interface do 10 gig if you put an SFP+ in one of those QSFP shims, or use a breakout cable?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/203969294059

it can, but it would defeat the purpose

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