10GB Network bridge on FreeNAS

[morningwon]

Hello freenas gurus!

Is it possible to make a network bridge in freenas? I see lagg and vlan but no bridge option.

This is what I would like to do.

FREENAS 2 port 10GB NIC

BRIDGE interface 192.168.120.1/28

port one to PC (pc ip 192.168.120.2/28)
Port 2 to ESXI vmbox (remaining ip's for vmhosts 192.168.120.3 -14)

I wanted to do this in ESXI and run VYOS on it for routing/ switching but ESXI vswitch is not a real bridge, it treats physical connections as uplinks not switch ports.

Thank you!

 

[melloa]

Not related with bridge, but some VyOS conversation here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/upgrade-recommendations.69981/

 

[Mlovelace]

Hello freenas gurus!

Is it possible to make a network bridge in freenas? I see lagg and vlan but no bridge option.

This is what I would like to do.

FREENAS 2 port 10GB NIC

BRIDGE interface 192.168.120.1/28

port one to PC (pc IP 192.168.120.2/28)
Port 2 to ESXI vmbox (remaining IP's for vmhosts 192.168.120.3 -14)

I wanted to do this in ESXI and run VYOS on it for routing/ switching but ESXI vswitch is not a real bridge, it treats physical connections as uplinks not switch ports.

Thank you!

Here is a link to a thread that's already covered this and it includes a script for the bridge.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/bridge-between-network-interfaces.41566/#post-270035

 

[morningwon]

Thanks for the script Mlovelace . I might try that later, here is what I ended up doing.

First this is my setup:

Freenas server is connected to port one on dual 10G nic ESXI SERVER port 2 goes to my PC.

I am running VYOS so I enabled pass-through for both ports of the 10G nic in ESXI and added them as PCI devices in the VYOS vm.

I created a network bridge in VYOS that includes the ESXI vswitch interface and both ports of the 10G nic.

In the ESXI vswitch that connects to the VM's, edit settings, security, enabled Promiscuous mode, MAC address changes, and Forged transmits. (this allows my workstation and FREENAS to be able to reach the VM,s.

Here are the performance results (UBUNTUSRV is a VM)

performance results 10G (IPERF)



FREENAS ----------> PC = 9.87 Gbits/sec

PC ----------> FREENAS = 9.82 Gbits/sec

FREENAS ---> UBUNTUSRV = 9.86 Gbits/sec

UBUNTUSRV ---> FREENAS = 9.69 Gbits/sec

FREENAS --------> VYOS = 9.88 Gbits/sec

VYOS --------> FREENAS = 9.89 Gbits/sec

PC --------> UBUNTUSRV = 9.23 Gbits/sec

UBUNTUSRV --------> PC = 9.89 Gbits/sec

VYOS ------> UBUNTUSRV = 8.14 Gbits/sec

UBUNTUSRV ------> VYOS = 14.1 Gbits/sec (ESXI internal VSWITCH connection)

I am not sure if this helps anyone, but if anyone has any questions or comments (hopefully constructive) please send them my way.

Thanks!