Proxmox Supermicro A1SRi

[Stefan Pettersson]

Hello, I bought the Supermicro A1SRi ( https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/x10/a1sri-2558f.cfm ) and running pfsense as a router, works great. It has 4 Atom cores 2.4 ghz

I also have two E3-1231v2 on supermicro boards with Proxmox in a cluster. To what I have come to understand in a cluster it is much better to have three nodes rather than two because of qorum issues.

So, I thought that i would virtualize pfsense on the A1SRi. The question is, will the A1SRi handle the load? I have 250/100 internet and running openvpn (only i'm using it) Not anything else.
I was thinking about ginving pfsense 2 cores and 4 gig ram.
Will runn pfsense on SSD thats connected to th A1SRi.

Or, is there any possiblities running any software as a container?? (Think that would be the best but haven´t found anyone doing that??)

 

[RobFantini]

Hello, I bought the Supermicro A1SRi ( https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/x10/a1sri-2558f.cfm ) and running pfsense as a router, works great. It has 4 Atom cores 2.4 ghz

I also have two E3-1231v2 on supermicro boards with Proxmox in a cluster. To what I have come to understand in a cluster it is much better to have three nodes rather than two because of qorum issues.

So, I thought that i would virtualize pfsense on the A1SRi. The question is, will the A1SRi handle the load? I have 250/100 internet and running openvpn (only i'm using it) Not anything else.
I was thinking about ginving pfsense 2 cores and 4 gig ram.
Will runn pfsense on SSD thats connected to th A1SRi.

Or, is there any possiblities running any software as a container?? (Think that would be the best but haven´t found anyone doing that??)

I've used pfsense in a vm it did work without issues.

However switched back to hardware as I did not want pve system restarts / maintenance to interfere with WAN connections.

 

[Stefan Pettersson]

Ok, I have used pfsense virtualized before when i only had two servers and it worked quite well. Now that i have the A1SRi the question is if it will be able to handle the load? And, what is best practice, can i assign three core:s to the KVM without issues? Always assign an even number or one core.

 

[RobFantini]

Ok, I have used pfsense virtualized before when i only had two servers and it worked quite well. Now that i have the A1SRi the question is if it will be able to handle the load? And, what is best practice, can i assign three core:s to the KVM without issues? Always assign an even number or one core.

I think that only you are knowing to know how much cpu/memory to use by checking the load at pve web stats.

Start low and adjust.

As far as odd even numbers that is a good question - I've wondered the same thing.

 

[Stefan Pettersson]

I think that only you are knowing to know how much cpu/memory to use by checking the load at pve web stats. Start low and adjust. As far as odd even numbers that is a good question - I've wondered the same thing.

Got an answer about odd numbers on cores:s It was about ESXi and it doesn't matter if there are odd numbers assigned. Another question, what would be best practice when it comes to assigning NIC:s to pfsense? Should I just create bridges (vmbr0 etc) or should I just do a passthrough of the NIC:s?? I was thinking of doing passthrough on the WAN port and then create bridge for the rest. And, lot o questions here;-) I use BOND here with LACP Should the bond be created in the proxmox host and then assigned to the KVM och should i assign two bridges /vmbr0, vmbr1) and then create the bond in pfsense kvm?? Thanks in advance!

 

[RobFantini]

regarding network - I think a managed switch is required when using a cluster. If I'm wrong somebody else please correct this.

I am not a network expert - for bond types there have been other threads - and may be a wiki page.

 

[Stefan Pettersson]

Yes, I have managed switches, a bond is connecting the two other nodes to a managed switch and I also want the A1SRi to go in to that switch. I have a working config for a bond on Proxmox but should i Create the bond on the host or on the VM?? And, I have read some about running zentyal or some other debian based firewall software but having a hard time finding documentation on how you do it on a lxc container? Someone who can point me in the right direction??