Network pass-through with PPPOE

[zebra]

My current setup:
NUC with 2x 1GB port, both setup with a bridge. Opnsense in a VM using the bridges. That works fine with my bridged fiber modem with PPPOE.
This is one of the nodes in a cluster of 4.

Now I bought the Qotom C3338R with 4x 10GB and 5x 1GB. Upgrading my LAN to 10GB and my WAN over 1GB because that's limited anyway.
After a lot of searching and adding drivers I managed to let Proxmox set the network ports as PCI passthrough.

For some reason when using pass through, the connection remains off. It is set to autostart but doesn't seem to get activated. I am also unable to use them.
Any tips how to proceed and make them active/working?

Thanks Bastiaan

 

[emunt6]

Hi!

If you using PCI-Passthrough, you will not able to use/share the network-card on the Proxmox and in the VM at the same time.
( -> eno1, eno2,eno3,eno4 )
Those will be only visible inside the VM, also for PCI-Passthrough you need to prevent the driver to grab/use the device on Proxmox host, so need to "blacklist" the network-driver ( intel nic driver ).
Other problem, this system is SoC, so "true" PCI-Passthrough is maybe not possible becasuse of the hardware.


So, using the bridges is the better solution:

Example:

vmbr0  (no ip address)
 > eno1
 > vmnic1 ( OPNSENSE - WAN - pppoe )


vmbr1 (ip-address from 192.168.1.0 )
> eno2
> vmnic2 ( OPNSENSE - LAN - gw )

 

[zebra]

Thanks for your feedback. One of the reason to use passthrough is the overhead of using bridge mode.Having Opnsense controlling the ports directly takes out some. PPPOE also doesn't seem very fast on Opnsense and using only one 1 core.

I have plenty of ports to use one 1GB port for Proxmox managing over port 8006 via a seperate connection but yes I might put the 10GB over a bridge in the end.
It's not a very powerfull device (Athom N100) and I try to keep it all as lean and fast as possible.
But that's just knowledge from reading a lot here

 

[Taomyn]

I have OPNsense running under Proxmox on an Intel Core I3 N305 based firewall appliance (4x2.5Gb/s LAN), I have 3 of the ports on PCI passthrough where one is for the WAN, and the 4th on a bridge for LAN. All seems to work fine without needing to do anything like blacklisting. My WAN connection is also PPPoE and just 1Gb/s.





It's been running perfectly since August 2023, alongside some small LXC containers e.g. a Pi-Hole.

WAN speed-wise, I perform a daily speed test against 5 local providers, and the performance is as expected, although sometimes on or more of the tests dips low (green=down, blue=up):

 

[zebra]

@Taomyn. I see that your ports also are not showing the 'active' state. Are they still working for you?
It seems only bridge enabled ports are set active.

 

[Taomyn]

@Taomyn. I see that your ports also are not showing the 'active' state. Are they still working for you?
It seems only bridge enabled ports are set active.

That's correct although only the first is in use by OPNsense at the moment.

When you pass them through they won't be available to Proxmox any longer and thus remain inactive until you stop passing them through.