[SOLVED] NIC setup on separate network

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used1d

Member
Jun 16, 2025
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Hello, noob here. I have 1 ethernet port on the motherboard "eno1" and have installed an HP 4 port NC364T, and I've created a VM with PfSense. I've created a separate network which my PfSense is working on.

Currently I have my windows workstation ethernet going into my ISP router. I have my ISP router connected to "eno1" and the 4 port NIC is empty. I'd like my workstation to be able to connect to my PfSense network via the NIC, but am having trouble configuring the bridge. I can connect my other VMs on the separate network to pfSense, but would like to be able to connect my workstation to that network as well. (Also, should I just configure Linux bridge or should I look into using vlan?) Any assistance would be appreciated!
 
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Hey,

either pass the NIC through to the VM (using PCI pass-through), or create a new bridge and have the new NIC as its slave, and attach the new bridge to the pfSense VM. (PVE does not need an IP in that case on the bridge)

Both should work fine, just having a new bridge is probably easier to setup.
 
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Hannes Laimer said:
Hey,

either pass the NIC through to the VM (using PCI pass-through), or create a new bridge and have the new NIC as its slave, and attach the new bridge to the pfSense VM. (PVE does not need an IP in that case on the bridge)

Both should work fine, just having a new bridge is probably easier to setup.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. I setup PCI passthrough when I first initialized PVE. And I tried figuring out how to do the bridge but it says that gateway (for pfSense) is already being used: "Parameter verification failed. (400). gateway: Default gateway already exists on interface 'vmbr0'" and won't allow me to connect to that gateway with any other VMs. All 4 ports on NIC say Active, and when I connect Ethernet from my workstation to the port to which I've made the slave my windows PC says "unknown network" and never actually connects. Also, I ran the Windows network diag and it says my "ethernet doesn't have a valid IP configuration."
 
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What is the pfSense VM doing in your setup? Is it handing out IPs for your LAN, or is the ISP router doing that? Also, are the other VMs on a different subnet than the rest of your LAN? Could you post the output of cat /etc/network/interfaces and ip a? (just put them in [CODE]...[/CODE])
 
I haven't changed anything to my ISP router except create DHCP reservation list and handed out a couple static IPs: one for Proxmox and one for the pfSense VM's WAN.

Tried putting an ethernet from my workstation into one of the NIC ports "eth4" using another bridge "vmbr2" but doesn't seem to be correct.. Here's my Network setup in PVE:
pfs.JPG

Here is pfSense VM Network Hardware:
pfss.JPG

I have 2 other VMs (one Linux and one Windows 11) which are connected to the pfSense network and able to get internet. (Recap: my ISP network is on 192.168.0.0 and the pfSense network is on 10.17.13.0 . I am trying to allow my workstation to connect to the pfSense network.)

Code: 
cat /etc/network/interfaces
output is:
Code: 
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eno1 inet manual
#Physical In

iface ens6f0 inet manual

iface ens6f1 inet manual

iface eth3 inet manual

iface eth4 inet manual
#Main Workstation Ethernet In

iface eth1 inet manual

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.101/24
        gateway 192.168.0.1
        bridge-ports eno1
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0
#WAN for VMs

auto vmbr1
iface vmbr1 inet static
        address 10.17.13.0/24
        bridge-ports none
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0
#pfSense LAN

auto vmbr2
iface vmbr2 inet static
        address 10.17.13.0/24
        bridge-ports eth4
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0
#Main Workstation


Code: 
ip a
output is:
Code: 
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.***.***/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::*/128 scope host noprefixroute
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eno1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master vmbr0 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:bc:11:c1:47 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enp0s25
3: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:29:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enp4s0f0
4: ens6f1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:29:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enp4s0f1
5: ens6f0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:29:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enp5s0f0
6: eth4: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master vmbr2 state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:29:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enp5s0f1
7: vmbr0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:bc:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.0.101/24 scope global vmbr0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::21f:bcff:****:****/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
8: vmbr1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 3a:d6:55:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.17.13.0/24 scope global vmbr1
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::c066:beff:****:****/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
9: vmbr2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1f:29:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.17.13.0/24 scope global vmbr2
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::21f:29ff:****:****/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
10: tap101i0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master fwbr101i0 state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 16:9c:39:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
11: fwbr101i0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether c6:fe:ae:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
12: fwpr101p0@fwln101i0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master vmbr0 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 26:0b:90:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
13: fwln101i0@fwpr101p0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master fwbr101i0 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether c6:fe:ae:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
14: tap101i1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master fwbr101i1 state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether ba:a5:1a:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
15: fwbr101i1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 36:3b:4e:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
16: fwpr101p1@fwln101i1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master vmbr1 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 3a:d6:55:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
17: fwln101i1@fwpr101p1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master fwbr101i1 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 36:3b:4e:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
18: tap101i2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master fwbr101i2 state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 66:c9:80:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
19: fwbr101i2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 96:83:f3:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
20: fwpr101p2@fwln101i2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master vmbr2 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 1a:32:5f:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
21: fwln101i2@fwpr101p2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master fwbr101i2 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 96:83:f3:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
22: tap102i0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master fwbr102i0 state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 42:3a:ae:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
23: fwbr102i0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 4a:04:d4:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
24: fwpr102p0@fwln102i0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master vmbr1 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 62:41:98:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
25: fwln102i0@fwpr102p0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master fwbr102i0 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 4a:04:d4:**:**:** brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

I hope this helps with diagnosing, thanks!
 
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