I am switching from an Edge Router X to using pfSense on an old PC with 1 NIC and a 4 NIC card. I was originally going to configure pfSense pretty much the way the ERX was configured, which used 1 port for the WAN and the other 4 ports were configured as a switch and went to other switches in various rooms in the house. But after reading many posts that say not to configure pfSense as a bridge/switch due to performance penalties I am looking for suggestions.
All switches are 1G managed and support VLANs. All are cabled to the basement of a 2-story house.
Basement:
Cable modem
Router
Unifi AP
24 Port Switch
Server running ProxMox with several VMs and TrueNAS
1st Floor Office:
2 X 8 Port Switches (PC, Laptop, TV, TiVo, Home Automation, RPis, Unifi AP, NVR, 1 Camera)
1st Floor Kitchen:
8 Port Switch (PC, TV, TiVo)
1st Floor Family Room:
5 Port Switch (TV, TiVo)
Future changes:
2nd Floor closet:
5 Port Switch (2 Unifi AP’s, moved from current locations) Cabled to Basement
8 Port POE Switch (Multiple Cameras) Cabled to Basement
SSID 1: Access to House LAN (our cell phones, thermostats, etc)
SSID 2: Guest, VLAN restricted to internet only, no access to House LAN
SSID 3: Camera VLAN restricted to NVR only, no access to House LAN or internet
Should I add another 4 Port NIC to pfSense and cable each of the Switches through out the house directly to pfSense?
I like being able to see the Traffic Graphs is why I think this may be a good idea.
I assume this would mean each pfSense NIC would be a different sub-net?
Can each NIC/sub-net DHCP use the same pfSense domain name and the devices and use the name to connect to other devices on a different sub-net, like PC to TrueNAS?
How would this handle the current Unifi APs being on different NICs, but need to have the same sub-net address range and VLAN sub-net address range?