Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/30
It’s a tricky process, but I might need this in the future:
–jeroen
Posted in Hardware, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/14
TL;DR: the connection problem was because of a public key mismatch between the pfSense central location and GL.iNET peer.
Since the pfSense cannot export configuration in either text or QR format (see rcmcdonald91/pfSense-pkg-WireGuard: This is a port of the original WireGuard UI bits as implemented by Netgate in pfSense 2.5.0 to a package suitable for rapid iteration and more frequent updating on future releases of pfSense.), I made a copy paste mistake.
This resulted in the WireGuard client connection indicator on the GL.iNET to turn yellow instead of green. This means that the handshake is only partially completed (there is a WireGuard connection but there is no returning traffic on it).
GL.iNET VPN status explanation:
Posted in GL.iNet, GL.iNET GL-SFT1200, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/06
Everytime when installing a pfSense router from scratch, I seem to re-learn a few of the below quirks. So it was finally time to document them (:
Quite a few of my pfSense configurations are just doing routing between various networks, should not provide DHCP leases and do not always need or have a WAN connected (i.e. they are LAN-only).
Posted in Communications Development, Conference Topics, Conferences, Cyberchef, Development, DHCP, Encoding, Event, Hardware, HTTP, Internet protocol suite, MikroTik, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers, Software Development, SSH, TCP, TLS, UDP | Tagged: 8846 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/25
This is actually the WireGuard package you can install on pfSense CE 2.5.2 and higher: [Wayback/Archive] rcmcdonald91/pfSense-pkg-WireGuard: This is a port of the original WireGuard UI bits as implemented by Netgate in pfSense 2.5.0 to a package suitable for rapid iteration and more frequent updating on future releases of pfSense.
Note that the source code mentions a lot of web-technologies but that is because the majority of the code is the pfSense plugin. Underneath it pulls the actual build from [Wayback/Archive] git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-freebsd/snapshot which is almost exclusively C code.
Like WireGuardNT on Windows, it uses a high performance kernel mode driver.
Some more links on it:
Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Event, git, GitHub, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers, Software Development, Source Code Management, Tailscale | Tagged: 11281, 73 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/19
Since GL.iNET does not support site-to-site “Peer to Peer” OpenVPN (only “Remote Access” is supported) which is needed to route to/from the networks on both sides of the connection. the below did fail.
Below was what I hoped to function.
Some links that should get me started (though my situation is a tad more difficult, see below):
Posted in Ethernet, Firewall, Fritz!, Fritz!Box, GL-AR300M, GL.iNet, GL.iNET GL-SFT1200, Hardware, Infrastructure, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, routers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/15
I have been contemplating on pfSense hardware as there has been a large shortage on that market especially for having more than 2 ports (similar to for instance Mikrotik PoE router unavailability).
If by now I have not found any, I might want to revisit [Wayback/Archive] Gowin R86S mini PC offers 2.5GbE and 10GbE networking for $310 and up – CNX Software has 3 RJ45 ports and 2 SFP+ cages.
They found it via this 4 page review:
Posted in Ethernet, Hardware, MikroTik, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/18
I wonder how well [Wayback/Archive] H3/H2 Net Card – ODROID is supported by pfSense. It is an M.2 based PCIe network card that adds 4 ethernet ports of 2.5 gigabit each to an ODROID H2 or H3 series (so you have 6 ports total), ideal for some hefty router.
Pictures (from the above link) of the board, cases and mainboard below.
But first: Realtek NICs is not vendor supported on FreeBSD (which pfSense and OPNsense are based on).
Posted in *nix, BSD, Ethernet, FreeBSD, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers | Tagged: homelab, serverbuilds | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2024/03/14
Reminder: check reviews for this little device: [Wayback/Archive] Compact fanless firewall appliance offers 6x 2.5GbE ports for $230 and up – CNX Software
If referred to:
(which for EU customers went up from USD ~230 to USD ~270 the day CNX published; this might have to do with VAT and import duties [W/A])
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Hardware, Hardware Development, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2023/12/11
Last year, after an already long sequence of doing stupid things, Ubiquiti sued Brian Krebs.
For many this was a reason to think about what to replace their Ubiquiti.
My cloud key had already died, I never installed the USG router, so this is the reminder to see if anything has come up to replace the Unifi access points that is easy to manage in a self-hosted way are powered over ethernet, do the same seamless handover and cooperative WiFi antenna management.
Some links from back then:
Posted in Cloud Key, Ethernet, Hardware, MikroTik, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers, Ubiquiti, Unifi-Ubiquiti, USG Ubiquiti Unifi Security Gateway, WiFi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2023/10/27
Some links on the pfSense hardware I am planning to use.
Whereas apu1 was totally different, apu2, apu3, apu4 and apu6 are very similar. The letters after the first digit indicate evolution of the boards. The first and last digit set apart features. Together, they form a confusing matrix which is not really made clear at the PC Engines web-site as some intermediate categories are missing which makes it hard to get an overview.
Basically their shop site has the list of most current products and is easiest to get links to the actual product names. Like many Swiss companies, they accept multiple currencies, so there are three links to the shop:
Posted in APU, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 