Pfsense behind pfsense router as a test bed - need advice

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hi - I have successfully built my virtualized psfsense router with a pretty much standard configuration of WAN LAN1 and LAN2 (DMZ) for my IOT devices. What I would like to do now is setup another pfsense router #2 (with basically the same WAN LAN1 and LAN2(DMZ) configuration) and test it by connecting the psfsense2 WAN to one of pfsense1’s LAN1 or LAN2 ports. I have researched this but not all steps are clear and prefer to “do it right”.

I would also like to minimize settings changes to pfsense1 and pfsense2.

Do I need to set up a bridge on pfsense1? What about NAT on pfsense2? Also Is it possible to attach more than one router to my incoming cable modem WAN port? Thank you for any assistance in advance.

2

As far as setting all this up I assume you are trying to setup pfsense in HA? This is doable and I believe good ol Tom has a video on this.

To answer your question about a cable modem to both pfsense boxes this might be doable if you connect both boxes to the modem to get a private IP and put both IP’s in a DMZ.

3

The simple way to do this is to make the WAN of the lab pfsense the use the LAN addresses of the main network. This means the the lab pfsense has to have a a different subnet in order to route. You will also have to turn off blocking of local networks on the WAN of the lab pfsense. https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/recipes/rfc1918-egress.html

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