We have Unifi switches where I work and a pfSense firewall. We’ve debated turning on layer 3 switching in Unifi in hopes of having less traffic traversing across the network, but we’re unsure what that would end up meaning for the pfSense firewall routing though. Anyone have any insight?
I prefer to keep everything going through pfsense so I can have one place to control all my traffic.
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Maybe you should step back for a second. Why are you wanting to do layer 3 switching on the switch instead of the Firewall?
The thought is that it would be more performant. Summarised in this screenshot after I just did a search for “should you do layer 3 at the switch level versus at the firewall”:
Well. You have 2 option.
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You might get a performance boost which might not be that significant if you do your routing at the switch. And deal with routing on the switch, which will render pfsense useless.
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Use pfsense and not worry about it. If you need more horse power then get a bigger netgate.
Me personally I like to use a firewall rather than using the switches to manage rules. Everything is in one spot. And less likely to make mistakes.
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