Hi, I currently have a server running esxi with a pfsense vm, along with some other Linux vms. I need to upgrade the disks as I’m running out of space so will need to redo the esxi setup and thought maybe this is a good time to swap to something like XCP-ng.
Is this a good idea? I’ve seen some posts about using XCP-ng and how to setup for pfsense, but I’d need to move the vms (I guess via snapshot with the vm off?)
Any feedback is appreciated.
I never recommend virtualizing pfsense in any hypervisor, but you can do it,
Clonezila can work for moving between hypervisors
I run pfSense on ESXi myself and haven’t had any issues. I also do it for all my cloud hosting customers. It’s helpful to be able to do snapshots so a restore is simple during a firmware upgrade that does sideways. Like they say though, “mileage may vary.”
If you want to copy your VMs off the server, I recommend turning them off and using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client which is free on the VMware website.
Install the app, open it and click Convert machine. Your source is your ESXi host and then when you get to destination select type as VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine. This will allow you to select a local drive on your system to download it to.
Thanks for the input Tom, clonezilla looks like it could be perfect!
I’ve got another server I can use to have pfsense as a separate box but annoying only has 2 nics meaning I’d have to have my lan and vlans all on one port.
Hi Tom, I’m really hoping you can help. I had no other choice but to virtualise my pfsense on xcp-ng. I’ve setup the vlans in xcp-ng as per your videos ( they were vlans in esxi)
Everything seems to be working except for vms I’m copying back via clonezilla. They seem to get ip addresses and can ping them however that seems to be it. Updates won’t work etc. One vm is Ubuntu and the other is a home assistant install. Do you have any ideas on this?
Not really sure, but a guess might be when they changes network interface the firewall rules broke.